Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[SilverSolder]

Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.

Who would make such a ridiculous suggestion as that? Well, actually for reasons I cannot fathom, menus have been disappearing on a lot of software, Microsoft is a major offender here. The proper way of doing it is to have standardized icons for frequently used functions in a toolbar below a hierarchical dropdown menu containing all of the commands. A properly designed interface will have tooltips for the icons too so if you hover over that little picture of a mysterious object you have never seen it will say "Save" and then you'll know what that symbol means, problem solved.

UI design is not super difficult, but it is not trivial either...   The mobile world has destroyed the idea of apps having comprehensive menus, tool tips, etc., and this "philosophy" is now leaking back to the desktop OS world too.

[TimFox]

Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.

Who would make such a ridiculous suggestion as that? Well, actually for reasons I cannot fathom, menus have been disappearing on a lot of software, Microsoft is a major offender here. The proper way of doing it is to have standardized icons for frequently used functions in a toolbar below a hierarchical dropdown menu containing all of the commands. A properly designed interface will have tooltips for the icons too so if you hover over that little picture of a mysterious object you have never seen it will say "Save" and then you'll know what that symbol means, problem solved.

UI design is not super difficult, but it is not trivial either...   The mobile world has destroyed the idea of apps having comprehensive menus, tool tips, etc., and this "philosophy" is now leaking back to the desktop OS world too.

The basic sin of some current UI developers is the thought that mobile (small screen and touch interface) and fixed systems (large screens and keyboards) should have identical UIs.
The related trend is video:  we either watch movies on a small mobile screen or a gigantic home-theater screen.

[Nominal Animal]

UI design is not super difficult, but it is not trivial either...

Sadly, it looks like UI design too has devolved into race to the bottom, to the simplest common denominator.  They're no longer designed to be powerful, just simple and easy to use, with lots of bling/eye-candy.

[m k]

I'd say that nowadays UIs are not designed, just made.

[Labrat101]

doesn't  UI  mean Unusable Interface 

[Ed.Kloonk]

Finally, someone said it.

[Bassman59]

I'd say that nowadays UIs are not designed, just made.

Well, if you believe in an unintelligent designer, then yes, they were designed.

[Nominal Animal]

The issue with user interface design, or say software design, is not that the designers are stupid.
It is that they do not consider the various real-life workflows of using the interface or software as a tool.

I've mentioned I've done some workflow optimization, both as a paid work and just for fun (I'm addicted to problem-solving).
It takes humility and possibly a slightly wonky mind to accept different working workflows (I admit mine is at least the latter, if not the former), and to design the tools that can be used for them all, and not just a specific one the designer thinks is the correct one.

To change the current situation, we'd have to change the focus and reward rules for the designers.  And I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Bassman59]

The issue with user interface design, or say software design, is not that the designers are stupid.
It is that they do not consider the various real-life workflows of using the interface or software as a tool.

I've mentioned I've done some workflow optimization, both as a paid work and just for fun (I'm addicted to problem-solving).
It takes humility and possibly a slightly wonky mind to accept different working workflows (I admit mine is at least the latter, if not the former), and to design the tools that can be used for them all, and not just a specific one the designer thinks is the correct one.

To change the current situation, we'd have to change the focus and reward rules for the designers.  And I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

I don't blame the designers.

They just design what they are told to design. There is always some manager or marketing person driving the design.

(This applies to all of engineering, not just user interface.)

You can have all of the usability testing and best practices and Edward Tufte books you want, but the person writing the checks ultimately decides what goes live. And if that person doesn't believe in usability or has "other reasons" for how a web site (or product) should work, then the designer either does what is demanded or quits.

[james_s]

When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.

[mfro]

When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.

If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?

[Ed.Kloonk]

When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.

If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?

[james_s]

If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?

I'm not sure what makes you think it's my worst problem. It's just something that annoys me, and was annoying me at the time as I had just glanced out and noticed that stupid beat up old car parked right in front of my house again while the street in front of theirs is completely clear. Parking on the street in this area is relatively rare, everyone has a garage and a driveway so when a car is parked on the street it really stands out.

[PlainName]

CMake.

Closely followed by CMake online help.

[armandine2]

i've just ordered a de-soldering gun (Hakko, with accessories) at about £450 pounds - yet when i google retro classic record players I can't get anything better that £125 ?

its like I'm not on the right wavelength, and the switch to get there isn't working?

[Circlotron]

I’ve got one of those label making machines that put black text on white 12mm wide self adhesive tape. The thing is, regardless of how long or short the label text is, there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end. This is particularly bad if you only want to print a single label with a single character on it e.g. “3”. Heaps of wasted tape. About 5 to 7 mm on each end would be plenty. 

[IDEngineer]

The basic sin of some current UI developers is the thought that mobile (small screen and touch interface) and fixed systems (large screens and keyboards) should have identical UIs.

Windows 8 has entered the chat.

[IDEngineer]

I’ve got one of those label making machines that put black text on white 12mm wide self adhesive tape. The thing is, regardless of how long or short the label text is, there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end. This is particularly bad if you only want to print a single label with a single character on it e.g. “3”. Heaps of wasted tape. About 5 to 7 mm on each end would be plenty.

That's a "feature", according to their sales department. As in, "sales of their label tape". It's all about maximizing the consumables.

[rsjsouza]

I’ve got one of those label making machines that put black text on white 12mm wide self adhesive tape. The thing is, regardless of how long or short the label text is, there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end. This is particularly bad if you only want to print a single label with a single character on it e.g. “3”. Heaps of wasted tape. About 5 to 7 mm on each end would be plenty.

That's a "feature", according to their sales department. As in, "sales of their label tape". It's all about maximizing the consumables.

Indeed. The business is in the selling of tape, not the machine.
I usually use small fonts and dual lines on my Dymo label maker to save on tape.

[PlainName]

there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end

To be fair, there's  not a lot they can do about that because the cutter has to go after the transfer tape off-feed, and that has to go after the printhead (so the cartridge needs to be quite robust there). They all suffer from it to some extent. I  have a few of their models, and the most recent I have has the cartridge redesigned to minimise the unused part of the tape by making the cartridge really thin at that point (like a couple of mm). Still wastes some, though.

Mine printer is the one with dual tapes and the peel-off labels are unwasted. Expensive, yes, but you can use every label.

[IDEngineer]

I've seen printer designs where the media was retracted after cutting, so the starting edge was back near the printhead. Simple reversal of the feed motor. Zero extra components, the motor has to be there anyway.

So they CAN solve the problem. They just choose not to.

[james_s]

I've seen printer designs where the media was retracted after cutting, so the starting edge was back near the printhead. Simple reversal of the feed motor. Zero extra components, the motor has to be there anyway.

So they CAN solve the problem. They just choose not to.

I guess it's possible that it didn't occur to them to do that, or making the motor reversible would add additional cost, requiring a full H bridge instead of a single transistor. Cartridges may jam if not specifically designed with the ability to wind back in. Either way it's annoying, but it may not be such a trivial thing to fix as you imply.

[IDEngineer]

Sure, all of that is true. I'm just saying it's been a solved problem for a very long time.

[PlainName]

Microsoft. Again.But specifically for their habit of acquiring freely available programs, making them run only on Windows 10, the shoving them in the app store and removing from the rest of the Internet, solely to force happy Windows 7 users to 'upgrade'.

Latest one I've found is NGT Lite. This is a text relay app - I am deaf, and this app allows me to make calls which are routed through a text-to-voice service (and voice-to-text back). Went to upgrade today and it doesn't exist - now it is BT Relay, which is fair enough because BT run the service. There's a download link to.... the Windows store and the minimum requirement is Windows 10.

It's bad enough that they do this shit on programs it would be nice to have, but to do it on something that massively affects my ability to communicate is really shit.

[themadhippy]

Microsoft. Again

now it is BT Relay, which is fair enough because BT run the service

Id be looking more at  BT than at microsoft,if its a BT  product they decide what its requirements are and were its available from.