Comments on: John asks “Do developers have the right to be angry?”

by: Nick Brawn

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:42:07 +0000

As both a user and sometimes developer, one of my daily gripes is poor user interfaces.

I probably fill out a handful of different web forms every few weeks, and I’ve experienced many a similar:

Damnit!
*click button*
why!
*click button*
won’t!
*click button*
you!
*click button*
submit!
*click button*

…problem. Usually when I calm down and squint at the screen, I can find a small bit of text, poorly highlighted, saying “please fill in the following boxes”.

The better interface centers the focus on each form entry that is missing information, until all have been filled in accordingly and the form can be processed.

At least in this second scenario, I am immediately directed to the part of the form I need to fill out, and there’s no mistaking what needs to be done.

We (developers) have been given tools to present information to users, let’s give them information and feedback that they can understand, to prevent both them and ourselves getting frustrated.

(Let me disappear for a moment and see whether my comments are related to the actual article)

…Ahh, and another part of the article describes that the developer found sql errors in his logfiles.

Developers - your applications should be robust. If your form (in this example) accepts alphanumeric characters, only allow alphanumeric characters. If anything else is entered, you can either silently ignore the character entry, OR you can make a little popup appear that says “XYZ only accepts letters a-z and numbers 1-9, eg abc123 - click ok to continue”. On the third time they have to click ok to continue, they have started to realise what they shouldn’t be doing - and will avoid that behaviour in the future. A subtle conditioning has occured.

This topic could be done to death, but really, the developer needs to pull his thumb out, code for the dumbest user out there, and then monitor his applications usage to fix it when an even DUMBER user comes along and has a problem.

by: doom

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 03:34:11 +0000

What a useless article.

by: -e

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 02:19:41 +0000

I would say that the original poster is in fact a hack, not a developer. A real developer gives the customer what they ask for, and doesn’t constrain them with our silly ideas about how a computer should work, at least as much as possible.

So, yes, the hack has every right to be angry, unless someday he wants to be a developer…

by: Bob Riemersma

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 22:43:19 +0000

There are a couple of issues here.

If this is a web application, disabling the Submit is quite possible but not part of the standard user interface for an HTML form. It can be done, but it’s exceptional practice.

Then again, the user may well be “stupid” but this could be viewed as a market opportunity. In a sort of darwinism, a mass market application that anticipates “stupidity” may win market share over one that is less tolerant of errors or ignorance.

by: mslyh

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 21:48:33 +0000

I think that the issue in this case is on the developer’s side. Why would he get SQL errors when someone submits more than once? It’s either a multiple threading issue or else he is expecting the user to create a unique primary key Either way, his thinking/program is flawed, not the user. Also, simply disabling the submit button does not keep someone from going back to the page in a different browser instance and doing the same thing more than once.

The real issue should be: “Are deveopers stupid or not?”

by: Jim Geurts

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 20:12:48 +0000

I agree… if the developer was only making software that he/she uses, it’s a different story. Once you get actual users, part of the job of developing software should be devoted to fixing their bugs, both usability and/or functional.

I personally think that usability bugs are not easy for most developers to grasp. Sometimes usability bugs can have more of an impact than functional bugs, though…