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Apple MacBook Switch Experience

Mar 07
14

I’ve been using Windows for over 10 years, I would say I’m an expert windows user having worked at Microsoft on some of the aspects of Windows XP and some early Vista designs. I’ve played with Mac’s over the years. I’ve had an iMac, the cube Mac and a Mac-mini but these have always served as secondary testing machines. You never really learn a system until you’re immersed in it. A few months ago I decided to take the plunge, the MacBook Pro was the first time that I would be using a Mac to actually get work done.

Summary
The MacBook Pro is the best laptop I’ve ever owned (Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Toshiba, Gateway, Compaq). The hardware is well engineered and elegant. The operating system and applications are amazing at times and frustrating at others. This is partly the frustration of transitioning from Windows and partly the lack of certain features that I take for granted. Overall the experience has been positive. The Mac software community seems to be more passionate about creating quality applications. While at times this means that there are fewer applications the average quality of applications seem to be higher. I’ve been using Parallels Desktop as a tool for Windows applications, this has provided a critical stepping stone through the process.
The Hardware
The design of the overall hardware seems simple but the subtle touches do add up.

  • When you close the lid hidden magnetic latches hold the cover closed.
  • The power connector has a magnetic plug (MagSafe) preventing you from yanking your laptop onto the floor.
  • When the laptop is in a dark room the keyboard gets backlit and the monitor adjusts brightness automatically.
  • The battery pack on the bottom has a touch sensitive readout of the current charge allowing me to know if it needs to be plugged in without turning it on.
  • The DVD is slot loaded from the front so there’s no flimsy plastic DVD tray.
  • The caps lock and num-lock keys have a little light directly on the key showing you that it’s on.
  • A web cam and microphone is built directly into the frame
  • The fastest resume from standby I’ve ever seen
  • Etc. Etc. Etc. None of these would be considered ‘must have’ features but together they create an experience that you can’t get elsewhere. The design is minimalist and may not suite everyones aesthetics or their personality but it is defiantly well engineered.

The Software Experience
Changing operating systems is strange because the things you thought you knew are no longer true. Some of these things are so hard-wired through repetition that even a month later I’m still catching myself hitting Enter to open a file and swearing when I realize I’m renaming it. The lack of a second mouse button was initially infuriating however the new MacBooks allow you to do a two-finger tap to perform the right click action.

The Good:

  • iLife – The basic tools for editing photos, videos and music are in the box. These are quality tools that don’t typically come free with a PC.
  • Graphics – The graphics are stunning, the little details are everywhere from the genie effect to Expose and the dashboard effects. I found myself entertained and even after a month it hasn’t gotten old.
  • Applications – Safari, iChat, iDVD and others are really nice applications. They do what they are supposed to do and not much else. These applications aren’t ideal for power-users but they are perfect starter applications. This actually leaves a good opportunity for third party developers to create the tools that aren’t part of the basic package.
  • Parallels – Some applications just aren’t available for the Mac. I still live in Outlook and despite it’s drawbacks it’s still more powerful combination then iCal & Mail. I tried MacOffice but it was a joke, why use MacOffice when you can run the real thing. The ability to have ALL popular applications working on the same box is a killer feature that’s helping Apple sell millions of boxes (to people like me).

The Bad
After using the Mac for a month there are a number of things that I continue to be frustrated with.

  • There’s no easy way to start an application that you don’t use very often. I have to open a folder and browse around for the application I need. What’s it called again? What folder does it live in? Third party tools like QuickSilver provide a shortcut for quickly launching apps but I’m shocked that a better launcher isn’t built in. Yes, I miss the start button.
  • The behavior of the dock is confusing. It seems to combine running applications, shortcuts, minimized running applications, system tools and the trash can. I have repeatedly dragged icons into a puff of smoke by accident and had no way to get them back. If you have multiple windows of the same application it’s hard to find the right one.
  • Wireless configuration is very hard to use. If you’re connected to your own access point you’ll be OK but as soon as you go searching for a hotspot you’ll need iStumbler or some other tool to find open access points.
  • DRM just sucks. (this is mostly a gripe about Microsoft not Apple but it caused a ton of frustration). Windows media files won’t play nice on the Mac, tools like flip4Mac, won’t always help. Why are my home movies encoded in WMV? Moving your music, photo and documents is a real pain.

The Ugly

  • The Mac namespace is just ugly. Initially I thought that “Music” = “My Music” and “Pictures” = “My Pictures” but this isn’t correct. The file system namespace exposes users to all sorts of document and application internals. If you want to browse music files you need to use iTunes and if you want to browse photos it has to be iPhoto. It seems that users aren’t supposed to organize files in these locations (even though they are exposed in the finder). It’s really easy to mess up your filesystem and applications.
  • Installation of applications – This seems to be all over the map. Most application download a file that mounts a virtual drive, it’s then up to the user to drag that file into the applications folder. I then delete the the file unmount the drive by dragging it into the trash and then I have to go find the application I installed. (What was it called again?) It just seems strange and unnatural. Uninstall is just as bad (often worse) and I always feel that I haven’t truly uninstalled it even though it’s deleted.

OSX
Overall OSX is a very capable system. Like the hardware there are a lot of special touches and finesse throughout the system. Some aspects of the system are clearly better then Windows while others seem confusing and awkward at times.

How do you measure the success of an OS?

Out of the box I could deffinetly do more with a Mac then a PC however I can’t say I got more ‘work’ done on a Mac or was more productive. i would say that I had more fun. This is subjective but the OS does encourage you to play, create, listen to music, look at photos, etc. This emotional aspect is why fans of the OS are so passionate. It’s this emotional aspect that reminds us that we’re human and having fun is part of who we are.

Posted in Apple, Design, Review, User Interface | 35 Comments »

Acrobat Reloaded

Mar 06
7

The standard for opening PDF files has been Adobe Acrobat reader. I’ve been using this for many years and have always been underimpressed with it. The main problem for me is load time. When I click on a PDF link from a webpage I want the document now, I don’t want to wait 10-20 seconds. It’s so slow that Google offers to convert pages to HTML so users don’t have to feel the pain of the PDF.

Recently I found a great replacement called FoxIt reader. At first I thought it was Acrobat but it’s in fact a look-alike that loads PDF files in about a second. It seems to have all the same features without all the bloat. PDF files open on screen in less time then it takes for Acrobat to display it’s initial splash screen.

It’s a nice little application, FoxIt could do to Acrobat Reader what FireFox is doing to IE. As it stands FoxIt has a clone UI and it’s website doesn’t exactly look professional. This makes it a follower not a leader. If it took some steps to differentiate itself it could really take off as the new leader for opening PDF files.

Posted in Review | No Comments »

IE7 Review

Feb 06
6

Overview

IE 7 includes a number of new features however I believe this release will do more to send people over to FireFox then it will to bring people from Firefox back to IE.

Why?

  • The core features that IE adds are already in Firefox
    • RSS bookmaking
    • Tabbed browsing
    • Better CSS support
    • Built in search toolbar
  • Many of the features that IE has changed look non-standard and will make corporations consider Firefox to resume some level of consistency in the browser.
    • Hidden menus or menus in the middle of a toolbar feel awkward and are unusual. People have been trained to look for menus at the top of a window. Hiding the menu will cause all sorts of support calls by users that don’t know about keyboard shortcuts.
    • There is less space for customization. The space for custom buttons, and commands has shrunk by almost 50% because toolbar buttons share space with tabs.
    • There is no longer integration with explorer. So typing C:\ or FTP:// will not work as it used to work. IE will now kick you back to explorer.
    • There is no longer a waving flag or spinning globe. This has been a standard feature since the first version of Mosaic. It’s now difficult to tell if a page has actually finished loading.
  • Rendering and resizing performance seems to be significantly worse
    • The IE team has always been very diligent about performance however in my initial experimentation the browser seems to be significantly slower.
      • Noticeably slower then Firefox when loading pages with heavy PNG usage.
      • Noticeably slower in initial startup then FireFox
      • Slower at refreshing a loaded page
      • Slower at initial load and startup time
    • My tests where not scientific but overall it just feels slower.

Overview

  • The back and forward button are now conjoined twins.
  • The Go and Refresh buttons are now modal switching modes to Go when you are typing an address and then changing to refresh when the page is loaded. They could have perhaps even gone one step further and integrate the stop button into the same location while the page is actually loading. The refresh button is noticeably smaller and harder to click. The stop and refresh are always on the address line and it’s not possible to add either to the larger toolbar area.
  • The tools for managing favorites have been tweeked but has not improved dramatically. The new version of IE uses a floating menu that displays an in-place tree control with a list of favorites. This solution is marginally better then a menu but still doesn’t work well once you have over 100 favorites. There are no obvious tools to search your favorites or organize larger sets of favorites. Drag and Drop is awkward since clicking an item will close the panel and navigate the page.
  • The History and RSS Feeds have been integrated into the favorites center. The interaction model is a little awkward with hover-links, hover delete, and right click to create new folders. There is still no ability to search your favorites.
  • Adding to favorites now forces the selection of a folder. Previously the default was to store favorities in a flat list. This also introduces a new control that’s a tree view inside a combo-selector.

Top Toolbar Chrome

  • Back and forward buttons are joined together. Interestingly the history drop-down is also joined to both. This is an interesting touch that makes a lot of sense since there is really only one history stack.
  • Address bar is now primary at the top of the browse
  • A search box has been added into the top toolbar (similar to firefox), interestingly the search icon looks a lot like the apple icon and much less like the XP search icon.

What the heck happened to the menu?
The menu is accessible from the keyboard but it’s not very accessible with a mouse. You have to go into a special mode to turn on the “Classic” menu.

  • I find it really strange that the menu appears from the middle of the address bar and the toolbar. There’s no obvious advantage and it is unusual and awkward compared with every single other windows app. Even media player and MSN messenger that also does some wacky menu hiding places it at the top. This seems like a case of being different just for the sake of being different.There will be two types of users. The ones who like it hidden and the ones that want it back the way it was. The people who like it hidden won’t care where it is. The ones who want it back will want it back at the top. Putting the menu in the middle doesn’t help either user group.

Tabs

  • IE now has tabs, and not only does it have it but they are on by default. This is a little odd. This implies that the default person using a browser will work with tabs. While I personally think they are useful I’m not sure beginners will have the same usage. I expect most people will stick with one tab navigate primarily within that tab.
  • This version of IE encourages multiple homepages with each homepage opening in a separate tab. This is one of the hidden features of FireFox and although it may be useful to some I find it strange that this is promoted as a key default feature.
  • Vertical screen space in IE and Firefox take up almost exactly the same amount of screen space. IE with tabs on by default and menu off by default and Firefox with menus on by default and tabs off by default.
    • One nice thing that IE does is make it easy to create new tabs:

      They use a little mini-tab that when clicked creates a new tab. For some reason the icon is only shown on hover. This will encourage beginners to create tabs making the feature more appealing.
  • If there are too many tabs to shown then IE will hide the older tabs in a collapsed menu. Unlike regular overflow menus this overflows is on the left side of the tabs rather then the right side as is usually done with toolbars and menus:

    Clicking on the grid icon will give a grid representation of all your web-page tabs. This is a nice feature that gives you a quick visual overview. The actual rendering seems to be done in HTML and could use some visual polish but the overall effect is nice helping you quickly identify the tab that you need.
  • One problem with the tabs in IE 7 is that the close action is on the individual tab:

    This is in combination with the fact that the width of the individual tabs can change makes it hard to quickly close multiple tabs. Having either a fixed location for the close box or a fixed width for the tabs could eliminate this problem.

Zooming

  • IE now support zooming. True zooming not just increasing the font size. I talked about this a few months back (http://www.raizlabs.com/blog/2005/06/text-size-vs-zoom.html) and it looks like the IE team got it right.
    • In the status bar is a small zoom icon:

      This icon cycles through a number of zoom states. I would have preferred a slider but I guess this will work.
    • Zooming is great as an accessibility feature and it’s also great for those sites where the CSS isn’t coded to adjust with the users font size choice.
    • The zooming seems to work in most places although I did notice problems in the new RSS reader. I also noticed problems with some add-ins like Google Desktop that don’t work quite right when zoomed.

RSS Features

  • IE 7 adds a number of RSS features that may be of interest to users who have never used RSS. The features are very basic and provide little advantage over traditional favorites.
  • The RSS icon on the mini-toolbar lights up when an RSS feed is available.
  • Clicking on the RSS icon allows you to view the feed within the browser.
  • The browser/reader view allows basic searching and filtering functions. These functions are often less then what many web-logs already have built in.
  • IE can then track the RSS feed telling you when new content is available.
    • OK, it doesn’t actually tell you. You have to open the secret unlabeled star drop-down, navigate to the Feeds section and then realize that bolded items are new content.
  • One nice thing about these RSS feeds is that they can be read offline. So if you’re traveling with a laptop it does make it easier to bring some reading material along for the ride. It’s also possible to download enclosure documents such as podcasts, although doing so is not an obvious setting.
  • Overall I’m not impressed. Although it’s good that IE is adding support for RSS this reader lacks many features that would make it a viable newsreader. As a comparison the Outlook-express newsreader that was built in ‘98 and pretty much abandoned since has many more features for reading and aggregating news feeds. An update version of the news-reader with RSS support would have leveraged existing technologies and provided a lot more features. The RSS support in IE7 is much less then what is provided on RSS websites like bloglines, yahoo, google newsreader and others.

Printing

  • Printing in IE 7 seems to be much improved.
    • Accurate print-preview
    • Ability to adjust margins within the print-preview
    • Ability to easily hide/customize the header and footer
    • Ability to quickly change from portrait to landscape
    • Shrink to fit – actually fit the web-page onto the paper you are printing.
    • One wish-list feature that’s still not there is the ability to print exactly what I see on the screen rather then a reformatted printer version. Many times web-pages that have background images, table fills and other screen elements are much harder to read when printed then on screen.
    • Overall I was really happy with the changes to this area.

Under the hood

The new version of IE has added a number of features that are under the hood helping the browsing experience. These include improved rendering of CSS, clear type, RSS infrastructure, security filters, international support and more. These improvements are unlikely to be seen or understood by the average user of IE 7.

  • Cleartype support will make online text look better.
  • The phishing security filter is a good thing although it’s currently hard-wired to Microsoft server to determine the trust and quality of a site. It would have been good to leave this open so Symantec, Norton, CyberNanny and others could add value in this space. The response time of the filter is pretty slow and it seems to be done after the page has loaded. This may pose a security risk as the potentially bad site has a window of opportunity.
  • Improved CSS support, PNG support and other standards are a good thing. It’s likely that every round of browser updates will introduce a new set of issues and workarounds but the hope is that these workaround continue to get smaller and smaller. Initial testing shows that most sites work without a problem although more complex sites that rely on HTML editing such as blogger.com do have problems with the new browser.

Overall: 3 out of 5

  • Interface 3/5 – I think overall it’s not as good or as flexible as IE 6 or Firefox 1.5. I think the menus and toolbar interactions are odd and the smaller buttons will make the core browser a little awkward to use and to get used to. The added support for tabbing is nice but falls short of innovative or spectacular.
  • CSS Support – 3/5 – A lot better then it was and definitely on it’s way. The acid test2 is still pretty far from where it’s supposed to be. This test is becoming the yard stick for how browser CSS is judged and IE has already stated that they don’t expect that they will pass the test.
  • RSS Reader – 2/5 – IE has a base level of what you could do for RSS. Anyone familiar with RSS will likely continue using their current reader. This may engage some new users but the design doesn’t have much advantage over favorites. To be fair Firefox is also equally lacking in the RSS reader department.
  • Printing – 4/5 – Much improved and offering all the base features that users will look for.
  • Security – 3/5 – The new security filter is a good thing but the information bar introduced in XP SP2 will still confuse and get in peoples way as they try to download legitimate files. It’s not clear to me that browsing with IE is more or less secure then with any other browser.

Posted in Browsers, Design, Microsoft, Review | 1 Comment »

Office 12 Ribbon UI

Jan 06
22


Office 12 is introducing a new hybrid control called a ribbon. This control is a combination of both a toolbar and menu.

The good:

  • Simplicity – Much more simple and organized in terms of screen real estate. No more toolbars, floating widget and miscellaneous controls all over the screen. (I hope)
  • Organized – Functionality is grouped by ‘task’ instead of being hidden in deep menu structures or option dialogs.Predictable.
  • The UI seems less ‘intelisense’ and more intuitive in terms of what will actually happen when you click something. (No-more auto-expanding menus)
  • Less redundancy – This hopefully means less menu and toolbar surfing searching for the right command. Combining menus and toolbars means that you don’t duplicate the same thing, it also means that your 16×16 icons are now mostly labeled and your menu items will typically have icons. (Sometimes redundancy is a good thing, but not in menus)
  • Live Preview – Galleries as they are being called allow users to see a live preview of what will happen before it happens. This is a great concept that I’ve been calling “Feed-forward.” It’s kind of like “Feedback” only in reverse.

Unknowns:

  • It’s unclear how the help system will tie into the current design. Do we get yet another task pane or floating window docked alongside Office? Help still lives in a separate world out of context of the tools that finish the job.
  • It’s unclear to me how the UI scales when new commands are added that displace other commands. This goes back to the 1,000,000 command problem. The ribbon will be great for another 5-10 years but it’s still not fully scalable to a larger command set. The buttons can only get so small before you run out of space. This is also a problem for highly nested contexts (Image, Inside a Table, Inside a Callout, Inside a document).
  • Context sensitive panels seem strange and bolted on. I’m not sure it properly communicates local vs. global context. I would have used in-place panels within proximity of the object to show the association.
  • The file menu is still a menu. I’m surprised they didn’t use a panel with groups of items that help you open files (from the web, from a share, etc). Live preview would be great for opening files.
  • The ribbon is usefull for tool based actions but it’s not clear how step-by-step wizard and more complicated UI functions work in this space. Is the ribbon just a method to invoke functions and dialogs or can more complicated interactions happen within the ribbon itself?

Overall I’m excited by this release and think that it will be a positive step forward. Probably the biggest positive change since Office 97. Has it really been almost 10 years? Yikes.

Posted in Microsoft, Review, User Interface | No Comments »

Dell Hell

Oct 05
23

I ordered a PC from Dell.com the experience was fast and friendly. I found a computer I liked, ordered it and it was delivered in just a week. This process was painless. The pain was felt after I received the PC.

Day 1 – I open and install the PC and after booting up the PC for the very first time and going through some of the first-install wizards the computer blue-screens and crashes. I reboot the PC and I’m able to get the first time setup to complete however after 5-10 minutes of using the computer it crashes again. It’s late in the day so I leave the office and go home.

Day 2 – I contact technical support and explain the problem. We spend 45 minutes messing with the bios of the system. This seems to fix things but I tell the tech that I’m not certain the problem is fixed since it happens every 5-10 minutes and it’s nothing in particular that seems to cause it.

Day 3 – I come in the morning and try to boot the computer and it refuses to boot. I have to restart it 5-6 times before the computer will boot. Once it does boot it continues to blue screen after several minutes of use. I’m busy with other things so I’m unable to call tech support back for a few days.

Day 4 – I call tech support again and explain the issue. Again we spend 1/2 hour changing bios settings. Then we spend another 1/2 hour changing windows settings, safe mode, and other settings. Again the problem seems to have gone away but I tell the tech that the problem is intermittent and seems to come back. The tech has me restart the computer 4 times, I thank him hoping my computer won’t crash the following day.

Day 5 – The computer crashes again. I call tech support, wait for 1/2 hour and then finally speak with a tech. The tech says that I need to re-install windows. I begin the install (this takes 1.5 hours) The techs name is Al, his ID is 464730. He promises to call me back after the install is complete. He never calls me back.

Day 6 – I call again and this time instead of reinstalling windows the tech suggests that we run a diagnostics program. The diagnostics program is supposed to take 1-2 hours. The tech promises to call me back. He never does. The diagnostics complete without finding any problems.

Day 7 – I call up and I ask to return my computer. I’m not happy with it, it’s not working and Tech-support can’t fix it. Well according to customer support I can’t return my computer because it’s past the 14 day return policy. I point out that I had problems with my PC from day 1 and that I would have gladly returned it but wasn’t given the option until I spoke with technical support. Ok, well that’s ridiculous but I’d be happy with an exchange as long as the computer works. No problem, they tell me but because the customer support systems aren’t linked with Technical Support they need to transfer me back to tech support to issue a dispatch so that my computer can be exchanged by customer support.

So I get transferred to technical support and I’m told that it will take 15-31 days for my system to be exchanged. 15-31 days!!!!!! So I tell the guy to issue the dispatch and transfer me to customer service because I’m pissed. In transferring my call I get disconnected. I’m not sure if they hung up on me or not.

I call back and I’m about to blow my lid. The person on the phone is named Dan badge #459296 and he assures me that my new computer is on it’s way and I will have a new computer in 3-5 days. I asked him 4 times to be sure I understood him and he assured me that by May 25th I would have a new computer. I would then return my old computer. He promised that I will absolutely get the computer no later then May 25th. My dispatch number for this was 058205544.

SIX DAYS LATER.

I called and was put on hold, then disconnected.

I called again to speak with customer support and was told that only technical support could access my service records and that customer support could not. I asked the Customer Service agent to stay on the phone with me as he transferred me to technical support. I was sick of people passing the buck. As he was transferring me I was disconnected again.

I called back and was told that the order was canceled because they tried to call me and the phone number was wrong on my account. So they canceled everything. Not only was the phone number wrong, it wasn’t even close. Not a single digit matched nor was the area code correct. I was given a case number and connected to technical support because customer care can’t access the technical side of the system and for some reason this is a ‘technical’ I was given a case #.

I call back again and am told that it will take 2-3 days to issue the dispatch and get me a UPS tracking number. On the phone…

Me: “I’ll be patient and wait the three days”
Dell: “Thank you sir, is there anything else I can do?”
Me: “No, I don’t want to end the conversation I want to wait. I have free long distance and unlimited minutes and if you expect me to wait for three days I’d like you to wait with me.”

The poor dell support person let out a nervous chuckle. I imagine he realized to some extend that although my request was absurd it was only slightly more absurd then his request to have me wait for three days for an electronic ‘dispatch’ transaction, or 21 days or 31 days or whatever they thought it was going to be. We talked for another 1/2 hour until I was transferred to his manager. The manager promised to keep me updated daily as to the status of the system and my tracking number. I was skeptical but he has called me back for the next two days.

THREE DAYS LATER
While on hold for probably the 10th time I was told that for faster service I should try Dell.com/chat. So I did. I loaded it up on another computer and re-entered a lot of my information. You would think that the nice thing about chat is that I don’t have to repeat yourself but I was asked for my telephone number 4 times! My guess is that on the other end there are dozens of people chatting to the same person and they keep asking for phone numbers, to buy more time. The online chat person’s name is sovee_varughese. I’m asked to re-enter my phone and information into the chat even though this was all entered to initiate the chat. I get a dispatch #058453864 and I’m told it will take 15 days for the dispatch to process. I tell the chat that I’m not happy with the 15 day wait and he tries to disconnect me. I ask to speak with a supervisor.

The supervisor tells me it would take 3 days to create a tracking number to replace my computer. I told the supervisor I would wait with him in the chat for 3 days. I was serious too. It’s not a big deal for me to minimize the window and keep it running for three days. At least this way there is some accountability. The supervisor squirmed for about an hour while the chat window was open. Then he disconnected me. It’s easy enough to reconnect so I did.

Now I’m on with Yusuf. He assures me that my new computer will arrive in 3-5 days. “Yes I’m sure” it will arrive he assures me but he can’t get me a tracking number.

While on the phone with technical support I was disconnected again. Arrrrrrrgh.

Next day, on chat again with “Varun”. “Can I have the tracking number” – No it hasn’t been generated. I was told I would have it today. It will be generated in a day or two. I was told I would have it today… Ohhh wait it has just been generated, it’s “058453864″ is this a UPS tracking number? No. It’s actually a dispatch number. But the dispatch number doesn’t help me in any way. I ask the chat person to wait with me in the chat room for 2-3 days until we have a tracking number. Yes, I’m starting to be a bit of an asshole and I admit this but we’re already into week three of this fiasco and I’ve restrained myself much longer then most. The dell chat person got pissed and disconnected. I usually get escalated to the floor manager. Time to try again.

Joseph (445546) called me again, Monday afternoon to update me on the status of my computer. I was told it would be 2-3 days for the dispatch to go through. Joseph tells me that it will take another 2-3 days to go through. He’s calling me on memorial day but says that although technical support is there on holidays 24×7. The actually assembly of computers doesn’t happen. It’ll be another 2-3 days.

May 30th. Assembly????? My first computer that I ordered was delivered in a prompt 5 days, now that I’ve already paid I have to wait and wait.

June 1st, 05 – A manager from Dell Technical support (KulVinder – 373329) calls me to check if I’m still experiencing a problem with my Blue Screen! The manager didn’t bother to check the records to see what had happened. I inform him that I have requested an exchange. He checks his computer and says… “ohh yes, I see that… you should have your system in 5-7 business days from the dispatch date.” The dispatch date is the 26th of May and it’s the 1st of June so it’s been 6 days already. I inform him of this as well. He replies well then you should be receiving the system very shortly. I ask him for a UPS tracking number. He says he’ll call me back in 1/2 hour. (Time:11:10am)

Called back at 2:15pm – So sorry it took me so long I was looking into it. And it’s going to be 8-10 business days. Why? Well we have to re-configure a system that’s the same as the one you have so we have to wait for any parts that are missing.

Me: “Well let me know what parts are missing and I’ll tell you if it’s ok to substitute or provide a different part!”

Them: “We can’t do that.”

I call again. Albert – 378065 – A manager tells me it will take 8-10 from the day of the original dispatch. He sees that the dispatch was on May 26th – should by this Friday. He decided to puts in a request to expedite the process. Case #101828519

Thursday June 02 –

Amit_Kumar – in chat - not helpful at all. Told me the computer would arrive 7 days after the dispatch. I told him that would mean it would arrive today. He then changed his mind and said 2 more days. Then he gave me a dispatch number 058453864 again.

Wed June 08

GAURAV_SACHDEVA 001-25891 in chat. Not helpful at all. Told me the computer would arrive in 3-5 days. I told him I didn’t believe him because no order number was generated. He assured me that he had escalated the issue.

“Please don’t worry I’ll call you up with the updates, I apologize for all your previous experience.”

{Gregory Raiz 2:26:08 PM} You promised me on the phone that I would have my computer in 3-5 days and you also promised that you would have an order number for me by tomorrow. YES?????

{GAURAV_SACHDEVA 2:27:03 PM} Yes, I’ll provide you each and every details ,please don’t worry. We are here to help you.

Yeah Right.

Well I didn’t get a call in the morning, or the afternoon but amazingly around 3:00 I did get a call with an

Order Number and a FedEx tracking number! Was I actually going to get my computer?

Two days later… Finally!!!!!

The dell arrives and seems to work well. In the box comes a packing slip and a request to return the original broken computer.

Several weeks pass and I get a phone call. Hello this is Dell, we haven’t yet received the broken computer, has it been sent out?
Me: “It’ll be 5-7 days, please be patient.” ;)

(The last part is a joke the rest did happen)

 

Lessons I Learned

  • Customer support should only ever ask for information once. On the phone, in chat or otherwise. If your not going to record the information don’t bother asking.
  • Each customer should only have one customer support person. The customer should be able to contact this person directly to handle problems or issues.
  • Keeping customers satisfied after the purchase should be as important as making the original sale
  • Customer support should have access to technical cases and vice-versa. Departments should never pass the buck.
  • It’s better to honestly say “I don’t know” then it is to make up a bogus answer
  • I won’t be buying another Dell anytime soon.

Posted in Experience, Review, Venting | 4 Comments »

RCN HD-DVR Sad

Oct 05
22

This is a quick list of issues I found with the RCN HD-DVR (October 2004). From my understanding the Comcast HD-DVR uses similar if not the exact same software.

  1. Ports on the back of the DVR are not labeled at all
  2. Remote has a large number of buttons (62) many of these are modal and only work in certain modes, many other buttons have no action at all.
  3. When viewing the channel list I’m able to see every channel, even the ones I don’t subscribe too. This ruins the TV browsing experience since most people won’t memorize the list of channels that they do subscribe too. So if I see something in the TV guide I can’t easily tell if I’ll be able to watch the show.
  4. There are two menu modes, icon mode and full menu mode. You need to use two clicks to bring you to the main menu.
  5. Menus are not linear they are two dimensional so you have to use full up/down/left/right navigation to find the right menu item. (Tivo navigation is by contrast linear)
  6. There is no easy way to return to the previous menu, this often means you need to start over.
  7. When searching for a show there is no clear way to move between entering letters and selecting a show, this makes the process of finding a show slow and cumbersome..
  8. When searching for a show there is no way to ‘type’ you need to scroll through each letter.
  9. There are two ways to view show listings by time or by channel. You are forced to make this choice every time you want to see a list of channels. Once you make a choice the only way to change that choice seems to be to return to the top menu.
  10. Remote control has to be pointed directly at the cable box. There is little fogiveness on this.
  11. Remote control has a “HELP” button that doesn’t do anything at all.
  12. I can schedule a show to record and when I turn the unit off it asks me if I want to cancel my recordings. Of course I don’t want to cancel my recordings, that’s why I scheduled them.
  13. When I change my aspect ratio to ‘zoom’ or ‘full’ then the HD-DVR user interface is shown off the screen so only part is visible.
  14. When I hit the pause button the screen stutters as it figures out what I wanted to do
  15. Three large buttons right in the center of the remote labeled A B C, the A button on the remote is also labeled ‘Tv-guide.’ All three buttons don’t do anything
  16. There are two menus a ‘quick menu’ and a ‘main menu’ if you click the menu button once you see the quick list, if you click it again you see the main list. The quick menu uses icons to hint at the functional pages. These same icons aren’t used in the main menu to reinforce their meaning.
  17. If you browse into a sub-menu of the main menu and you press the menu button again instead of bringing you back to the main menu it shows the ‘quick menu’ as an overlay on the ‘main menu.’ This seemed really awkward.
  18. If you’re watching a show it’s not obvious how to record the entire series of the current show. Pressing the record button will start recording the current show but to record a recurrence you need to press the the ‘info’ button twice. This is hard to find.
  19. Video on demand – sigh. Great idea, poor execution. Again the categories and shows that are listed are not necessarily available for me to watch so it’s impossible to tell what is actually available.
  20. The controls to play, pause, skip and fast forward video on demand are not the same as for watching TV.
  21. Using the menus I select “Search” then “HDTV”. I’m thinking I will be able to search HD shows by title. Nope. I get taken to a list of shows by time or channel. This is not searching this is called browsing.
  22. I started playing a recorded movie and hit pause. I later return to the movie and instead of resuming where it left off it resumes from the very beginning so I have to fast forward to the time I left off at.
  23. The fast forward button has five speeds. When fast forwarding at high speed and I press play I end up playing 10-15 seconds later then when I wanted.
  24. I was unable to get any on demand music to play. This seemed completely broken. The music would start to load and occasionally I would hear a second or two of music before it would cut out.
  25. When searching for a show to record by DVR there was no way to find the equivalent show in HD. The channel numbers and listings are treated separately.
  26. Different channels may send different HD signals. This requires you to adjust the zoom/aspect ratio manually to compensate and make the signal match the screen.
  27. Shows don’t seem to expire automatically. If I tried to record a new show and the space on the DVR was filled I would get a message asking me to delete something first.
  28. Many other misc, problems.

I will probably cancel my HD-RCN service. The problems with the unit don’t compensate for the benefits. DirectTV does have a Tivo enabled unit but it costs $700 for new customers and I hear that DirectTV is moving away from Tivo. Tivo on the other hand has yet to announce a date for their cablecard enabled box or standalone HD unit. The other option to consider is a HD Media Center PC. The entry cost for media center pc is much higher ($1500-$2000) and from what I understand HD support is only over the air. Hmmm. That deadline to convert to HD is a little over 3 years away.

To date I have never seen an HD solution that would be usable by a child or a senior citizen. These devices are not usable and even for people who understand technology they are not friendly or easy to use.

My wife, (I recently got married) tells me that the little Tivo is sad when I switch and use the RCN box. I would imagine the little RCN box is sad as well.

Posted in Review, Television, Venting | No Comments »

Windows XP SP2 UI Critique

Sep 04
27

Windows XP Service pack 2 includes more than bug fixes. This service pack has a number of new concepts, and UI changes that users should be aware of. Some of the changes are aesthetic and some are functional. With this service pack Microsoft has taken a harder stance on security and although this may go some distance to appease the harsh security critics some of these changes may prevent non-technical users from completing common internet tasks.

The review will cover UI concepts, the good, bad and ugly.

XP security center

The XP security center UI is a launch point user interface. The concept is good… Provide a central place to deal with security information.
Unfortunately the security center falls short. The software only allow you to turn on certain features but falls short of providing a complete solution for novice users.

A simple example is the XP Firewall. Once the software is turned on there is no obvious way from the security center to make adjustments. The one link in the main dialog brings up a help dialog, not firewall UI.

To actually make any changes the user must click on a separate icon labeled:

This opens up a separate dialog that has additional settings to block or allow certain types of internet traffic:

The exceptions tab allows you to add exceptions but this is rather difficult. The most likely way that users will create exceptions through the firewall is using the dialog that comes up when an actual programs tries to connect to the internet:

From my experiments the firewall takes the program name and publisher directly from the executable. This means that a rouge program could easily trick the firewall with a non-legitimate publisher and program name. Since the program does not prevent this type of attack the firewall will mostly be an annoyance to users.  Additionally this is likely to prevent many internet enabled games from working correctly since the UI can not be seen when a full screen game is running.

Loosing Control

Microsoft continues to have trouble picking a control panel style and stick with it.

A top level control panel Second level control panel, now done inside the
control panel framework, follows the same look as the top level
(Good)		 Third level control panel pops out in it’s own
window using a different look, no menus or address bar, still mostly
similar.		 A new second level control panel that links off to
security related dialogs has it’s own style. This also opens in it’s
own window
New Wireless Control Panel has it’s own style. The add and remove control panel also uses parts of
this style but does it’s own thing.		 Internet Firewall Dialog using the traditional
dialog with a new blue banner, just because..		 … and of course the Control panel that’s also a
folder.

All the new control panels have their own visual style. Security center, new wireless UI, firewall dialog.

It should be noted that many of these dialogs have been modified specifically for the release of SP2, they could have been modified to follow the same style.

Wireless UI

Over the last 4 years the use of wireless devices has exploded and it’s fairly easy to find at least one wireless connection when standing on a corner of a most city blocks. So I was excited about the new wireless UI.



Unfortunately it’s a real mess.  Pre-SP2 there was one dialog and even though it wasn’t ideal it was a single location to configure wireless settings. In SP2 there is a new dialog and wizard that aim to configure and setup your settings.  The new UI is somewhat simpler but because it only does part of the job you still need to deal with the previous UI confusing things even further. In addition the “Wireless Network Setup Wizard” is separate from the “Home Network Wizard” as a user trying to install a wireless network it would be confusing as to what wizard I should use. The new functionality should have been integrated into the pre-existing
interface.

Internet Explorer – Punishing many for the mistakes of a few.

Our poor users want to install a program from a popular site….

The first hurdle is getting the file. The website designer wanted to make this easy by re-directing to the executable but IE prevents this and doesn’t offer an over-ride that I could find.   Strike One.

User sees a security dialog. This dialog is fairly clear in the possible actions but would certainly frighten any in-experienced users. Strike two.

After that internet explorer goes a little far once again warning you about the dangers of internet software. Strike three. I should only be warned once. Imagine if other parts of the interface where this pedantic? Are you sure you want to open your email? If you open your email you may read something you don’t want to know, are you sure? Do you really want to
read email?

Explorer

The task area in Windows Xp was designed to promote high level tasks and minimize confusion. All tasks that appear in Windows XP are useful to a large majority of users.  In SP2 we’ve added some confusion.

There is now the distinction between a home network and a wireless home network. I mention this in the wireless area and this is almost certainly going to cause problems as many home networks that have wireless are a combination of wired and wireless and it’s not clear that the two have different sets of functionality.  With some better planning this should have been one wizard that would walk you through the setup regardless of how your PC is wired.

Secondly there is a new item called “Hide icons for networked UPnP devices.”  This is terrible task for several reasons. First off it’s not something that most users need to do since most users don’t know what a UPnP device is. In fact most users don’t have any devices to hide so the task is totally useless. Additionally the task is phrased in programming terms and does not address the real problem, what the user wants is to reduce the clutter in their network folder.

Useless Dialogs

The term “Dialog” is meant to describe it’s purpose. A dialog is supposed to ask a question, take some input and process the results. The following dialog is an example of poor UI design.

There are already mechanisms to tell you if the firewall is on:

Therefore the message box is entirely useless. The dialog could equally be shown like this:

Conclusion

My main gripe about security is that it’s often viewed as just a way to
‘secure your computer.’  Keeping undesirable users out is just half the
problem. Security is useless if the the people who should have access can’t
get to the resources.  Well designed security not only keeps intruders
out but it provides mechanisms to let others in.

Typical message box:   “Your password is wrong. Ok.”

Better dialog box: “Your password is wrong.  Would you like to try
again, request the owner for permissions or cancel?”

Microsoft has made a good push for security but at the cost of the user
experience.

Service pack 2 may make your computer more secure but it is also likely to
cause you annoyance and frustration.  Security can be added without
hurting the user experience.

##################


Raizlabs was founded in 1997 by Gregory Raiz, with a vision to enable
people to express their creativity and imagination through innovative
software and products. As a leader in user interface design for websites and
desktop applications Raizlabs continues to provide software and web
solutions worldwide.

Gregory Raiz formerly worked at Microsoft on the design of Windows XP but
was not involvement in the design of Service pack 2. Companies seeking
guidance in user interface design are directed to the services section of
this website.

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Posted in Design, Review, Usability, Windows | No Comments »

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