Competition - taking nominations for worst user interface.

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GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
It doesn't help that I hate, HATE, HATE, electronic music samples so it was easy to push this device to the top of my most hated UI list.

Imagine being the user of this device without the Narrator. Just s poorly written manual. No display, just lots of button combinations to do... something that I could not call ART or TALENT or ENJOYABLE to listen to.

 

Sinus23

Joined Sep 7, 2013
248
It doesn't help that I hate, HATE, HATE, electronic music samples so it was easy to push this device to the top of my most hated UI list.

Imagine being the user of this device without the Narrator. Just s poorly written manual. No display, just lots of button combinations to do... something that I could not call ART or TALENT or ENJOYABLE to listen to.
To be fair the guy reviewing the "device" probably had used it for less than 10 minutes. It was painful to listen to.:(

For me it's iTunes that's the worst "program" I've dealt with that wasn't beyond my understanding.
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
It doesn't help that I hate, HATE, HATE, electronic music samples so it was easy to push this device to the top of my most hated UI list.

Imagine being the user of this device without the Narrator. Just s poorly written manual. No display, just lots of button combinations to do... something that I could not call ART or TALENT or ENJOYABLE to listen to.


A coworker builds thing like this as a hobby. He doesn't design them just build them. He gets designs from other people an puts them together. I don't get it.
 

Sinus23

Joined Sep 7, 2013
248
When it comes to making music among other things it bottles down to limitations and possibilities available.

I personally choose the instrument and software that is the most intuitive for me, as in that I can use to get my ideas across the fastest without limiting the possibilities for what I might desire.
 

philba

Joined Aug 17, 2017
959
The comcast cable system and every cable box they've ever given us. Xfinity sucks donkey whatevers. Horribly slow. Clumsy UI. Terrible organization of the content. And when you have to reboot the set top box, it takes for ever. The hardware takes long enough but then they have repopulate the guide so the box is unusable for at least an hour. This has happened 3 times in the last 3 years.The one shining (well maybe dully glowing) point was the voice input but they took that away because we didn't want to pay 200/.month for cable tv.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I vote this (2015 Honda Odyssee control panel):
My Subaru is probably similar. I found one thing I hate just today. It has an “info” screen that lets you choose to pull up the weather, sports, car status info, and so on. If you choose “Stocks”, an alert pops up telling you that stock prices are provided by Comstock. There’s an “OK” button and if you don’t hit it, you’ll be looking at that alert for the rest of your trip! :mad: Fine, so I have to literally risk my life to hit the screen to acknowledge your advertising. Well guess what, all the stocks I entered come up “N/A”. The damn thing doesn’t even work and these idiots have made sure you see the name Comstock attached to this POS. :rolleyes:
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,979
On my wife's 2006 Saturn, to adjust the time you must first turn the radio ON. Most car/clock radios that don't let you set the time independent of the radio status require that it be OFF so that all of the radio buttons can then be used for clock functions. This idiosyncrasy wouldn't be so bad except that the owners manual gives no hint that the radio must be ON and, with the radio OFF, you can go through all of the steps to select the HR or the MIN or the 12/24 mode but as soon as you go to actually change anything it kicks you out of the time setting mode.

On my 1993 Yukon, there are two up/down buttons available (one for volume and one for tuning). It would be very intuitive to use one for adjusting the hour and the other for adjusting the minute when setting the time. But, no, that would be too obvious and make too much sense. Instead, you have to use two other buttons (and it's so nonintuitive that I can never remember which two and have to hunt around each time) and each one will only advance (can't go back) either the hour or the minute.
 

Sinus23

Joined Sep 7, 2013
248
Siemens PLC programming software
I've not used that one however I've been taking classes that use Connected components workshop by Allen Bradley and I must say that it's a really good program besides the fact that you can't simulate anything...

When you're still practicing it's a big minus( especially since it's a free program). You have to have the machine, everything connected and wait while the program gets downloaded to the machine... This really disturbs the workflow for someone who isn't a professional.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
The Allen Bradley PLC's they had at work, to turn a certain individual machine on the production line, off when changing over to a new part number you had to select between "enabled" or "disabled". Enabled meant that the individual machine was off, totally made some not able to do their own setups.
 
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