Interface Hall of Shame

Material Sources:

www.baddesigns.comwww.iarchitect.com/shame.htm

2

Internet Explorer Cache

Minimum cache size of 1% regardless of current or future drive sizes.

No technical constraint

3

Horizontal Scrolling

Humans can scan written material faster from top to bottom rather than left to right.

Vertical lists support single-item scrolling

Internet Explorer 4.0 certificate authority selection panel uses horizontal scrolling.

4

Two Item List Box

VB 5.0 uses a two item list box.

A drop down list or radio buttons would be much better.

Similarly, a 1000-item list box is bad.

5

Multi-Row Property Sheets Single-row property sheets (tab controls) are among the best user interface

elements ever devised. Multi-row tab controls are perhaps one of the worst interface elements ever! Clicking one of the tabs other than from the bottom row, causes a major

reorganisation of the complete set of tabs.

6

Silly Error Messages

Message presented whilst trying to delete files from a nearly-full hard drive in Windows 95.

7

Metaphor Limits

As a means of deleting files and documents, the Macintosh trashcan is a perfectly intuitive metaphor.

Unfortunately, the designers decided to extend the trashcan metaphor to include the completely counterintuitive function of ejecting diskettes

8

Paintshop Pro

9

And now...

10

Dr. Zeuss’s ABC, An alphabet game for 3 to 5 year olds.

11

Replacing file in Frontpage

12

MS Outlook 2002

13

14

LaCie Media Drive