Tag: UX

The Dialog

I logged into our application and was greeted by a new dialog. When I see something new, I normally scrutinise it, and check out its functionality. I guess I’m quite inquisitive.

The thing is, the dialog also caught my attention because it looked really odd. 

My eyes were instantly drawn to the link which was in a strange position, and the font looked very large. I loaded up the code to see what was going on. Usually, we use Tahoma 9, but this dialog was using a combination of “Arial” and “Microsoft Sans Serif”, then the link text is 10.5 rather matching the other 9.5 (which is wrong anyway because it should be 9).

The buttons look a bit dark: they are using “Light grey” rather than the standard “Control Light”.

I also thought the Email label was a bit far away from the text box. The buttons are quite far away too.

So I quickly made a few minor tweaks to illustrate how I thought it should look like.

I probably should have left the text in bold, but I had already deleted my changes after taking the screenshot

It’s not perfect, but closer to what I expect to see. It’s easier for me to judge because I’m used to our application. Moving from the original dialog to another looks jarring since the fonts were clearly different sizes, whereas you readers have no comparison.

How does an entire team of developers and testers not notice these differences? I quickly checked the other dialogs they added and saw similar problems there. Sometimes spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, randomly double spaces between words, and some uncentered text:

why not centre the text vertically?

It’s a complete lack of attention to detail by the entire team really.

I contacted the team, which was led by Colin who is infamous for his lack of attention to detail. His response was that he “was just following what the User Experience team gave him”. I checked the documentation he shared, and the mock-ups looked like how I imagined them to be – and not how his team had implemented them.

One of the Testers said something along the lines of “well, we debated these issues within the team, but ultimately – the Product Owner said it was fine”. 

When they did “fix” it, the developer didn’t send the review to me, but I noticed it and jumped in. It had already been approved by a member of their team, but was it actually good? Would it meet my standards? 

No. He had barely changed anything. 


The fonts were still the wrong style and size, the buttons were still the wrong colour, they were positioned incorrectly. He had even changed a few things no one actually told him to change – so made it worse.

The secret Touchpad features that Microsoft didn’t want you to know

I do love a stupid clickbait title. I’m sure Microsoft wants everyone to know these.

I always use a mouse and avoid using the touchpad. So I’ve only  just discovered a bunch of touchpad shortcuts in Windows 10. Check these out:

  1. 2 finger swipe scrolls the page
  2. Tap 3 fingers to open the start menu
  3. Tap 4 to open the notifications panel
  4. 3 fingers swipe down to go to desktop
  5. 3 fingers swipe up shows all open windows, plus you can scroll down to see previously opened windows

How Many People Does It Take To Design A Webpage?

We have a requirement for a 404 error page.

I asked the Product Owner if we have a design for it. Should be simple shouldn’t it? Probably has a heading, a company logo, maybe some other text.

He posts on Slack that he has had a word with the User Experience team and they are going to design it. Fair enough, although why hasn’t this been designed already? We are several months into a Web-based project.

A Software Architect then replies saying that he has put together some “findings” and will arrange a meeting with other Architects to discuss it.

Hang on! how many people are involved in a simple page design? Why does it need Architects?

The world has gone mad.

Nerd Elitists #2: Dark Theme

In a similar fashion to the Anti-Microsoft mentality, there is a group of Dark Theme extremists too (although I think many people are the same as those with the Anti-Microsoft agenda). Every so often, someone will post some kind of meme criticising those that use Light Themes, and they have also created some alternative Dark Theme emojis, some of which they have intentionally made so they appear invisible to Light theme users (white text on a transparent background).

https://preview.redd.it/ie0vsl7ar3311.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=0fbe8a072ea85c185bc01422faf2acd228f0b9c6
How it feels to be a Light Theme user

Any news of companies now supporting Dark Theme is celebrated like some kind of big event. It’s almost like they are a minority group that have successfully fought for their rights.

How did these people even survive before Dark Themes even existed? I think the advice when this became available was to use Dark Themes at night, and Light during the day. I find that my eyes feel strained if I have been looking at something light then dark, or vice-versa. I think it only works if everything is Light, or everything is Dark.

Light Theme Dark Theme Swaping Betweern Dark and Light ...
Dark Theme users are apparently smarter than Light Theme users. True enlightenment is actually swapping between them.

When doing some quick research, I have often read statements like this:

“In terms of readability, the verdict is clear: black text on a white background is the best”.

https://www.maketecheasier.com/are-dark-themes-better-for-eyes-battery/

Yet, these Dark Theme fanboys will keep moaning against the research. I do wonder if it comes down to the individual though. There are some sites like Megan Laura John’s blog (e.g. https://meganlaurajohns.blogspot.com/2016/12/entrepreneurship-success-and-impostor.html) where I think “ooh this white on brown looks nice”, then after 3 paragraphs, my eyes start to struggle to focus, and it gets to the point where I can no longer look at it comfortably. I ended up reading that blog post in an RSS reader just so I could read it with black text on a white background. People must be able to comfortably read it though, or so I assume.

If it does come down to the individual’s eyes, then mocking people for it isn’t acceptable. It’s like mocking someone for being short-sighted. There’s no place for it in the workplace. I don’t understand why people can’t just quietly use a Dark Theme. Instead, they have to go out of their way to attack those that don’t share similar views to them. Like posting a tweet saying that people aren’t real developers.

Poor UX – Sonemic Inc.

To convey information in a small image can be a difficult task, but ideally should be recognisable at a glance. I thought it would be hard to screw up a 5 star rating system, but checkout this proposal:

https://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=7419371

https://e.snmc.io/i/fullres/s/ffb90e652d19dbefdb670fe23356bf0b/7743220
Original Proposal

In the first proposal, I try and count the coloured areas to work out what star rating it is, and it stresses me out. The more I look at it, the worse it gets.

https://e.snmc.io/i/fullres/s/f16becbabfbaef0654002183ff5e45e6/7743223
Revised Proposal

The revised, second proposal is easier to (roughly) tell what it is at a glance, yet the 2.5-3.5 ratings are still difficult. It’s still hard to count because each piece isn’t even, yet it represents equal value. Each piece represents a 0.5 rating, so two coloured pieces equals 1 star, but the second piece to be coloured is smaller. Furthermore, the fully coloured image is a single star, yet represents 5. Terrible.

Their current design which they want to replace looks like this:

Current design

It is very easy to understand this at a glance. It looks clean and conveys the information. Maybe they could get rid of the solid circle and put the number there instead.

There is always the tried and tested classic, retro design.

Classic design