| Joyce is a senior technical writer for a local software company. See her web page
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| Has the software industry become a bunch of patronizing
know-it-alls who think users are too stupid to make any decisions for themselves?
Do developers add “features” whose only purpose is to control the user
or even sell services?
The following list suggests a trend in recent software releases. Will
this trend increase profits for the industry or drive users away? |
| 1. |
Draconian copy protection |
|
It struck me early in the Windows 95 stage as I was trying to make
some sense of a 400-page registry: You’re not supposed to make sense of
it. The Registry allows software makers to store all sorts of information
on your computer to which you have no intelligent access. Oh, yes, they
say, you can edit the registry —“we gave you the Regedit utility after
all”. Then why is Regedit run via the command line and not the Control
Panel? It really doesn’t matter because once you get into the registry
there isn’t much you can do unless you have a Magic Microsoft Decoder Ring.
Software companies use the registry to lock up their programs. One such
program, RoboHelp, I use at the office to edit help systems. My company
owns a one-seat license. A few months after installation of a new copy,
the person who was assigned to use RoboHelp got laid off, and I took over
that function. When I fired up his machine and logged on as myself to run
RoboHelp, all functions were disabled. I had to ask the System Administrator
for this person’s login and password before I could get RoboHelp to work.
When I started traveling, we ported my software to a laptop, dutifully
uninstalling RoboHelp from the other machine. To facilitate remote communications,
I have two Windows NT profiles: one local and one remote. RoboHelp is installed
under my local profile. Although a single copy resides on my laptop, when
I am remote, all RoboHelp functions are disabled. I have to reboot to my
local profile and endure a lot of connection attempts and error messages
before I can get into RoboHelp.
If the purpose of copy protection is to keep unauthorized users from
using it, why make legitimate users suffer so much?
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| 2. |
Using up resources because you
can |
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Thus far, the biggest waste of system resources (not to mention development
time) in all Computerdom is “Clippy” the Microsoft Office paper clip. Clippy
pops up suddenly when you type the word “To” and asks you if you want help
writing a letter. I write computer manuals, and a standard sentence preceding
each screen shot is “To access the blah blah screen, use these menu items:”
To date, Clippy has popped up on me 5,672 times. Had I the computer equivalent
of an axe, I would be awaiting execution as a serial killer.
Websites can waste even more resources because they rely on bandwidth
as well as RAM and drive space. If a Website is slow to load over my office
T1 line, will my laptop’s 56K dialin connection deliver CNN.com before
midnight? Even at the office, whenever I think about logging into a Website,
I ask myself if the site is worth the wait.
Several years ago I was tasked with developing a Website for another
employer. Before I wrote one line of code, I told him the principles under
which I would operate. First, keep it simple. Second: make navigation intuitive.
Third: use special visuals and other bandwidth-hogging features only when
they serve a functional purpose. Fourth: since this is an advertising Website,
don’t insist that your constituents load new applets onto their computers
for the privilege of viewing our advertising. Since we were in the business
of writing technical sales materials primarily about Bandwidth we should
practice what we preached.
Two years after I left the company, a former coworker told me about
the company’s new gee-whiz Website. When I logged on, I had to download
Shockwave. Several minutes after the download, the screen displayed a revolving
visual on a black background. It was interesting, but didn’t offer a clue
as to the purpose of the site. A few more minutes elapsed before I discovered
that holding the mouse pointer over the graphic displayed a link to the
Website’s main menu. When I clicked the link, the screen displayed a picture
of the owner.
I suppose I should congratulate myself for convincing this executive
to move from paper to online media, but somehow I feel like the inventor
of gunpowder.
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| 3. |
Making the only documentation
a phone call away |
|
I recently developed a help system for a handheld computer running
the Windows CE operating system. Before I developed the system, I surveyed
some existing help systems to see what other handheld help systems were
doing. On attempt to access some help systems, my unit prepared to dial
in to get the information. The help was not stored on my handheld; it was
sitting on someone’s Website a phone call away. After successfully logging
onto the Website (5 minutes) and finding the information I want (15 minutes)
what are the odds that I’ll remember what it was I wanted to know?
Server-based help systems might make sense for units that use wireless
connections (unreliable as they are), but those units with only phone line
modems are in real trouble. It kind of defeats the purpose of a handheld
device if the user has to carry several miles of phone cable to get instructions.
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| 4. |
Assuming it knows what the user
wants |
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As if I weren’t spooked enough about the Big Brother-ism in features
like Clippy, now we have the morphing toolbars in Office 2000. Honest,
I’ll take Clippy back if Microsoft will leave my toolbars alone. Isn’t
the purpose of a toolbar to allow you to put the icon where you can find
it fast (even without looking) to increase your productivity? Now in Word
2000, my carefully customized toolbars appear different every time I open
Word. I never know when or if an icon will appear, and if it doesn’t, I
have to go looking for it as if this were the first time I used the software.
Someone please tell me how to turn this feature off! |
| 5. |
Hiding stuff in system startup
that the user doesn’t need (or want) |
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The worst culprits: the Iomega Zip folks. They jerry-rig your machine
to load a lot of stuff upon startup (and I’m not talking about just drivers).
They put a checkbox in the software itself that lets you decide whether
you want to load all their programs. Thus, when you look in the Startup
menu to remove all the junk, nothing is there to remove. |
| 6. |
Trying to sell you something
every time you start it up, shut it down, or use a certain function |
|
I can forgive MusicMatch for doing this since the original application
is free but if you have paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for
an application, you shouldn’t have to mess with advertising. But be prepared,
because the big guns have learned this trick now.
Microsoft OfficeXP includes a feature called “Smart Tag” that keys into
certain typed word or phrases. It will be used to pop up a window offering
the user, for a fee, information from the Internet. For example, if you
type a stock symbol, it offers to take you to various information about
the stock and company from Microsoft’s MoneyCentral Website. These smart
tags will likely require you to sign in with the Microsoft-owned authentication
system called Passport, which stores your personal information.
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| 7. |
Crashing into other software |
|
It doesn’t happen very often, but if I’m working on a large document
in Word 2000 and am concurrently running Windows NT Explorer, when I try
to cut and paste a table row, Word gets busted on an illegal operation
rap and I lose whatever I was working on. What is even worse is that if
the system doesn’t crash, I can’t get back into the document because Word
in its infinite wisdom declares that it is already in use. I can’t get
the file back until I reboot |
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