Do Developers have a sense of humour?
Earlier today I looked up to find one of my team shaking his head. I enquired if everything was OK, but the smirk on his face suggested that he was not facing Armageddon. He showed me a configuration dialog for a product he is working on. The product is still very much work in progress, but having to refer to the “Configurator” dialog throughout his documentation sent both our imaginations running wild.
Give us a chance to show what we can do
It is a bugbear of mine that when I install an application, I want as much control over how it is installed as possible. I want options for what is being installed, and where it is installed. It’s not much to ask. So excuse me whilst I complain about an application (that will remain nameless) that did the exact opposite.
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Dialog fails grammar test
Earlier today I had to install a Windows application. It all installed perfectly without any issues, but this dialog displayed whilst the application configured my PC annoyed me. OK I know this makes me VERY sad, but saying I had to wait for “1 minutes” just isn’t good enough. It is tardy, lazy and unprofessional.
According to Mark Southee (@marksou) this is because “minutes” is a string. As such the dialog can not differentiate between a string value that is 1 or more than 1. It is this reason he always uses a percentage calculator to indicate progress.
I know that the algorithm used in any progress bar is open to interpretation but I have to agree with him. What do you think?
Error message: Major rewrite required. Volunteers?
On arrival in the office this morning I went through the usual routine of starting up my PC, opening MS Outlook and checking my email. With offices throughout the world this slightly mundane activity is my way of ensuring my To Do list is up to date with what has happened overnight. This morning I was taken aback by the error message below:
“Why isn’t that documented?”
Just before Christmas I was asked to write a post for the company’s blog. You can read it here. At its heart is how we used web 2.0 methodology to ensure that our users never asked, “Why isn’t that documented?”
