Awesome
Usability
Screenshots and anecdotes where software made me think. Thinking hurts - I want to avoid it.
This page is my personal barf bag where I write down my dissatisfaction concerning missing usability.
Return order form
I bought noice-canceling headphones for 260 Euro at Cyberport. For reasons that don't matter here I wanted to return the headphones.
But returning something at Cyberport is not that easy.
- There is no easy way. You can have a look at your last orderes, but there is no button to return one particular item
- You need to look closely to find a link to a form where you can request a return. In this form you need to enter your customer number and order number by hand. Sorry, that's not like things should be in the 21 century.
Invoices via email which don't contain details
Useless complicated No 1: The email contains a PDF. All details are in the PDF. Grrrr I need to open the PDF first.
Useless complicated No 2: The email contains a link to a web-page. There I can find the details. Grrrrr
Desktop Usability
my personal point of view.
- enlarging the mouse coursor should very easy. With Ubuntu it is easy, if you know how to do it. See Settings->Universal Access->Cursor Size
- the default action should be visible very well. For example the button which gets "pressed" if I hit ENTER.
- ctrl-plus ctrl-minus should increase/decrease the text size in every application.
Ubuntu/Gnome
Nautilus images can not be displayed big. Too small for me:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1097934/nautilus-show-images-with-more-than-200-size
Gimp: Open jpg/png edit it. Save it. Annoying: Gimp wants to force you into is own image format. The gimp developers know it better than I do. They know what's good for me: a lossless image format. No, this is useless. Most average users want to open a jpg/png edit it, and save a jpg/png again. Experts want a lossless data format. The way of the average user should be the default. Experts can handle this their way.
double-click on a word should mark the thing in all applications. If I double-click on the "o" in path /blu/foo/bar Firefox does mark "foo". In a gnome-terminal the whole path gets selected. This is annoying. Here is how to fix Firefox double-click behaviour: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation I think Firefox's default should get fixed. Selecting a file path is very common. Chrome has the same strange default like Firefox.
Gnome panel
Gnome panel: date stops at end of month.
Today is tuesday July 30. I want to know the date of the next tuesday. I click on the time symbol at the top of the scree an see this:
... grrr I don't see that the next tuesday is July 6th.
Gnome panel: Show date next to time
How do I show date next to time in the panel with gnome-shell? https://askubuntu.com/questions/83597/how-do-i-show-date-next-to-time-in-the-panel-with-gnome-shell The current solutions are way too complicated. I want a solution which gets found by a grandma without using google. It should be simple in the spirit of "don't make me think".
Server
/usr/bin/systemctl vs /bin/systemctl
Ubuntu uses /bin/systemctl. SuSE /usr/bin/systemctl. No problem? It is annoying if you want to write sudo-rules which work on both distributions.
Package name differ
Package names differ across linux distributions. Containers improve this, since this reduces the need to make things portable.
Slack
Links: Which channel?
Slack links to a message look like this: `https://yourname.slack.com/archives/GSCDS5XCN/p1783140488002900`` It would make sense that you can at least guess which channel this message belongs to.
Confluence: Search URLs. Session id gets added to URL
If I search for this, the URL does no change: https://www.google.com/search?q=foo
If I open this URL in confluence, then I get redirected:
https://example.atlassian.net/wiki/search?text=foo
https://example.atlassian.net/wiki/search?text=foo&search_id=ca1db899-49a9-4f2d-88d9-eaa36ac1c1dc
That's not nice. I want to send the URL via mail/slack/... the first URL is nice, the second is ugly.
Jira: Star things you use often ... Why should I?
Jira has a new user interface. I have a look at the introduction "Star the things you use most to get to them, fast".
Wow (joking) .... why? Why should star things? Why can't Jira just count what I use the most? Then I don't need to star things.
Jira Search .. Why not in Confluence?
Jira has a new user interface. I have a look at the introduction... Why can't both tools (Jira and Confluence) which are both from the same company have a combined search?
I use just one search world wide internet engine for almost everything. I don't use search-engine-foo for books and search-engine-bla for blog posts and search-engine-blu for events in my city. I use one.
Why is this for company wide intranet search different?
Gimp does not remember my last brush.
I often paint on screenshots to highlight parts. I like a 4 pixel pink brush fot this.
Unfortunately Gimp does not remember my last setting. Again and again, after starting Gimp it is 20 pixel and black. Grrrr why can't Gimp remember my last setting?
1Password: I don't want to remember the container, I want type
The password manager 1password works fine for usual password of web pages.
But if a page uses basic-auth I receive this strange popup.
Now I open 1password and see this:
That's not what I want. I want a search field with autocomplete.
If I open 1password I want the cursor to be in this autocomplete field.
I don't want to remeber in which container the password is.
Linux: "thousand" Apps, which one to choose?
I want to create a screencast. But which tools should I use?
There are: Kazam, Open Broadcaster Software Studio, Simple Screen Recorder, Record My Desktop, Voko Screen.
I don't want to choose. I just want to create a screencast.
It would be nice to have a sane default.
Ubuntu Software Center
After installing a new application, I see a screen where I can uninstall it again.
Great. But wait. What is the most likely the next action after install software?
Maybe some people would like to start this application?
Grrr, why is there no button to start the app after installing it?
Good example: I type "w" into the web browser search bar ....
I type "w" into the web browser search bar and I get a "weather Chemnitz".
That's usability done right. I love this search prediction feature.
Good example: GSuite spelling correction
If Gsuite thinks a word contains a typo, than it gets underlined (that's not new). But new: to correct the word, you just need to click on it. That's simple, that's great.
Kid vs Linux Guru
Ask a Linux Guru for an easy way to send an image from Digikam to a friend via Whatsapp.
Ask a kid who has no clue about software, linux and programming.
The kid will get this task done faster.
The kid will take his smartphone, take a photo of the screen and sends it. Maybe 10 seconds.
The Linux Guru will be slower.
And if the Linux Guru publishes the solution of the kid he will get down-votes:
https://askubuntu.com/a/1319639/42348
UX is fun.
Closed Merge-Request has color "red"
A closed Merge-Request is unimportant for me. But somehow Gitlab thinks a closed MR needs to have the color "red".
Share PDF (from Chromium browser on Ubuntu)
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1370634/share-pdf-in-chromium-to-whatsapp-mail
noreply@....
If a company sends email with the sender address "noreply@...", this signals "we don't care about you".
It is unfriendly.