In my time as a web developer, I've come across some truly mystifying interface elements. These contravene common sense in a huge way. These make you wonder what the hell the developer was thinking, or if he was thinking at all. I've even been guilty of some of these.
 |
| Fail, buddy, |
It happens. Sometimes developers get lazy. Sometimes they get frustrated and take the easy way out. Or sometimes, they just don't go through as much testing as they should.
1. The Time Traveler Birth Date
Please enter your Date of Birth:
Kind of clumsy, but otherwise nothing really wrong with this one. Except that when I came across this little beauty, it was 2012. The years in the dropdown list go all the way up to 2015!
Now I can accept that maybe 1 year old babies surf the site. Maybe. But a user who will be born in the next few years?! Come on.
2. The Troll Form
Contest Form
| Title | |
| Name | |
| Mobile | |
| Address | |
| Postal Code | |
| Company | |
| GST Reg | |
| Designation | |
| Business | |
| Please describe your experiences in logistics, if any | |
| In your opinion, what are the ideal conditions for freight transfer? | |
| What do you see in the future of automation and technology? | |
| Please describe your experience at the convention so far. | |
| Are there any areas in which the organizers could improve on? | |
Long form, eh? Did you try the Submit button? Yes, entries were closed and this genius of a developer decided to just add a JavaScript alert to inform the user, after the user fills in the whole damn form and clicks the Submit button. Imagine the frustration!
I confess. I was the lazy bastard who did this back then. Got hell from my boss for it, and deservedly so. Somehow I decided that I really didn't want to go through the trouble of hiding the entire form and writing a nice informative message right at the top of the page.
3. The Unreadable Calendar
| 2014 | ||||||
| San | Mun | Tus | Wen | Thu | Fry | Sat |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Years ago, while sourcing for a suitable JavaScript calendar plugin to
It doesn't matter how awesome your code is - if no one can read your calendar, it's a fail.
4. The Must-click Button
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So I'm supposed to mouse-over the button for more information, and when I mouse-out, the information disappears. No problem with that, right? Until you consider the fact that this site was supposed to be on a mobile device. Since when was there a mouse-out in a touch-screen device? The user is only going to end up clicking the button whether or not he wants to.
Also, this site peddles mobile applications. How's that for irony?
Yes, I'm guilty of this one too. Kind of. It wasn't really my idea. I was given specs to fulfill, and it only occurred to me what a fail this was while I was doing it.
5. The Revolving Door
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Back Button right next to Logout Button. A fail all by itself.
And when you consider the fact that this on a mobile device and users' fingers are generally not small enough to avoid consistently clicking on the Logout Button rather than the Back Button... boy, the word "fail" doesn't even come close. Imagine logging in, and then accidentally logging yourself out again each time you try to navigate.
For those of you privileged enough to have access to Singapore's NS Portal, try logging in via mobile to see what I mean. Information in there is supposed to be classified, so I'm not going to provide a screenshot. SAF, are you listening? I hate your portal, it stinks!
Editor's Note: At the time of this posting, it appears that the SAF has finally cottoned on to the utter fail-laciousness of their portal, and improved the layout accordingly. Well done!
Such utter fail.
Five of the most frustrating interface fails known to man. OK, I'm exaggerating. I'm sure there's worse out there, but blimey, are these annoying!T___T
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