--- title: "About Interfaces" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/18/about-interfaces.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/18/about-interfaces.html" published: "2003-06-18T04:48:00" updated: "2003-06-18T04:48:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Duncan writes about punitive UI, and I totally agree. I've always been a big fan of Design and interaction. Tha's why some things just toally annoy me that other people don't even notice: Why should I have to press a…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # About Interfaces By Roy Osherove June 18, 2003 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published June 18, 2003; technical details may be outdated. Duncan [writes](http://weblogs.asp.net/duncanma/posts/8866.aspx) about punitive UI, and I totally agree. I've always been a big fan of Design and interaction. Tha's why some things just toally annoy me that other people don't even notice: -  Why should I have to press a key on my cellphone for 3 seconds for the phone to lock itself? And why should I press that same hey for 3 seconds **again** to unlock? Nokia did it right by making you press 2 buttons in sequence, thus avoiding both "accidents" and giving you instant gratification by unlocking the moment you press those keys. When I had my nokia I pressed them pretty quick, but in my samsung this totally annoys me.... - Sometimes on dialog boxes(especially in MSFT's office) you have to answer "yes" or "no". Funny thing is that sometimes, in order to move between those yes/no buttons you have to press the left arrow key and sometimes the right. It **changes**. Users need a consistent interface behavior! - Some blog headlines, when clicked, take you to the actual post(most do), but some take you to a totally different site. This may do wonders for the shortness of the post, but for most users this is confusing. Consistency please! That's why (I think) post .NetWebloggers choose to ignore the fact that they can make their post title link to another place. - Some tabbed browsers , when you press "CTRL+TAB" jump to the next tab(like opera) but some(like netCaptor) jump to the **previous** one. ugh. consistency... - When Installing Visual studio 6, you get a msgbox at the end asking "would you like to restart your computer?" which proceeds to totally ignore your answer and restart your computer anyway... - Copying a Cell or a cell group in Excel only works One time! Once you paste it, you've lost it forever. I'm sure there's a good reason, but it totally sucks. Consistency between your own office application is a must! - Some doors have "pull" designed handles on the outside, even though you have to push or slide them sideways to get through. How screwed up is that? - My Car alarm does not make any beeping sounds when I turn it on. I keep forgetting whether I even turned it on when I got out. _Sounds_ are an interface as well. Just think of your phone line as a kind of audio interface made of beeps. What do all these things have in common? User interface is not just a software related concept. It's a human concept. It just _applies_ to software as well.. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jun 19, 2003 ### [Book Gripes, Safari Bookshelf, And a .Net Desktops Prize](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/19/book-gripes-safari-bookshelf-and-a-net-desktops-prize.html) - Jun 18, 2003 ### [SQL Server is Missing NextVal Functionality](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/18/sql-server-is-missing-nextval-functionality.html) - Jun 17, 2003 ### [ABEK](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/17/abek.html) - Jun 17, 2003 ### [More About Desktops](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/6/17/more-about-desktops.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/