---
title: "Worst UI ever?"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/2/worst-ui-ever.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/2/worst-ui-ever.html"
published: "2004-06-02T21:25:00"
updated: "2004-06-02T21:25:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "oh. my. god. I downloaded and installed this just so that I could believe what I had seen, and yes. it was very real. I couldn't stop looking at it. It was like watching an accident. You just can't look awaym no matter…"
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/"
---

# Worst UI ever?

By Roy Osherove June 2, 2004 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 2, 2004; technical details may be outdated.

[oh. my. god.](http://thedailywtf.com/archive/2004/06/02/188.aspx)

I downloaded and installed this just so that I could believe what I had seen, and yes. it was very real.

I couldn't stop looking at it. It was like watching an accident. You just can't look awaym no matter how horrible it is.

Now, here's the question:

If you didn't know what the name of the program was, how long would it take you to figure out that is is actually a file manager? with two panes on left and right? It took me a few minutes just to get over the visual shock.

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- Jun 4, 2004

    ### [\[ot\] Hebrew blogging attempt](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/4/ot-hebrew-blogging-attempt.html)

- Jun 4, 2004

    ### [Bad interviews are your best friend](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/4/bad-interviews-are-your-best-friend.html)

- Jun 2, 2004

    ### [In search of Bingo](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/2/in-search-of-bingo.html)

- Jun 2, 2004

    ### [I've been contacted...](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/2/ive-been-contacted.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/