Has the software industry become a bunch of patronizing know-it-alls who think users are too stupid to make any decisions for themselves? Do developers add "features" whose only purpose is to control the user or even sell services? The following list suggests a trend in recent software releases. Will this trend increase profits for the industry or drive users away?
Draconian Copy Protection
It struck me early in the Windows 95 stage as I was trying to make some sense of a 400-page registry: You're not supposed to make sense of it. The registry allows software makers to store all sorts of information on your computer to which you have no intelligent access. Oh, yes, they say, you can edit the registry—"We gave you the Regedit utility, after all." Then why is Regedit run via the command line and not the Control Panel? It really doesn't matter because once you get into the registry, there isn't much you can do unless you have a Microsoft Magic Decoder Ring.
Software companies use the registry to lock up their programs. One such program, RoboHelp, I use at the office to edit help systems. My company owns a one-seat license. A few months after installation of a new copy, the person who was assigned to use RoboHelp got laid off and I took over that function. When I fired up his machine and logged on as myself to run RoboHelp, all functions were disabled. I had to ask the System Administrator for this person's login and password before I could get RoboHelp to work.
When I started traveling, we ported my software to a laptop, dutifully uninstalling RoboHelp from the other machine. To facilitate remote communications, I have two Windows NT profiles: one local and one remote. RoboHelp is installed under my local profile. Although a single copy resides on my laptop, when I am remote, all RoboHelp functions are disabled. I have to reboot to my local profile and endure a lot of connection attempts and error messages before I can get into RoboHelp.
If the purpose of copy protection is to keep unauthorized users from using it, why make legitimate users suffer so much?
Using Up Resources Because You Can
Thus far, the biggest waste of system resources (not to mention development time) in all computerdom is "Clippy," the Microsoft Office paper clip. Clippy pops up suddenly when you type the word "To" and asks you if you want help writing a letter. I write computer manuals, and a standard sentence preceding each screen shot is "To access the blah blah screen, use these menu items:" To date, Clippy has popped up on me 5,672 times. Had I the computer equivalent of an axe, I would be awaiting execution as a serial killer.
Web sites can waste even more resources because they rely on bandwidth as well as RAM and drive space. If a Web site is slow to load over my office T1-line, will my laptop's 56K dial-in connection deliver CNN.com before midnight? Even at the office, whenever I think about logging into a Web site, I ask myself if the site is worth the wait.
Several years ago I was tasked with developing a Web site for another employer. Before I wrote one line of code, I told him the principles under which I would operate. First: keep it simple. Second: make navigation intuitive. Third: use special visuals and other bandwidth-hogging features only when they serve a functional purpose. Fourth: since this is an advertising Web site, don't insist that your constituents load new applets onto their computers for the privilege of viewing our advertising. Since we were in the business of writing technical sales materials primarily about bandwidth, we should practice what we preached.
Two years after I left the company, a former coworker told me about the company's new gee-whiz Web site. When I logged on, I had to download Shockwave. Several minutes after the download, the screen displayed a revolving visual on a black background. It was interesting, but didn't offer a clue as to the purpose of the site. A few more minutes elapsed before I discovered that holding the mouse pointer over the graphic displayed a link to the Web site's main menu. When I clicked the link, the screen displayed a picture of the owner.
I suppose I should congratulate myself for convincing this executive to move from paper to online media, but somehow I feel like the inventor of gunpowder.
Making the Only Documentation a Phone Call Away
I recently developed a help system for a handheld computer running the Windows CE operating system. Before I developed the system, I surveyed some existing help systems to see what other handheld help systems were doing. On attempting to access some help systems, my unit prepared to dial in to get the information. The help was not stored on my handheld; it was sitting on someone's site a phone call away. After successfully logging onto the site (5 minutes) and finding the information I want (15 minutes) what are the odds that I'll remember what it was I wanted to know?
Server-based help systems might make sense for units that use wireless connections (unreliable as they are), but those units with only phone line modems are in real trouble. It kind of defeats the purpose of a handheld device if the user has to carry several miles of phone cable to get instructions.
Assuming It Knows What the User Wants
As if I weren't spooked enough about the Big Brother-ism in features like Clippy, now we have the morphing toolbars in Office 2000. Honest, I'll take Clippy back if Microsoft will leave my toolbars alone. Isn't the purpose of a toolbar to allow you to put the icon where you can find it fast (even without looking) to increase your productivity? Now, in Word 2000, my carefully customized toolbars appear different every time I open Word. I never know when or if an icon will appear, and if it doesn't, I have to go looking for it as if this were the first time I used the software. Someone please tell me how to turn this feature off!
Hiding Stuff in System Startup
The user doesn't need (or want) most of this. The worst culprits: the Iomega Zip folks. They jerry-rig your machine to load a lot of stuff upon startup (and I'm not talking about just drivers). They put a checkbox in the software itself that lets you decide whether you want to load all their programs. Thus, when you look in the Startup menu to remove all the junk, nothing is there to remove.
Selling You Something
I can forgive MusicMatch for trying to sell you something every time you start it up, shut it down, or use a certain function since the original application is free. But if you have paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for an application, you shouldn't have to mess with advertising. But be prepared, because the big guns have learned this trick now.
Microsoft Office XP includes a feature called "Smart Tag" that keys into certain typed words or phrases. It will be used to pop up a window offering the user, for a fee, information from the Internet. For example, if you type a stock symbol, it offers to take you to various informational pages about the stock and the company from Microsoft's MoneyCentral Web site. These smart tags will likely require you to sign in with the Microsoft-owned authentication system called Passport, which stores your personal information.
Crashing into Other Software
It doesn't happen very often, but if I'm working on a large document in Word 2000 and am concurrently running Windows NT Explorer, when I try to cut and paste a table row, Word gets busted on an illegal operation rap and I lose whatever I was working on. What is even worse is that if the system doesn't crash, I can't get back into the document because Word in its infinite wisdom declares that it is already in use. I can't get the file back until I reboot.
I certainly won't quit computing because of these annoyances, but, as in the case of RoboHelp, I'll be looking for serious alternatives - alternatives that offer me as a user a little more respect.
