Poor User Interfaces

Scott Adams discusses some of the terrible user interface that irks him no end in his latest post. Now properly speaking this topic falls under Neelji's area of expertise, but as it happens there are quite a few user interfaces, specifically of telephone custom service, which despair me of life every time I try to use them, in increasing order of annoyance they are.

1. Inconsistent interface: The principle behind user interface design is astonishingly simple, it should be easy for the user to use it. Now the use is made easier if the designer tries to follow the generally accepted practice as much as possible, that way user doesn't have to learn anything extra for using the interface. This is why right mouse click works almost identically in the similar contexts. Which is why there is no reason (except that customer care is staffed with sadistic sociopaths) to explain the fact that quite a few companies design the interface so that the number to input in order to directly talk to their customer care executives is different from the usual one (number 9). This is irksome because one has to listen to complete automated message and remember the particular option as exception.

2. Not retaining Input: Now it seems obvious that if user enters some input (for example during authentication) it should be remembered for further use later in the process. Which is why it is very annoying when one has to repeat the same inputs to the customer case executive.

3. Non intuitive interface: The worst infraction is the interface which simply doesn't make sense, for example one has to go to enter a series of option before the option for direct communication with the customer executive becomes available, which is extremely frustrating when one has to do exactly that.