sides of march » Usability http://www.sidesofmarch.com Thoughts on life, liberty, and information technology Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:43:26 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 An exercise in frustration: Getting product keys and support using the Microsoft Dynamics CustomerSource web site http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2011/08/12/an-exercise-in-frustration-getting-product-keys-and-support-using-the-microsoft-dynamics-customersource-web-site/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2011/08/12/an-exercise-in-frustration-getting-product-keys-and-support-using-the-microsoft-dynamics-customersource-web-site/#comments Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:27:38 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/?p=568 “Microsoft Dynamics CustomerSource is an information-packed, password-protected site for customers who use Microsoft Dynamics products.” (Microsoft’s words, not mine.) I decided to use this information-packed, password-protected site to get my recently purchased product keys for Dynamics CRM 2011.

Below is a summary of my experience.

First, I go to the Product & Service summary page on the My Account page.

Then, I click on Registration Keys.

Then, I choose the appropriate version (2011) and upgrade option (No) and get the following message: “The keys you are trying are of Volume license, hence they will not be shown from MBS.” (I have no idea what MBS is.)

Frustrated, I try getting support by clicking the support link on the “Contact Dynamics Operations” page.

Which yields a very unhelpful support page that tells me, “Our apologies…An unexpected error occurred.” At least they are apologetic.

Despairingly, I click the ROC Contact Information at the bottom of the page (I have no idea . . .

→ Read More: An exercise in frustration: Getting product keys and support using the Microsoft Dynamics CustomerSource web site]]> “Microsoft Dynamics CustomerSource is an information-packed, password-protected site for customers who use Microsoft Dynamics products.” (Microsoft’s words, not mine.) I decided to use this information-packed, password-protected site to get my recently purchased product keys for Dynamics CRM 2011.

Below is a summary of my experience.

First, I go to the Product & Service summary page on the My Account page.

Then, I click on Registration Keys.

Then, I choose the appropriate version (2011) and upgrade option (No) and get the following message: “The keys you are trying are of Volume license, hence they will not be shown from MBS.” (I have no idea what MBS is.)

Frustrated, I try getting support by clicking the support link on the “Contact Dynamics Operations” page.

Which yields a very unhelpful support page that tells me, “Our apologies…An unexpected error occurred.” At least they are apologetic.

Despairingly, I click the ROC Contact Information at the bottom of the page (I have no idea what “ROC” is) and get a different apologetic error.

Pretty unimpressive, even for Microsoft.

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2011/08/12/an-exercise-in-frustration-getting-product-keys-and-support-using-the-microsoft-dynamics-customersource-web-site/feed/ 0 Usability tip: Implement web page titles as inverted breadcrumbs http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2009/02/27/usability-tip-implement-web-page-titles-as-inverted-breadcrumbs/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2009/02/27/usability-tip-implement-web-page-titles-as-inverted-breadcrumbs/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:36:26 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/?p=342 In the past, I implemented web page titles (i.e. the code in the <title> tag) the same way that one would implement a breadcrumb – that is, from the least-specific to most specific. For example:

Web Site Name: Category: Page Name

That is similar to how a breadcrumb would look:

Home > Category > Page Name

Note that I said this is how I did it “in the past.” Today, I read 9 Common Usability Mistakes In Web Design over at Smashing Magazine, which states in mistake #3:

Putting the name of the website last puts more emphasis on what the page itself is about, rather than on website branding, which is still there.

This makes perfect sense, and the article illustrates the idea well with screenshots.

Needless to say, I’ll be refactoring web projects to invert titles at my earliest convenience.

. . .

→ Read More: Usability tip: Implement web page titles as inverted breadcrumbs]]> In the past, I implemented web page titles (i.e. the code in the <title> tag) the same way that one would implement a breadcrumb – that is, from the least-specific to most specific. For example:

Web Site Name: Category: Page Name

That is similar to how a breadcrumb would look:

Home > Category > Page Name

Note that I said this is how I did it “in the past.” Today, I read 9 Common Usability Mistakes In Web Design over at Smashing Magazine, which states in mistake #3:

Putting the name of the website last puts more emphasis on what the page itself is about, rather than on website branding, which is still there.

This makes perfect sense, and the article illustrates the idea well with screenshots.

Needless to say, I’ll be refactoring web projects to invert titles at my earliest convenience.

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2009/02/27/usability-tip-implement-web-page-titles-as-inverted-breadcrumbs/feed/ 0 Outlining textbox input fields (and getting it to work in IE) http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/11/04/outlining-textbox-input-fields-and-getting-it-to-work-in-ie/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/11/04/outlining-textbox-input-fields-and-getting-it-to-work-in-ie/#comments Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:02:48 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/?p=293 While using Google GMail today, I noticed that they put a blue highlighting around the text input boxes when they have input focus. It’s a nice touch that makes it just a bit easier for users to identify which field their typing in. (Safari users, of course, get this on all web sites out of the box.)

Getting this to work on your web site is a simple matter of applying some CSS styles. The trick is to give your normal inputs fields a 1px border and a 1px margin; then, when they have focus, give them a 2px border (with a different color if you so choose) and no margin. This will ensure the dimensions of the element don’t change when the border width changes.

The following CSS provides an example of styling text boxes (both text and password inputs, and multi-line text boxes) and select lists (single and multi-line) with an alternate outline when holding the input focus.

input[type=text], . . .

→ Read More: Outlining textbox input fields (and getting it to work in IE)]]> While using Google GMail today, I noticed that they put a blue highlighting around the text input boxes when they have input focus. It’s a nice touch that makes it just a bit easier for users to identify which field their typing in. (Safari users, of course, get this on all web sites out of the box.)

Getting this to work on your web site is a simple matter of applying some CSS styles. The trick is to give your normal inputs fields a 1px border and a 1px margin; then, when they have focus, give them a 2px border (with a different color if you so choose) and no margin. This will ensure the dimensions of the element don’t change when the border width changes.

The following CSS provides an example of styling text boxes (both text and password inputs, and multi-line text boxes) and select lists (single and multi-line) with an alternate outline when holding the input focus.


input[type=text], input[type=password], textarea, select {
border-top: solid 1px #8e8e8e;
border-right: solid 1px #d1d1d1;
border-left: solid 1px #d1d1d1;
border-bottom: solid 1px #e4e4e4;
margin: 1px;
padding: 2px;
}
input[type=text]:focus, input[type=password]:focus, textarea:focus, select:focus {
border-color: #4488cc;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 2px;
margin: 0;
}

Like many good web tricks, this’ll look great in Firefox but won’t do anything in Internet Explorer. That’s because IE (through version 7) doesn’t support attribute selectors (as in [type=text]) or the :focus selector. To get things to work in IE, we need to rely on a little more CSS and some JavaScript.

The first thing to do is update our CSS. We’ll create a new iefocus class that, when applied, will put the border around our fields. (Of course, you should just add this to the end of the above CSS declaration to save space, but I present it separately below so you can follow along.)


.iefocus {
border-color: #4488cc;
border-style: solid;
border-width: 2px;
margin: 0;
}

The next step is to figure out how to tell IE — and only IE — to apply the iefocus class to elements fields when they get focus, and to remove the iefocus class when they lose focus (“blur”).

To do that, we use JavaScript. The snippet below uses jQuery to apply the behavior we want.


<!--[if LTE IE 7]>
<script type="text/javascript">
	function ApplyIEFormStyles()
	{
		jQuery(':text,:password,textarea,select').focus(function() {
			jQuery(this).addClass('focus');
		}).blur(function() {
			jQuery(this).removeClass('focus');
		});
	}
	jQuery(document).ready(ApplyIEFormStyles);
</script>
< ![endif]-->

The conditional comments around the script block ensure the code only runs in Internet Explorer (through version 7).

The above code works great, but I found one weird caveat: If your page uses ASP.Net AJAX, and you have an UpdatePanel on the page, the behavior disappears after an asynchronous postback. There’s a fix for that, fortunately — we hook the same method (ApplyIEFormStyles) to a handler that is fired after each ASP.Net AJAX asynchronous event ends.

The final JavaScript follows.


<!--[if LTE IE 7]>
<script type="text/javascript">
	function ApplyIEFormStyles()
	{
		jQuery(':text,:password,textarea,select').focus(function() {
			jQuery(this).addClass('focus');
		}).blur(function() {
			jQuery(this).removeClass('focus');
		});
	}
	jQuery(document).ready(ApplyIEFormStyles);
	if (Sys != null)
	{
		Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_endRequest(ApplyIEFormStyles);
	}
</script>
< ![endif]-->

That should do it — resolving the rendering issues in IE, and giving your users a little more usability when working through your web forms.

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/11/04/outlining-textbox-input-fields-and-getting-it-to-work-in-ie/feed/ 6 The case against splash pages http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/07/24/the-case-against-splash-pages/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/07/24/the-case-against-splash-pages/#comments Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:54:25 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/?p=265 From time to time, clients ask me if I’d include a “splash page” for their web site. In every situation, I try very hard to convince them not to do this.

I just had a client ask me about having a “start page link to the home page” (in other words, a splash page), and here’s my response…

Start page link to home page: bad idea. “Splash pages” as they are called are a big usability no-no. Sure, they give executives that warm fuzzy feeling, and design firms think they are cool because they show off some eye candy design skills… but in reality they are wastes of money that bring no benefit to the people you are supposed to target your web site for: your customers and prospective customers.

Don’t believe me? From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530_comments.html …

Splash Screens

Mike Garrison (mikegarrison@alum.mit.edu) writes:

I think that splash pages may not be one of the top-10 web mistakes, but they are probably the top useless web fashion of . . .

→ Read More: The case against splash pages]]> From time to time, clients ask me if I’d include a “splash page” for their web site. In every situation, I try very hard to convince them not to do this.

I just had a client ask me about having a “start page link to the home page” (in other words, a splash page), and here’s my response…

Start page link to home page: bad idea. “Splash pages” as they are called are a big usability no-no. Sure, they give executives that warm fuzzy feeling, and design firms think they are cool because they show off some eye candy design skills… but in reality they are wastes of money that bring no benefit to the people you are supposed to target your web site for: your customers and prospective customers.

Don’t believe me? From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530_comments.html …

Splash Screens

Mike Garrison (mikegarrison@alum.mit.edu) writes:

I think that splash pages may not be one of the top-10 web mistakes, but they are probably the top useless web fashion of the past year or two.Why?

  1. No one wants to have to access it every time, so getting to it really annoys anyone who is not a first time user.
  2. But for the first time user, it adds a useless step between them and whatever brought them to the site in the first place. So it really annoys them too.
  3. Most new users will come via a search engine anyway, so they’ll probably miss the splash page.
  4. If you make it the default highest page in the server (eg. http://www.useit.com/ ) then when people try to find your home page by chopping off a URL, they get the useless splash page instead.
  5. They ruin the back button. (Your #1 new mistake.)

I especially hate it when a page I have bookmarked (say: //blah.com/ ) gets moved to some URL like //blah.com/content and my bookmark suddenly starts taking me to a splash page. Then I have to edit my bookmark so that it will take me to the real home page.

Jakob’s reply: I agree: splash pages are useless and annoying. In general, every time you see a splash page, the reaction is “oh no, here comes a site that will be slow and difficult to use and that doesn’t respect my time.”

Splash pages are a sure sign of bad Web design.

or from http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/term_79.txl:

Usability Guide: splash page

or splash screen; a website homepage that is used for emotional impact and has very little navigation or information. Instead, it typically just displays a large and stunning graphic or a simple typographic message to intrigue the viewer and lure them into the website.

In practice, it’s rarely a good idea, since it wastes precious download time for the user, it obscures by not including critical information about the website, and it delays the time that a person actually enters and starts using the website, increasing the probability that you’ve exceeded the user’s patience or attention span and they’ve left for another site before they even figured out what yours was. Splash pages open up numerous opportunities for poor design such that users can’t find their way into a website.

Frequent problems include:

  • not including clear navigation or a clear means of entering into the website – many users will not discover that they can click on the image to enter if the image doesn’t clearly say so.
  • providing no clear options to users who do not load images.
  • requiring the use of plug-ins or browser features that are not backward-compatible, so that many users are excluded because of the capabilities of their machines or the type of browser they’ve chosen to use.

Still not convinced? Do a we search for splash page usability.

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/07/24/the-case-against-splash-pages/feed/ 3 Is Verizon FiOS TV in your area? Don’t try checking online. http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/19/is-verizon-fios-tv-in-your-area-dont-try-checking-online/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/19/is-verizon-fios-tv-in-your-area-dont-try-checking-online/#comments Mon, 19 May 2008 16:22:42 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/19/is-verizon-fios-tv-in-your-area-dont-try-checking-online/ It seems I always have usability issues with Verizon‘s web sites. After checking to see if, after two weeks, they figured out why an old cell phone number of mine was still showing up on my online profile (they didn’t, it’s still there), I decided to see if FiOS TV was in my area.

They have a nifty Check Availability page where you enter your phone number (if an existing Verizon customer) or address to find out if you can get this service. Being a Verizon customer, I enter my phone number, click the “Can I get it” button, and wait…

While you wait, you do get a little graphic that is somewhat more useful than a spinning Ajax cursor.

 

So, is FiOS TV available to me? Well, I don’t know. The response you get says nothing about FiOS TV — instead, it tells you about your FiOS internet service.

But wait, that isn’t what I asked! . . .

→ Read More: Is Verizon FiOS TV in your area? Don’t try checking online.]]> It seems I always have usability issues with Verizon‘s web sites. After checking to see if, after two weeks, they figured out why an old cell phone number of mine was still showing up on my online profile (they didn’t, it’s still there), I decided to see if FiOS TV was in my area.

They have a nifty Check Availability page where you enter your phone number (if an existing Verizon customer) or address to find out if you can get this service. Being a Verizon customer, I enter my phone number, click the “Can I get it” button, and wait…

While you wait, you do get a little graphic that is somewhat more useful than a spinning Ajax cursor.

image 

So, is FiOS TV available to me? Well, I don’t know. The response you get says nothing about FiOS TV — instead, it tells you about your FiOS internet service.

image

But wait, that isn’t what I asked! I wanted to know about FiOS TV! I am well aware that I already have FiOS Internet Service.

Alas, there’s apparently no easy way to find out online. Sometimes, you just can’t find what you’re looking for.

Unrelated but related — why did they spell it FiOS? Why the lower case “i”? Was FIOS ruled out for some reason? Or is it an acronym where only the F, O, and S dictate new words (perhaps Fi is for “Fiber”)?

According to Wikipedia’s FiOS article, “Verizon has cited the fact that “fios” is an Irish word for “knowledge.” If that’s the case, couldn’t they just make it FIOS? After all, it’s so hard to type FiOS… Maybe a marketing guru told them that the lower case “i” makes it “cool, hip, and Web 2.0.”

In any case, look elsewhere for your FiOS TV availability.

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/19/is-verizon-fios-tv-in-your-area-dont-try-checking-online/feed/ 3 Verizon lets you debug your own form submissions http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/15/verizon-lets-you-debug-your-own-form-submissions/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/15/verizon-lets-you-debug-your-own-form-submissions/#comments Thu, 15 May 2008 17:42:21 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/15/verizon-lets-you-debug-your-own-form-submissions/ About a week ago, I had to contact Verizon to find out why a cell phone number I haven’t owned for three years was showing up on my online statement. In the process of the call, they reset my online account password, and now I can’t log in. (Hence the misuse of the phrase customer support.)

Today, I went to Verizon’s web site to reset my account information, where I was asked to provide my email address and phone number.

Clicking submit opened up Firebug! Thanks, Verizon, for letting me do your debugging work for you. Does this mean I’m on the payroll?

. . .

→ Read More: Verizon lets you debug your own form submissions]]> About a week ago, I had to contact Verizon to find out why a cell phone number I haven’t owned for three years was showing up on my online statement. In the process of the call, they reset my online account password, and now I can’t log in. (Hence the misuse of the phrase customer support.)

Today, I went to Verizon’s web site to reset my account information, where I was asked to provide my email address and phone number.

Clicking submit opened up Firebug! Thanks, Verizon, for letting me do your debugging work for you. Does this mean I’m on the payroll?

Verizon lets you debug using Firebug

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/15/verizon-lets-you-debug-your-own-form-submissions/feed/ 0 Automatic downloads and usability http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/02/automatic-downloads-and-usability/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/02/automatic-downloads-and-usability/#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 14:06:57 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/02/automatic-downloads-and-usability/ I just went to download the latest release of GraffitiCMS (which is rather impressive), when I noticed this on their download page.

Thanks for downloading Graffiti!

We know you’re excited about building your new Graffiti site, but please be patient as your download is being prepared. If you click the link below, you will experience a delay in processing.

If your download doesn’t start after you count to 10 backwards in Roman numerals, please click here.

First, I thought it was interesting that they said "If your download doesn’t start after you count to 10 backwards in Roman numerals, please click here." Then, I started wondering… is this the best way to deliver a download to users?

The "automatic download" is rather ubiquitous — nearly all web sites use it. Some questions I wonder about…

What percentage of users get the automatic download? How close to 100% is this number? If it’s far from 100%, should we rethink the approach? For those who do . . .

→ Read More: Automatic downloads and usability]]> I just went to download the latest release of GraffitiCMS (which is rather impressive), when I noticed this on their download page.

Thanks for downloading Graffiti!

We know you’re excited about building your new Graffiti site, but please be patient as your download is being prepared. If you click the link below, you will experience a delay in processing.

If your download doesn’t start after you count to 10 backwards in Roman numerals, please click here.

First, I thought it was interesting that they said "If your download doesn’t start after you count to 10 backwards in Roman numerals, please click here." Then, I started wondering… is this the best way to deliver a download to users?

The "automatic download" is rather ubiquitous — nearly all web sites use it. Some questions I wonder about…

  • What percentage of users get the automatic download? How close to 100% is this number? If it’s far from 100%, should we rethink the approach?
  • For those who do get the automatic download, is it something they are comfortable with? Do they typically respond correctly to the browser’s response ("open/save" prompts, or those silly IE slide-in alert bars that people tend not to see)?
  • For those who don’t get the automatic download, how long does it take them to figure out how to initiate the download manually? What’s the abandon rate?

I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but on the surface, I’d think a better approach (using the GraffitiCMS example above) would be to not have an automatic download. Instead, change the text of the page to the below, and have a big [START DOWNLOAD] button.

Your Graffiti download is ready!

We know you’re excited about building your new Graffiti site. Please click the Start Download link below to get your copy of Graffiti.

[START DOWNLOAD]

I wonder if an approach like that is more useful to users, and has a lower abandon rate than the automatic download approach…

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/05/02/automatic-downloads-and-usability/feed/ 3 Live search’s extra spaces (only for Firefox, of course) http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/26/live-searchs-extra-spaces-only-for-firefox-of-course/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/26/live-searchs-extra-spaces-only-for-firefox-of-course/#comments Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:57:08 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/26/live-searchs-extra-spaces-only-for-firefox-of-course/ Go to http://www.asp.net and do a search to see a nifty AJAXy popup search results box, powered by Live Search and including some advertising (which I deliberately grayed out below). Look closely, and you’ll see the URLs in the search results (circled in red) have spaces where spaces just shouldn’t be. No surprise, this happens Firefox but not in Internet Explorer.

About the only thing missing is a "Best viewed with Internet Explorer" logo, circa 1998. This really inspires me to click the "Get my own Search Box!" for my site — I’d just love this bug to be reflected in my own work, too.

. . .

→ Read More: Live search’s extra spaces (only for Firefox, of course)]]> Go to http://www.asp.net and do a search to see a nifty AJAXy popup search results box, powered by Live Search and including some advertising (which I deliberately grayed out below). Look closely, and you’ll see the URLs in the search results (circled in red) have spaces where spaces just shouldn’t be. No surprise, this happens Firefox but not in Internet Explorer.

About the only thing missing is a "Best viewed with Internet Explorer" logo, circa 1998. This really inspires me to click the "Get my own Search Box!" for my site — I’d just love this bug to be reflected in my own work, too.

image

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/26/live-searchs-extra-spaces-only-for-firefox-of-course/feed/ 0 Usability Week 2008 in New York — anyone going? http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/17/usability-week-2008-in-new-york-anyone-going/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/17/usability-week-2008-in-new-york-anyone-going/#comments Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:54:06 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/17/usability-week-2008-in-new-york-anyone-going/ I just signed up for the Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability conference/tutorial (April 10th 2008), part of the Nielsen Norman Group‘s Usability Week 2008 Conference in New York City.

If anyone’s going and wants to meet up with a native New Yorker ("New Yawker"), drop me a note.

. . .

→ Read More: Usability Week 2008 in New York — anyone going?]]> I just signed up for the Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability conference/tutorial (April 10th 2008), part of the Nielsen Norman Group‘s Usability Week 2008 Conference in New York City.

If anyone’s going and wants to meet up with a native New Yorker ("New Yawker"), drop me a note.

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/17/usability-week-2008-in-new-york-anyone-going/feed/ 0 Quicken, Windows, and WTF is happening? http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/08/quicken-windows-and-wtf-is-happening/ http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/08/quicken-windows-and-wtf-is-happening/#comments Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:44:17 +0000 brian http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/08/quicken-windows-and-wtf-is-happening/ I just installed Quicken 2008 for Windows, and ran it for the first time. Being a Quicken user before, when I got to the following dialog box, I clicked the [Next] button.

 

It’s been eight minutes since I clicked the Next button, and aside from massive hard drive thrashing, nothing is happening. There are no other applications open on my computer, and virtually no utilization reported in Task Manager.

So, can someone please explain WTF Quicken and/or Windows are doing right now?

Ah, by the time I finished writing this blog post, I finally received the "Open Quicken File" dialog box. Based on the initial folder in the dialog box, Quicken looked through my entire hard drive to find a Quicken file. I know this, because the FolderShare trash folder is selected — hardly the expected default folder for Quicken.

Can someone explain to me what brain surgeon at Quicken decided that a feature such as this — with no progress indicator or cancel . . .

→ Read More: Quicken, Windows, and WTF is happening?]]> I just installed Quicken 2008 for Windows, and ran it for the first time. Being a Quicken user before, when I got to the following dialog box, I clicked the [Next] button.

image 

It’s been eight minutes since I clicked the Next button, and aside from massive hard drive thrashing, nothing is happening. There are no other applications open on my computer, and virtually no utilization reported in Task Manager.

So, can someone please explain WTF Quicken and/or Windows are doing right now?

Ah, by the time I finished writing this blog post, I finally received the "Open Quicken File" dialog box. Based on the initial folder in the dialog box, Quicken looked through my entire hard drive to find a Quicken file. I know this, because the FolderShare trash folder is selected — hardly the expected default folder for Quicken.

Can someone explain to me what brain surgeon at Quicken decided that a feature such as this — with no progress indicator or cancel button — was a good one?

]]> http://www.sidesofmarch.com/index.php/archive/2008/03/08/quicken-windows-and-wtf-is-happening/feed/ 0