Sounds like SAP with kind regards,
David Linsin - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: dlin...@gmail.com blog: http://dlinsin.blogspot.com On Apr 14, 2009, at 3:28 PM, anon wrote:
I just listened to 241 about user interfaces and Joe, I think, said that the number one rule for UI design is not to expose the underlying data structure. This got me thinking about some software I use that does exactly that, expose its inner structure, and I would like to nominate it for the worst UI of all time. I wont give details of the software or suppliers because my company is touchy about criticism of it (they spent a lot of money - according to the previous CEO the system had cost $100 M up to the point of deployment) and they wouldn't take kindly to public shaming of them or their suppliers. Everything in this system is a table, actually multiple tables to do even the simplest thing. People in the system are not known by name; but by a long number, I suspect this is a database key. To make matters worse you are not always the same number, it depends what operation you are doing. Similarly projects are numbers, very long ones! To give you an example I will describe effort logging, I could pick any aspect of the system, it is universally bad, but I particularly dislike the effort logging because it is really simple to do effort logging well and this system doesn't, so here goes. 1. You log in, which takes forever, and after many clicks and more waiting you are presented with an empty form for that weeks effort logging. This will have taken at few minutes to get to this empty form! 2. You request what projects you can log to for that week. 3. Wait many seconds whilst a table is filled in with project descriptions that are very short and hence often non-unique, I have two called Theme Management for example, and your number for that project (yes that's correct each person has a different number in each project they are in - actually you need two numbers per project per person). You can't check your numbers, you can't find out more about projects. If you are unsure which project is which you just have to guess. 4. Copy the lines from the first table into a second table (why it doesn't just skip 1 - 4 and open up with the second table filled in is beyond me). This is harder than you might think, since it only shows five lines at a time in each table and you have to scroll to get all the projects - scrolling takes forever (10 seconds per line or thereabouts). There is a shortcut if you want all the projects to be copied to the second table. 5. At this point each project from the first table is split into two, the first line is the hours you get paid for, the second line is the excess hours that you worked that you don't get paid for! These excess hours are called statistical hours. You can possible find statistical hours out for your project but I don't know how nor does anyone I have asked (including the trainers at the 2 hour training course I went on to learn how to fill in the time sheet - yes, really, 2 hours for the time sheet alone). 6. Each day for the first line, paid for line, of each project has to add up to exactly 7.35 hours (that is not 7 hours 35 mins - that is 7 hours and 35 hundredths of an hour) and each entry you make is rounded to two decimal places (don't try anything smart like, 3.33333 hours). I have 16 projects that I log to and have ended up developing a spreadsheet that calculates the values correctly rounded to 2 decimal places to enter in the table for each project. 7. You can put what you like for the statistical hours, second line for each project - they disappear into a black hole anyway. 8. Again this table is limited to five lines and takes about 10 seconds to scroll per line. 5 lines are particularly annoying since there are two lines per project and therefore you can only see 2.5 projects at a time. Would a 6th line have killed them - or for that matter a whole page. 9. After you have filled in all the boxes on the second table you press check. It then tells you if there is a problem, however it doesn't pinpoint the cell that has a problem, just the column that has a problem. The error message is "problem with [date]" - no hint as to what the problem is. If you have a row wrong, say your wrong number for that project, then it lists all columns in the table as in error, i.e. the whole table, but does not tell you which row is wrong. 10. Then you submit the table, when check confirms everything is OK. 11. It comes back listing the time you entered for each day and each project, i.e. the information you just fed in. Only this time it is formatted as a list and not as a table and is particularly difficult to follow. Actually I don't even bother looking at the list any longer - I can't follow it anyway. 12. Assuming that you are happy with the list you hit save. If you have anything wrong at this stage, say you forgot to hit check, step 9, and there is a problem then it bombs and you go back to 1 (do not pass go and do not collect $200). 13. Assuming that save worked, then takes the system about 30 seconds to a minute before you can proceed with the next weeks worth of effort logging. Only rather than give you the next screen it takes you back to the system home screen. So you are right back at point 1 again for the next week - arghhhhhhhh. 14. If you forget any of these steps, e.g. save at 12, or if the system crashes, which it regularly does, then you loose - the lot - go back to 1 and start again. I think almost anyone could have made filling in a time sheet easier! And remember everyone in the company has to do this for each day of each week (even if you are on holiday - and no you can't do your holidays in advance or arrears you are expected to log on from holiday via VPN and complete your time sheet!). Well it was therapeutic for me to describe just how awful the system is; but the question is, can you do worse? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group.To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
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