Un-progress: Let’s make it easy to close programs inadvertently!

Years ago, I recall, it was pretty much universal that when you supplied the keystroke(s) that closed a program, you’d be asked, “Do you really want to close this program?” Then you’d either confirm — with a “Y,” typically — or, if the cancellation had been accidentally, you’d say “No, thanks,” probably with an “N.”

This intelligent design feature was presumably based on what software engineers knew from their own experience: Everyone makes typing errors, so accidental closing are a not-infrequent irritant–and helping to avoid them was sensible and courteous. Moreover, you weren’t exactly slowed down when you did want to cancel. You quickly got used to adding the confirming ”Y” to the closing keystrokes automatically, which added only an unnoticeable sliver of a second to the time necessary to close.  

But somehow that little fail-safe has been eliminated from many programs, thus permitting an annoyance that used to be routinely prevented. That’s a fine example of negative progress in design, a truly dumb and inconsiderate un-improvement — and, inevitably, it seems to have become very common now.  Consider the geniuses at Google, for example, in their photo-handling program Picasa, and the geniuses at Photoshop: All that brainpower doesn’t provide enough thoughtfulness to supply their programs’ ejection seats with a safety switch.  

P.S. For any users who might not wish to supply that confirming keystroke, programs could obviously make that feature optional, thereby satisfying everyone. But to do so would allow customization in a way that would actually accommodate users; and that’s a concept that is ignored with such widespread enthusiasm that it deserves its own post.

Why don’t literary classics have numbered-paragraph versions?

The Bible and Shakespeare have been provided with foolproof systems of citation (chapter and verse, or act, scene and line) — which makes sense, since they’re our greatest sources of literary references and quotations that people may wish to cite or look up.

Still, it’s odd that no one ever seems to have thought of providing paragraph numbers in the margins of literary classics. You wouldn’t want to have these included in every edition, of course. But a standard numbering in scholarly editions would certainly have aided literary criticism and research greatly through all the past centuries. How much easier for all if a writer could give the exact location of what’s being discussed — so that readers would not have to flip through all the pages of a fat Dickens chapter, for example. 

Today, of course, the classics are increasingly available online, so that their text is searchable — but computer text searches still don’t provide the kind of search clarity that paragraph numbering would allow. A Pride and Prejudice critic might have noted that toward the end of Chapter number so-and-so, Elizabeth finds Darcy particularly irritating. To find that area, you’d still have to hunt for “Darcy” through several pages — and even then you might not be sure you’d found the reference. How much handier if a critic could mention that this occurs in Chapter so-and-so, paragraphs 390 and 411-15.

Another quibble with this suggestion might be that paragraphing is not always standard. But in many — probably most — classics, it is, indeed.

Why hasn’t this ever been done? With online texts, it would be relatively easy to add, of course, so that even if not ever adopted in hard copy — or if hard copies become extinct — this practice could be applied online and might help writers and readers in the future.

  

Account numbers — as difficult as possible, yes!

At this point in the computer age, you’d think certain basic conventions regarding account numbers would have been established. For example:

1. Why aren’t more account numbers presented in manageable form — e.g., in groups of four digits, like credit card numbers? That’s a reasonable approach, easy to deal with, and certainly could simplify things when reading account numbers, and especially when providing such numbers orally (see below). So why don’t more organizations divide their numbers this way, at least in what consumers see? Of course, an entity’s computer sytem might group numbers quite differently internally, but why can’t such a human-oriented approach be utilized when feasible, in printing numbers for humans to deal with? Obviously this wouldn’t apply to certain numbers — phone numbers, social security numbers — that already have traditional and manageable groupings. But what about all those other account numbers, so often absurdly long and/or confusingly grouped? More than four or five digits in a row is obviously hard for the eye to sort out. It’s a small irritation, but a frequent, needless and fixable one — and therefore, rather stupidly inconsiderate, no?

2. Since we’ve all been dealing with many numbers for well over half a century now, wouldn’t you think that a convention would have arisen in which, when supplying a number orally — especially on the phone — you would start by saying “In groups of four, it’s–” and then continue with the digits thus grouped (until you explain that you’re giving a final single digit, or two or three). Just wondering.

3. Banks and other check-printing organizations offer an absurd array of design choices to “personalize” your checks (as though that really asserts your individuality). Meanwhile, it has not occurred to even one of such organizations – at least, that I’ve seen — to include a series of small boxes to facilitate the writing and reading of the account number to which a payment should be credited (that is, your account with the utility, credit card company, and so on). Such a line of boxes might fit at the top, above the payor’s name; or perhaps below the line ending with the word “dollars.” In any case, this design feature would obviously promote clarity and tend to prevent payment errors. (Of course, if groups-of-four, as suggested above, ever became an accepted convention, the boxes might be similarly grouped.) You’d think this option is even more important than the chance to include pictures of Labrador retrievers, sailboats, or Disney characters. Why haven’t they taken care of this?  

Why aren’t phone menus ONLINE (duh)?

Most people hate phone menus, for good (and self-evident) reasons. So in this online era, why doesn’t it occur to the people who run help and support to offer their phone menus, in diagram form, on the company’s website? You could be informed of this option as soon as you dialed in. Then, if you happen to be at a computer, such a diagram would help you navigate through phone menu choices much more easily, with much less confusion, wasted time and backtracking. (And of course, such a diagram could also facilitate making the call directly by computer, for those who have such options.) I haven’t seen one company with the common sense to do this — though there must be some who have (?) — but the point is: Why don’t support people ALL know this would be a big help? How can so many not realize how this minor and relatively cost-free aid would be a big help to customers? P.S. While we’re on the subject . . . It’s irritating, patronizing and insulting to hear that “Our options have recently changed,” in the vast majority of cases when that’s obviously a blatantly transparent lie. (Do support people thiink such a repeated lie builds good relations?) Couldn’t the standard phrase at least be, “Listen carefully because some options may have changed”? Of course, that would be to treat customers as though they deserved respect and courtesy.