Examples of brain dead software design

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#3385467 19-Jun-2025 10:55

I think this wins certainly is amongst the 'best' (worst) design in this whole thread.

New depths of web design sadism - Forcing users to navigate through this bloody awful gui to enter a birth date! There is no freeform input allowed!

Took me a minute or two, but I believe if you absolutely know what you're doing - This is the fastest way to enter your birthday:

You have to click field.
Click year.
Click back.
Click year range.
Click back.
Click your birthday decade range.
Click your year.
Click your month.
Click your date.

9 clicks. For something you absolutely should be able to just tap into your number pad!!
And this is a freaking medical patients portal. It took me a minute to work it out, they expect geriatric patients to figure this out?

Wow.

Myindici.co.nz web developers, I do not know you from Adam, but I really do not like your work ethic if this was somehow allowed into a PROD design for catering to the absolutely widest range of potential customers. I need to book an appointment to see my doctors. Your customers are nearly certainly sick or hurt as well! Further diminishing their capability to jump through hoops!

Just wow.

Edit: it gets better! When you click 'Register' you're presented with a pop-up saying 'You're registered, you can only book visits for now, show your ID to be able to see more'
And then takes you back to the cleared registered form! If you weren't paying attention or are easily confused (again... patients for a Doctors here) you could easily register again!

And the icing on the cake..

YOU CANNOT ACTUALLY ENTER THE SITE!! NOTHING HERE ALLOWS YOU TO LOG IN!!??

And no prompt/notes to advise you: 'you will get an email with more instructions' or anything helpful!

I have never come across such a piss poor registration page. Seriously. The devs should be ashamed of themselves! If you're on here - Please please make this make sense??

Behodar

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#3385470 19-Jun-2025 11:03

Argh. Especially when you consider that <input type="date"> is a tiny bit of code and provides a better experience.

Behodar

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#3385531 19-Jun-2025 13:08

Word's taskbar icon just started flashing orange. Apparently it just had to let me know that the document I opened two days ago is read-only, and that I can click on this particular button if I want to edit it.

Rikkitic

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#3385540 19-Jun-2025 13:40

My experience with Windows 11 so far is convincing me that the entire OS is brain dead. Keyboard navigation that has worked perfectly well in every other version of Windows has become intermittent and unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it works a little, sometimes it doesn't work at all. I have friends who are being driven crazy by their inability to turn off the MSN popups. Media Player disappears important buttons when they happen to get placed on a background of the same colour and of course there are no user inputs to remedy this. How, after all these years, Microsoft can keep introducing these kinds of petty stupidities in new versions of its software is simply unfathomable. Do they have a department that dreams up this kind of stuff on purpose?

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Behodar

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#3385541 19-Jun-2025 13:46

Two days ago I found that one of the three Windows apps I still use is open source and I successfully compiled a Mac version of it. That leaves two, and given that they're both for manipulating video files I suspect that both can be replaced with FFmpeg, and I just need to stop being lazy and figure out how to do it.

Now that I'm almost off Windows after 22 years, it's time to see what's involved with getting off MacOS given how buggy and annoying it's become in recent years... (but still less annoying than Windows!). It'll probably take another 22 years to get that all done (although Apple's said that this year's OS is going to be the last version compatible with my machine, which might push me to do something).

KiwiSurfer

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#3385589 19-Jun-2025 17:44

Rikkitic:

My experience with Windows 11 so far is convincing me that the entire OS is brain dead. Keyboard navigation that has worked perfectly well in every other version of Windows has become intermittent and unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it works a little, sometimes it doesn't work at all. I have friends who are being driven crazy by their inability to turn off the MSN popups. Media Player disappears important buttons when they happen to get placed on a background of the same colour and of course there are no user inputs to remedy this. How, after all these years, Microsoft can keep introducing these kinds of petty stupidities in new versions of its software is simply unfathomable. Do they have a department that dreams up this kind of stuff on purpose?

I use Windows 11 across several devices (both work-managed and personal-managed) and keyboard navigation seems to work fine across all of these. Is it app specific or Windows keyboard navigations? Modern apps have dropped some support for keyboard navigation so could be that rather than Windows itself.

MSN popups? Can you explain. Never heard of this and I use Windows 11 daily. My work machine is pretty clean as the IT dept seems to have disabled a lot of the extra crap -- but I also dont see any MSN stuff on my personal machines which unfourtently did have some crap which was easily removed.

Windows Media Player has been useless for 20+ years, it's only just gotten even worse than it was. Just install a proper media player like VLC. (Another plus is VLC is pretty much everywhere -- I also use VLC on Linux, Android TV, etc).

Rikkitic

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#3385595 19-Jun-2025 19:50

KiwiSurfer:

I use Windows 11 across several devices (both work-managed and personal-managed) and keyboard navigation seems to work fine across all of these. Is it app specific or Windows keyboard navigations? Modern apps have dropped some support for keyboard navigation so could be that rather than Windows itself.

MSN popups? Can you explain. Never heard of this and I use Windows 11 daily. My work machine is pretty clean as the IT dept seems to have disabled a lot of the extra crap -- but I also dont see any MSN stuff on my personal machines which unfourtently did have some crap which was easily removed.

Windows Media Player has been useless for 20+ years, it's only just gotten even worse than it was. Just install a proper media player like VLC. (Another plus is VLC is pretty much everywhere -- I also use VLC on Linux, Android TV, etc).

I have been having keyboard problems across different apps on two of the HP Elitebook laptops that were sold here on Geekzone a few weeks ago. Both came with identical Win 11 installations. These are the only examples of Win 11 that I have at this time. I have never had this keyboard issue before on any other Windows version. The problem is when I try to navigate up and down the vertical scrollbar I sometimes don't get any response using the arrow key, which is how I am used to working. I know I have to click inside the window to change the focus but that doesn't work either. It seems somewhat random. Sometimes it does work. Other times not. Sometimes only partially.

The ridiculously miniscule scroll bar doesn't help either. When the keyboard doesn't respond I have to use the trackpad to scroll. I know I can change the default width of the scrollbar but I still have to click on it once before it expands and that is always like threading a needle. It is a stupid, irritating, unnecessary, user unfriendly crap design intended to satisfy someone's minimalist design fetish. It is a typical Windows annoyance, just like all the other ones that have plagued users from the days of Windows 3.2.

Not sure what the proper designation of the popups is. I thought they were MSN. I don't have them on my machines because I disabled widgets and ran a debloat script through it. The popups are a problem a friend has been complaining about. They look like MSN newsfeeds but also ads and all kinds of other crap that keeps blocking whatever he is working on. I wasn't sure where they were coming from so didn't touch them but my friend would sure like them gone. He is using the Brave browser, not Edge.

Agree completely about media player. I have personally never liked VLC but I do use MPC-HC, which has a nice clean interface and plenty of added control in the background. I am going to install it for them the next time I see them. They are not technical and I don't trust them to do it themselves.

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SepticSceptic

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#3385622 19-Jun-2025 22:46

TinyTim:

SepticSceptic:

We've changed to a new payroll system. ADP.,

All the dates for leave etc are US centric. FFS, can't they even make an attempt to use the OS's locale.

Is it 06/09 or 09/06 ?. Added feedback to the so called feedback button.

No doubt just be tumble weeds.

Might yet figure out a way to screw some sick leave entitlements up, and then blame the stupid US centric dates for the confusion

Does ADP even do compliant NZ payroll? They didn't when we were looking for a new payroll system a couple of years ago. (I assume you'/re in NZ.)

Not too sure re NZ compliance, but was a global decision.

Yes, NZ.

cddt

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#3385787 20-Jun-2025 15:30

Rikkitic:

The problem is when I try to navigate up and down the vertical scrollbar I sometimes don't get any response using the arrow key, which is how I am used to working. I know I have to click inside the window to change the focus but that doesn't work either. It seems somewhat random. Sometimes it does work. Other times not. Sometimes only partially.

Is this within the browser? It sounds like "caret browsing", which I agree is incredibly frustrating. I've found it enabled by default sometimes.

You can disable it within Firefox by disabling the setting: "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages".

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#3385966 21-Jun-2025 14:09

cddt:

Is this within the browser? It sounds like "caret browsing", which I agree is incredibly frustrating. I've found it enabled by default sometimes.

You can disable it within Firefox by disabling the setting: "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages".

I hadn't thought of that. It certainly acts like it but I have checked carefully and it doesn't seem to be enabled. If I press F7 it toggles as normal.

I acquired the laptops as a hobby and am not using them regularly. I just play with them from time to time so this isn't a major issue for me but I would like to understand what is causing it. If I find out I will report it here.

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Behodar

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#3385967 21-Jun-2025 14:11

Booking.com's confirmation email which only shows the postal address, not the physical address, of the accommodation.

cddt

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#3386264 23-Jun-2025 09:28

Windows 11 (work PC).

"Extract all..." to decompress an archive which contains exactly one text file. Somehow Windows is now interpreting the single text file as separate files per line, so it's choking on "copying 55,328,519 items".

Absolutely crazy how far this OS has regressed.

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Behodar

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#3386268 23-Jun-2025 09:50

I think the initial Zip support came along in Windows XP, and as far as I can tell they've never attempted to finish it off since then. For example, drag a text file from a Zip file into a Notepad window and nothing happens. Drag a new file into an existing Zip and it takes an age (I suspect it's internally unzipping the entire thing and then creating a new archive).

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#3386270 23-Jun-2025 10:00

First they splash dash to meet unrealistic internal demands and produce an absolute turkey, then they get roasted by customers and go back a few times and eventually come up with something fairly decent. This happened with 98 and Vista and others. The final version of Vista was actually pretty good. Seven was excellent. Then of course they came up with Eight.

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ANglEAUT

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#3386272 23-Jun-2025 10:04

Behodar: ... and as far as I can tell they've never attempted to finish it off since then. ...

I'll put this on record here: Trust Microsoft to implement new features & implement them poorly. They give you the tools to complete only the most basic functions and even then it's a struggle. To get the job done correctly, you simply have to rely on 3rd party software. Doesn't matter if it's this simply ZIP function or reading BIOS info directly from within the OS or displaying an IP address in your network settings or Exchange or M365 backups.

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