• Quite (unregistered)

    Bryan has a nanny? What, to change his diapers and help him graduate from sippy-cup?

  • bvs23bkv33 (unregistered)

    "Bryan T. had worked for decades to amass the skills" - he did not develop in those decades mind reading or future prediction? bad boy

  • Me (unregistered)

    The true WTF was the article. I can't figure out what was so bad that Bryan needed to leave.

  • Alex (unregistered)

    I don't get it. So Mgr is an idiot and Submitter is a genius who left disgruntled after receiving too much idiocy. That's pretty much the standard TDWTF story. Fine.

    But what's the 5th Element Little Red Button got to do with it? Idiot Mgr was on a path to understand every button and make every button look like what Idiot Mgr assumed to be the most easily understood form. Everybody in this story is devoted to making subjectively good buttons. Nobody monkey-pressed random buttons. Nothing exploded, nobody sang, nobody removed stones from dead bodies, and not even a single tiny elephant laughed at choking people. I'm confused.

  • Chris (unregistered)

    rein in, as with a horse, not reign in?

  • MiserableOldGit (unregistered)

    So everybody in the project thinks they are a UI designer and management want to launch what is basically a prototype because it looks fine?

    Bah, every project I every worked on.

  • (nodebb)

    A true architect designs buildings. I don't see any of that going on.

    And yes, rein in.

  • (nodebb)

    Standard toolbar components support text, only text + icon or icon only configuration and of course tool tips that come up on hover and allow the user to pick her preferred style. So it seems TRWTF was using non-standard components

  • (nodebb) in reply to Chris

    Or rain in, as with a wet horse.

  • Me (unregistered) in reply to solitario

    Even better, default to text only to make the manager happy and don't tell him the setting can be changed.

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Chris

    Oh please, you can't expect writers to know anything about how English works. That'd be asking too much.

  • Doalwa (unregistered)

    Seems like a regular day at the office to me? The real WTF is the fact that this story got posted in the first place.

  • siciac (unregistered) in reply to Chris

    "rein in, as with a horse, not reign in?"

    Only illiteracy truly reigns.

  • siciac (unregistered) in reply to Alex

    I'm confused.

    It is called The Daily WTF, you just got yours.

  • Friendly_Reminder (unregistered) in reply to siciac

    "Only illiteracy truly reigns."

    or truly rains!

  • (nodebb)

    The "nanny test" is a good first start but if that's all the usability testing you ever do then you're in for an unpleasant surprise when the application ends up in the unforgiving hands of users. Measure twice, cut once.

    Also: yes traffic lights are distinguished by colour, but don't forget that they are also distinguished by position (and in some cases, shape). There are a growing number of jurisdictions where it's actually illegal to present information through colour alone.

    Also: author please explain the red button?

  • Jerepp (unregistered)

    Why do we even have that button?!?

  • eric bloedow (unregistered) in reply to jkshapiro

    in "the 5th element", the Red button made the weapon EXPLODE and kill everyone in the room! if he had only ASKED what it does instead of just PRESSING it... (PS: there was a similar gag in an episode of the cartoon "spiderman and his amazing friends")

  • Wolf (unregistered)

    I have a 3.5" floppy disk attached to my cube wall with a hard drive magnet...

    I wait for the day the "new guy" comes in and comments: Wow, you 3D printed the save icon! That's cool.

    That is when I know it is time to retire. ;)

  • Kashim (unregistered)

    TRWTF: Not having a rapid prototyping system to cement the design of the UI before you actually implement it. There are tons of mock-up programs out there. Start with something functional, but ugly. Then if someone else is going to have the end say-so on how it looks, make them sit with you until you have a valid mock-up, then implement the mock-up. If you fear the "that isn't what the mock-up looked like" then take a video of them looking at the mock-up when you do it. Bad management happens, especially when it comes down to super subjective things like making a UI. You aren't ready to be a software architect unless you know how to properly handle bad management and still get the job done.

  • ZB (unregistered)

    So... there's a button in the application that makes everything explode? I assume?

  • Appalled (unregistered)

    So Silly. The guy should have written in in Access

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to solitario

    "Standard toolbar components support text, only text + icon or icon only..." "...default to text only to make the manager happy "

    +1

    That's what you get for letting an Architect develop the UI rather than ... architecting.

  • Hasse the Great (unregistered) in reply to Wolf

    I have 5 1/4" and 8" floppys on my wall ...

  • siciac (unregistered) in reply to Kashim

    There are tons of mock-up programs out there.

    That's the right answer, but god they're awful. I've never understood how people can produce wireframes without going mad.

  • (nodebb)

    Anyone else not know what a pencil bullet is?

  • Random Reader (unregistered)

    This is the worst feature article in ages. We wanted to know what terrible thing the little red button does! Especially with that image. But there is none. Just whining.

  • Another stupid WTF (unregistered)

    Someone (brillant like me) needs to invent video buttons as obviously text & pictures are rubbish.

    See, with video buttons you can have a little display showing you exactly what is going to happen when you press that button.

    I'm a genius.

    Get to it, underlings, and send me my royalty cheques ASAP.

  • Shteeve (unregistered) in reply to Chris

    Yes, also as in the correct word to use.

  • Guss The Guest (unregistered)

    and even told not to check in his latest bug fixes.

    That sounds very sensible - no timebombs from disgruntled ex-employees.

    A real killer, when handed the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.

    Oh, too late.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Anon

    "That's what you get for letting an Architect develop the UI rather than ... architecting."

    I think you mean "designing buildings" at the end there. That's what an architect does.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Kashim

    And then when the UI is done and everything's looking like it should, that's all the hard work done, right?

  • MiserableOldGit (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    I studied (as a Civil Engineer) on a joint course with Architects. I don't what it was they were supposed to be doing, but not that.

    Your pedantry is valid, though, if we tried to compare the professions an Architect is closer to UI/UX designer, sometimes merged with project manager. A software architect is probably more like an Urban Planner or something, but that just sound so sexy now does it?

  • croias (unregistered)

    I have no idea what I just read.

  • SecondDigitOfPi (unregistered)

    So what I get from this story is: Bryan was hired as a development lead, but refused to take requirements from the project manager & wasn't comfortable working in an agile environment, so the company replaced him with someone who could get the job done & gave him a very generous separation deal.

  • Gummy Gus (unregistered)

    What? Huh? Let's cheerlead a bit for text buttons:

    (1) Everybody knows the meaning of buttons labelled "NEW", "EDIT", "SAVE" and "QUIT". What possible images would be a tenth as unambiguous?
    (2) About 6% of the population is color-blind, so depending on red or green can be disastrous with a significant fraction of the population.

    Also we have no clue who is going to be using this app-- PhD's, average Joe's, children, drooling idiots, or managers, but I redundate.

    Also it seems that Bryan is passing off his hidden punji-traps to the next generation. He could have at the very least documented the possible issues with scalability, security, concurrency, and recovery. Ten minutes, at the most.

  • Paxlofon (unregistered) in reply to Wolf

    My 5-year old wanted to know what "Rewind" meant. Harder when you have nothing that actually uses tapes anymore. Oddly enough she understands "broken record" and "record scratch"

  • JTK (unregistered)

    This looks more like a title in search of a story.

  • Zenith (unregistered) in reply to SecondDigitOfPi

    Well, that triggers me. Don't advertise an architect or lead developer position if some asshat has already made all of the decisions. I didn't build up my skillset to this level to be perpetually stuck under crippling constraints imposed by the retarded. Get out of my way or get lost.

  • C0wboy (unregistered) in reply to Paxlofon

    Vinyl has been a comeback for some time now. Cassette tapes too might if the hipsters get their way.

  • Barf4Eva (unregistered) in reply to Alex

    lol... I like YOUR 5th Element references tho!

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