Web 3.0 and the Widgetized Web

Inconsistency: A User's Dream Come True

Usability is hard work. You actually have to design your product rather than just sitting down and hacking some code together. One of the main principles of good usability is consistency in the user interface. Things that look the same act the same. Buttons only do one thing, they never switch modes and so on. Occasionally, I hear apologists for Microsoft products, and recently Apple products, saying consistency isn't needed. In fact, inconsistency is desirable!

Today, I had the displeasure of using Microsoft's Outlook Web Access in Internet Explorer for the first time. I've been struggling with using Outlook in Firefox on Linux for years but today found myself on a Windows machine with just IE.

My task was really very simple. Or so I thought. I needed to download a PowerPoint file attached to an email a co-worker sent me earlier in the day. Unfortunately, this same person has formatted every mail they send as HTML with an obnoxious company logo in the footer. They haven't figured out how to make Outlook embed that image into the email properly so every message I receive from them has the paperclip attachment icon on it. This bears repeating: every mail they send is marked with attachments just for this silly logo. This turns out to be the least of my worries.
I have two emails both with the paperclip attachment image next to them. I pick the most recent one and don't see any attachment links. That's weird. OK, I'll just right click on the mail. Microsoft loves right clicks, it must be in there. Nope, not there either. Weird, I know there's an attachment in here but how do I get to it? A button on the main toolbar? Nope. Nothing.I search further and find an earlier message on the same subject also with a clippy icon. I right click on that. Nope. I open up the message. Bingo! There's an attachment link along with some dire warnings of viruses.

Let's recap:

Message 1 and 2 both have clippy attachment icons
Message 1 has no attachment download link or virus warnings
Message 2 has both a link and a warning

We know a couple things from this information:

Microsoft knows that the attachment in message 1 is not a virus
They know that the attachment in message 1 is only the silly logo in the footer
They don't know if there's a virus in the PowerPoint file in message 2. They rely on me, the person least qualified to make any valid decision on viruses, to open the file. Of course, they'll blame me if it does contain a virus with something like, "Well didn't you see the virus warning? You double clicked the file". But this isn't about viruses; this is about attachments.

Why on Earth would Microsoft show the clippy icon next to the email when they know that the attachment is a bogus company logo? If you're not going to give me standard attachment features, then don't tell me there's an attachment. All of this was made worse by the fact that I was using this product for the first time. I didn't even know where to expect an attachment download button!

So, user interface designers and Microsoft programmers: a consistent UI is a usable UI. My simple task turned into a 5 to 10 minute ordeal for no good reason. Now I'll go back to using my crippled version of Outlook in Firefox. Thanks for that little kick to the groin too.