The Windows MessageBox is really convenient to use. A single line of code gets you a dialog box with a caption, a message, an icon and a set of available buttons that cover a lot of possible input scenarios. Unfortunately, the text on the buttons is supplied by the system, so if you’re building an application that is intended to be localized, you invariably end up with something that looks like a bug.

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Maybe I’ve just imagined this — created my own straw man to take down — but I’ve sometimes sensed some disparagement of user interface programming. “It’s just UI,” the architect will say. “It’s not like it’s a hard or interesting part of the system.” As I’ve done more and more UI development lately, I’ve had to consider if this is the direction I want my career to go.
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Easy control transparency isn’t exactly a hallmark of Windows Forms. If you have a form with a background image or a gradient, the stock controls paint with a solid background to give a criminally egregious aesthetic.

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Last year I wrote about my dislike for cell phones. Despite that, I actually have one now. Maybe I’ll write more about that at some point, but I was just recently reminded (irony to be revealed later) of a particularly sloppy user experience associated with adding birthdays to contacts and I couldn’t help rant a little.

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I noticed again this morning that Quicken was still unable to download my credit card transactions online. It hasn’t worked since some time in February. The error message said that my PIN or Customer ID was wrong. I know I’ve double-checked the PIN previously, so I figured it must be the user name that was the problem. This led me to think about a few ways that the Quicken user interface is deficient. Read the rest of this entry »