This Is What Happens When You Let Developers Create UI

Guys, the product shown is Wget, which is an import-anything tool on linux (maybe other UNIX) and is uber-geek stuff to begin with. The GUI was designed by a third party as an open source goodie. The command line options had already existed for a long time and the help screen goes on for 3 pages. The sensible thing would have been to split the GUI into tabs but a lot of uber-geeks don’t like tabs at all, so this is what you get.
Of course, this leads to the question of why a GUI at all, since the kind of people who use Wget prefer black screen anyway and don’t see what the problem is with typing in 5 or 10 --options.

Jens, you absolutely rock!

Make more software! This site has never gotten more comments! Jeff owes you man. Ignore most everyone’s comments, except maybe mine, and Foxyshadis’.

Code or die!

You guys obviously haven’t seen the software i work on. Cluttered mess of check boxes and drop downs. AND since it’s a web app, the page reloads everytime you make a change… Good thing only the government uses it

That is pretty funny (or sad) because that does happen so often. I would like to see a Graphic Artists version that gets all the same information (functionality) into the same area though.

I’ve seen worse, too.

One thing that’s often overlooked is that it goes both ways. Designers are writing more and more code: JavaScript, PHP, SQL, etc., and it’s just as bad for programming as this is for UI. In some ways, it’s worse, because if you have good code fronted by bad UI, it can generally be fixed (as a good programmer will decouple the UI from the actual functionality as much as possible), whereas there’s often no saving bad application logic, it has to be scrapped and completely re-written from the ground up.

Oh, well!
Saying “this is what happens when you let developers do ui work” is as invalid as saying “the iraq war is what happens when you give americans a gun”…
Let’s just agree that you should know what you are doing!

are we so bad? damn…

I believe the root of the problem is usually due to the fact that management don’t recognise the difference between a “UI/UE Specialist” and an “application developer”. The latter being more of programming to make the application work not look_and_feel .

To them, a developer is a developer and the job scope includes building the UI.

Actually, I don’t think this is too bad :slight_smile: If the intention is to let the developer do stuff without having to hack config files and isn’t allowed to use a proper command line interface, why not? Of course, letting the average joe loose on something like this is another story.

Actually, if youve ever actually used wget or other variants on GUI interfaces to the command line program; this interface is actually quite good and simple to understand.

What you mac users forget is that sometimes a task is NOT simple and sometimes its easier just having all the options on screen (course it assumes you actually know what your trying to accomplish with an application)… lol

I’m not sure how this could be made any “prettier” without losing usability…

Here’s the same thing, done right:
http://www.hexcat.com/deepvacuum/screenshots/image/main.jpg

Ouch Jeff,

Next time perhaps you should ask yourself about target audience and context of the UI before you offer it up as an example of bad design. As many have already pointed out this is actually well functioning piece of software and the UI meets the purpose of it’s intended audience.

Good UI design isn’t aethetic appeal, thinking that it is is showing a failure to grasp the basic principals behind a UI’s purpose. I’ve used several ‘pretty’ UI’s that I despised simply because it failed to facilitate the intuitive utilization of the underlying program’s functions. Subjective reviews of UI are dangerous, if a design is bad, give objective reasons why the UI fails to accomplish it’s purposes.

I agree with your basic point that developer’s often fudge the UI, but don’t be so quick to assume that all developers fail at good UI :wink: I think Jens did just fine considering the original purpose of the application and his target audience (himself).

P.S. Never, ever complain about free software, because it’s free ;p

Actually, I LIKE that interface !

Software developers are similar in tempermament to artists.
You cannot push them . In addition they are unmaneageable generally in temperment.

James,
Right? Please explain.

It’s painful scrolling up and down through long lists of text in tiny windows.

The original was written by a user to do exactly what he wanted. So it was “right” for at least one person. Since the author is probably representative of his kind (wget users), his interface is probably right for a good many others.

I prefer the original. No mucking around with superfluous mouse activity to satisfy a non-user’s fixation with particular widgets.

@angtOrange: Hm, AFAIK .Net wasn’t even released when that schmoe (me) wrote wgetgui. “Junior” I probably was back then, but a developer??

For my next project, the designer (me) will work closer with the coder (me) and the translator (me) and the user group (me) to create a product that meets the wishes of management (me) and is only then properly advertised by marketing (me) when it is ready to ship by customer support (me).
:wink:
Seriously, some really helpful suggestions here :slight_smile:

Cheers
Jens

Huh ://
What is it? It’s realy horror.

#1054;#1076;#1085;#1086;#1079;#1085;#1072;#1095;#1085;#1099;#1081; #1082;#1086;#1096;#1084;#1072;#1088;.

This is a fantastic UI. If the target audience is your general w-Get for dummies user, they would probably just use internet explorer. If your target audience is your serious p0rn surfer they would probably love the amount of features all crammed into one form.