(Tomorrow, back to managing projects, people, and teams. But I needed to get this off my chest!)
Friday I wrote about why keeping computers functioning — Windows, Apple, smartphones, etc. — is so hard.
It’s also inexcusable. There’s no reason Windows computers1 should be as failure-prone as they are.2 (Mouse-over the footnotes to see their content if you want; no need to click.)
And it’s (mostly) not Microsoft’s fault, as I noted.
It’s largely the fault of software companies and computer manufacturers.3
Here’s How to Fix It: Ten Commandments
If the ten largest software companies and three or four largest computer makers followed these ten rules, our Windows computers would be much, much more robust. We’d stop getting mad at them, getting work done instead.
If the big guys did it, others would fall into line.
Here’s my list.
- It is my computer, not yours
- Do not put icons on my desktop without asking
- Do not install stuff to manage my computer
- Do not put yourself into the startup sequence without my permission
- Do not nag me about updates – update silently (with my permission)
- Do not require a reboot for updates
- Do not install tag-along software
- Do not offer to reset my home page
- Do not break your own stuff when you upgrade
- Treat your customers as well as you treat your CEO
Here are further thoughts about each of these commandments.
1. Basic principle: It is my computer, not yours
In a sense, this is the only commandment really necessary; the others are glosses on this one.4 Don’t make decisions for me. Don’t work around me. Don’t disrespect me, no matter how inept you believe I am. Some users are exquisitely inept, true… and the industry is making it worse for them, not better, with the stuff they do in the very name of ineptitude-prevention.
2. Do not put icons on my desktop without asking
Dropping icons on the desktop is a minor annoyance; you can remove them, right?5 Except that (a) some people store useful stuff like documents on their desktop, and they can’t easily locate them among the clutter. And (b) some programs keep replacing the icons after you delete them.
- Chrome and McAfee are egregious offenders with respect to the latter point.6 If you set up an account for your child, for example,7 they will keep replacing the icons on her desktop repeatedly after she deletes them!
3. Do not install stuff to manage my computer
This one’s on the computer makers: Toshiba, HP, etc. Sony at one point would sell you a clean computer for an extra $50… and apparently so many people rushed to take them up on it that they dropped the idea!
I’m not speaking just about the extra apps they install, such as AOL trial accounts or browser toolbars (see #4 and #7 in particular). I’ll get to the (unfortunate) reason for those applets below. Installing them alone only takes a bit of disk space, but activating and running them is a killer. These apps slow up your computer, add a lot of time to the turn-on (boot-up) sequence, pop up uninformative messages about updates, try and fail to resolve issues, etc.
If these commandments ever really took hold, we wouldn’t need these apps. We don’t need them today, in fact, but it would be even more obvious.
Here’s the one place you can put an icon on the desktop: Let users launch your diagnostic problem (a) if they have a problem and (b) the built-in Windows diagnostics don’t resolve it. Otherwise, stay the heck off my processor. I paid for it; it’s no longer yours.
4. Do not put yourself into the startup sequence without my permission
Every app that has to run when the computer boots up takes time at the worst possible moment — when you’re waiting for the computer to let you be productive. Windows takes too long to boot already.8
I don’t need “helpers” (Adobe Reader, Microsoft Office) until I need the app. If I want to view a PDF file — which I usually do in PDF Nitro rather than Adobe Reader anyway — I’ll pay the cost at that time to load some Adobe bits. Don’t make me pay for the time before I use it, especially since I may never use it.
For some apps such as unified communications (e.g., instant messaging or receiving calls on your computer), it makes sense to load the requisite software when the computer starts. But ask, don’t assume. Maybe I don’t want Messenger running every moment of my life.
The one exception is antivirus software; it simply has to run from the getgo.
- I just installed Spotify, and it added itself to my startup sequence without asking. So I uninstalled it. I love music, but I don’t love it quite as much as I hate apps that rob me of my time. There are other (legitimate) ways to listen to music.
5. Do not nag me about updates – update silently (with my permission)
Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Windows are outstanding in this regard. Everyone else, learn from them! Chrome in particular deserves kudos because it handles updates to add-on software in the same way. Ask on install if I want updates installed automatically.
- Java is an obvious offender. So is Adobe Acrobat. And it’s not hard to comply with #5 and #4 at the same time. Update when you first load… or better yet, when the user shuts the app down!
6. Do not require a reboot for updates
There are historical reasons why some software can’t be fully updated until the computer reboots. Windows itself is often subject to that problem.9
Windows has a technical excuse. However, the rest of the system is not Windows. There are times when your application is totally absent, just sitting quiescent on the disk. That’s the time to update it.
Also, see #4. If you’re not in the startup sequence, you don’t need to force a reboot; just update when you first load. And if you are in the startup sequence (e.g., antivirus programs), do your update before you run the real code. It’s really not that hard. Really.10
Finally, if you really, really can’t figure it out, then set your updates to occur on the second Monday of every month, and then don’t nag about a reboot. Because Windows itself will update on the second Tuesday, and then reboot for you overnight.11
Incidentally, that Windows behavior is frustrating; no doubt about it. I am not convinced that every monthly update requires a reboot. Microsoft, take a deeper look. Fix it for Windows 8.
- Adobe Reader and McAfee antivirus software just don’t get it. Your software is not more important than the user. There are other offenders, but I believe these two stand out, and not in a good way.
7. Do not install tag-along software
Applets installed by HP, Toshiba, etc.: First, let me address the applets12 that come with your new computer, such as trials of AOL or Tangent games. Almost no one wants these, but I understand why they’re there. (The computer manufacturers get paid to put them there. It’s profit in a cutthroat, commodity business.) Can we compromise? Put them on my computer, even put a (removable) icon on the desktop, but don’t put them in the startup sequence, where they cost time on startup and slow the computer down afterwards forevermore. If you absolutely, positively need to make them runnable, then ask me once, when I’ve had the computer for a day or two, to go through a list and select the ones I want to accept.13 (I’ll bet most people select zero.)
Browser toolbars: I do not want the Yahoo toolbar. I do not want the Bing toolbar. I do not want the Ask or Tell or any other toolbar. Neither do most people. They install them because they get tricked suckered talked into installing them. At least some of the offenders are now asking, but you have to know to spot and uncheck the box hidden among half a dozen installation screens. Again, it’s a paid, necessary-for-profit thing, but how profitable is it to annoy your potential customers? Really?
Not-to-the-purpose software: HP used to install things like photo editors when you loaded the driver for your new HP printer. What on earth does a photo editor have to do with making my printer work? And these drivers were astonishingly huge — which means not only do they take too much time to download, but there’s so much more code that can contain bugs. (And why do we need your photo editor anyway? There are numerous free ones at least as good, if I should want one. And I do want one. But I want to choose the one I use!)
8. Do not offer to reset my home page
Need I say anything more about this?
9. Do not break your own stuff when you upgrade
It’s called backwards compatibility. If it used to work, it should still work.
Microsoft offers examples of the good and the bad. Bad: They updated one of their programming languages (Visual Basic), and a lot of programs no longer worked. Good (or at least not-so-bad): When they added the ribbon (that thing across the top of Word 2007, for example) to Office, they also did their best to be sure that all of the old key combinations worked.14
Backwards compatibility isn’t always possible. Some advances totally break the old mold. After all, we’re not still using DOS… or punchcards.15
10. Treat your customers as well as you treat your CEO
If your CEO’s computer breaks, the IT team falls all over itself to fix it. If she wants to use an iPad on your Windows network, you connect it.
The CEO gets all sorts of perks, special treatment, and downright fawning. Yet he can’t make his money without customers. If he thinks “maximizing shareholder value” is the correct end-goal, then he must remember that in the long term shareholders will abandon him when they sense customers are abandoning his company’s products.
What your customers want is simple. They want a system that works, that lets them get work (or play) done, that doesn’t make them jump through hoops, that stays as stable as possible even in the face of an unfathomable number of possible configurations and combinations of hardware and software.
It’s not as hard as you make it.
Get out of their way.
If the software companies and computer makers got these ten commandments right, or even mostly right, our computers would work a lot better than they do. One of the major causes of issues is the unexpected, unpredictable interaction among all of these programs. If we get rid of all of these pieces that have no need to be running, that shouldn’t be running by default, that take the user by surprise, our experience as users will be vastly improved.
I’m a relatively savvy user. I know how to dispense with most of the applets.16 17 I know how to turn off browser toolbars. I know what not to install. And yet the issues I have noted here cause significant pain in my computing life.
The collective pain it causes for a broad spectrum of users is huge. It’s unnecessary. And it’s contemptuous of all of us.
I help other people with their computers.18 I know how hard it is for them to deal with this stuff. It’s frustrating to them (and to me in loco geek-entis). It takes inordinate amounts of time out of their days. And it’s mostly preventable.
Please, computer and software makers, consider these commandments.
And in return, here’s a commandment for the users.
The 11th Commandment
The 11th commandment is for you, the user.
11. Turn on automatic Windows updating and keep your antivirus software current
There are antivirus programs that quietly get the job done, don’t require updates that need you, the user, to take action, and don’t nag you.19 Get one, install it, and use it along with Windows updating to keep your computer current and as safe as possible. (Remember that even the best antivirus systems can be defeated by user failures, such as clicking on spam.)
Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant on like this, but it’s frustrating watching users struggle — watching the industry struggle — and knowing that there is a potential solution. The industry needs to delight the users.
The industry cannot continue to go all Ernestine-the-Operator on its customers. In Lily Tomlin’s famous phrase, “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”
The Phone Company. Remember them?
In 20 years, will we think about the computer industry the same way?