Bad Design Showcase




WMP Annoyance

Originally uploaded by meriwilliams.

This is my bad design showcase for the day. I originally noticed this months ago and took the screenshot — I quite honestly haven’t used Windows Media Player since then, just because it annoyed me so much.

What is the problem, I hear you ask? Well, if you look at the screenshot, you’re seeing the top right-hand corner of my screen. There’s a Firefox window in the background, with a Windows Media Player window in front (the blue bit).

The issue is that the WMP window’s close icon is not in the right place when it is in default mode. “Just maximise it!”, I hear you shout! I think the point is that unlike other applications, WMP when unmaximised takes up a strange amount of the screen — it’s toolbar is close to the top, but not in the normal position.

The net effect is that every time I try to close down WMP, I in fact hit whatever is behind it! With Firefox I at least usually have a hundred tabs open, so it warns me that I’m closing them all and so isn’t too disastrous, but often enough it’s been something important.

What designs really annoy you?