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?
Comments (4) Permalink
November 11th, 2005 at 8:12 PM
I’m glad I’m not the only person who does that.
November 12th, 2005 at 6:42 AM
“Firefox … warns me that I’m closing them all…”
Sounds like you need SessionSaver.
”
SessionSaver restores your browser -exactly- as you left it, every startup, every time. Not even a crash will phase it.
”
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=436
November 14th, 2005 at 12:16 AM
Yeah…that WMP positioning has been annoying the crap out of me too. It’s just made me more cautious with it (and I still use it anyway). It’s a definite design flaw.
November 28th, 2005 at 9:13 AM
Hey Jeremy I did try SessionSaver. I think it’s a cool idea, unfortunately the extra memory/resources needed for it to run successfully with the number of tabs I tend to have open made my PC run like it was swimming through treacle!
Tried it for a week, but uninstalling it now. Firefox does warn me if I try to close the window with outstanding tabs, so that’s good enough for me. The occasional save when Firefox or my PC crashes does not outweigh the crap performance in everyday terms :-\