Skip to content
  • About
  • Dev Principles

Sunflower Dojo Design

Design, Coding, and Linux blog by Mehron Kugler

Category: Apps Behaving Badly

I audit applications and websites that I feel have bad design or bad behavior, and explain how to make it better.

When apps behave badly, who’s to blame?

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerJune 24, 2020

As an example: Notepad++ is one of my favorite Windows text editors. I can trust it to restore my previous working session. I use it to quickly open new notes and store information that I need on-demand. I never need to save the data because the application always saves the state correctly. I have been…

Continue Reading

The Frustrations of using Atlassian’s Jira

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerJune 17, 2020

Using Jira is a bit of an alienating and disempowering experience. What gives? The UI regularly lies to me Q: How is it that I don’t have access to something I created?A: I’ve been logged out of the system by their software, but the software has no idea it logged me out. My powers are…

Continue Reading

Windows still doesn’t like competition in its own platform

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerSeptember 18, 2018

Currently on Windows 10 I’m not able to set Firefox as the default browser. This falls into a clever category of “useful bugs” so trivial that it’ll never be fixed. Hey, if the competitor’s product doesn’t register properly in our system, whose fault is that?

Continue Reading

Docker for Windows is a software bully

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerSeptember 18, 2018

I went to install Docker for Windows today. It told me that in order for Docker to work, I had to enable Hyper-V, which would make VirtualBox unusable. So in order for it to “work”, it needs to disable the competition. Convenient. “Hyper-V and Containers features are not enabled. Do you want to enable them…

Continue Reading

Passive-aggressive system notifications disempower users

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerApril 1, 2018

Give users the ability to escape any system notifications, with no strings attached. Notifications should respect users’ freedoms. And no more daily nags!

Continue Reading

Always reveal and document useful functionality

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerMarch 27, 2018

I can operate my Macbook in “closed-shell” mode but I never knew about it until I accidentally shut my laptop with my external monitor plugged in … and my monitor stayed on, to my surprise.

Continue Reading

Provide guides and announcements when removing key product features

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerMarch 13, 2018

Recently the Tables dropdown menu was taken out of Google Docs with no warning, and no user survey was issued to me to discover my work preferences. There’s a better way to make changes.

Continue Reading

Android File Transfer behaves badly

Apps Behaving BadlyMehron KuglerNovember 16, 2016

I plug in my phone to start charging it. The Android File Transfer app auto-starts on my Mac, and moments later, a popup invades my screen and makes me stop whatever I’m doing. “Can’t access device storage,” it says, along with some other noise. It’s time for a redesign.

Continue Reading
Recent Posts
  • Proposal: Return to the static web for blog sites and news
  • The Frustrations of using Atlassian’s Suite, Part II
  • When apps behave badly, who’s to blame?
  • The Frustrations of using Atlassian’s Jira
  • Working full-time remote
Recent Comments
    Archives
    • November 2020
    • September 2020
    • June 2020
    • March 2020
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • January 2018
    • November 2016
    • July 2015
    • May 2015
    • March 2015
    Categories
    • Apps Behaving Badly
    • Coding
    • Design Projects
    • Linux
    • Philosophy
    • Technology
    • Uncategorized
    • User Experience
    • Writing
    Friends of Sunflower Dojo
    • Pirate Cat Labs
    Meta
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

    Copyright © 2023 Sunflower Dojo Design. All Rights Reserved.

    Boston Theme by FameThemes