Comments on: Rollouts and websites and redesigns and new versions

By: Roy

Roy — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 00:13:22 +0000

Expat, I have worked for a large German company for almost 30 years so I understand exactly what you mean by their tendency to over-design nearly everything. I am convinced that at headquarters, there is a large multistory building full of engineers. Some are geniuses. Most are average. But a sizable minority are absolute idiots.

As to Yahoo! mail, I don’t use it. I hate web based email for all of the issues described here. I use my ISP mail, and even though its web based version is available, I download it via a pop3 account and Outlook. Yeah, I know. I’m an old curmudgeon who is way behind all of the cool kidz with their smart phones, but it works and has worked for a very long time. (…not to mention it allows me to keep a local archive backup of everything.)

Have I mentioned that I *HATE* webmail?

By: JuliB

JuliB — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 18:22:04 +0000

Patrick – that bit of advice just helped 2 people (maybe more) in addition to Neo.

The gear thingy is something I have on a lot of my android apps for settings, but I managed not to see it.

I switched my mail from slim to moderate – not sure what that does. And then there was a Basic choice too – I was too scared to change that since it said when I hit SAVE it would update the page. I decided to hold off to another day for that one.

By: artfldgr

artfldgr — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:30:32 +0000

Marketing takes over and then forces dilberts to do things that dont work, and all because its new, or they think its new.

i remember one came in and said…
lets make F6 the help key
i said why? everyone knows f1 is help (etc)

oh… well, we are going to set a new standard for the world to follow!!!!

by changing default keys to confuse people?

By: Tesh

Tesh — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:14:34 +0000

Oh, and @Gary, it took me a few days to find my Google Drive spreadsheets after they tucked everything behind that little grid icon. Such a stupid design.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:12:42 +0000

The “hidden options” and “context sensitive” stuff is my biggest complaint with gmail. (Well, after the privacy concerns.) I hate not having those options visible at all times. I don’t mind the clutter because I can plan ahead. I’d rather have that information out in the open than have to guess at how the programming guys plotted it all out.

By: London Trader

London Trader — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 16:25:22 +0000

I feel much the same way about the redesign at Legal Insurrection which looks horrible on IE (which I prefer by default), although nice on Firefox.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:14:04 +0000

Neo – Under Settings (that gear thing in the upper right hand corner) go to Viewing E mail, and then uncheck the Conversations Box. If they hadn’t allowed that to be undone, that was probably it for me and Yahoo e mail.

If anyone figures out how to view multiple e mails, I’d like to hear it. Who in the world at Yahoo thought it would be good to remove those tabs for multiple e mails? When stuff like this redesign happens that is so bad, I always wonder if the people doing it even use their own product.

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 12:51:27 +0000

It isn’t just IT for desktops, smartphones, and web-based software that is messed up. I just bought a new car with a navigation system – and there is no “OFF” button for the radio.

There is a “mute” which is fine except that it will also mute the navigation voice.

Normally, the volume button will control the radio, the navigation voice, and the CD player volumes each seperately depending upon which is being used. However, the mute function will mute all three!

In order to have the radio “off” yet still hear the navigation voice commands I have to do a work around such as play a CD, put it on pause” so that there is no sound and then I can hear the nav voice. If I try to mute the radio or the CD then the Nav voice also mutes!

Whoever designed this needs a frontal lobotomy. It is so crazy it makes me want to drive the car through the dealership window!

So, you’re hearing it here first. If/when I have to sign up for Obamacare and the system is still a nightmare; and you hear in the news that someone threw their PC at the White House – you’ll know it was me!

By: blert

blert — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 06:42:03 +0000

Gary…

They’re in a position to data mine your interests.

That’s where the new money is found.

Such meta data can be sold and re-sold endlessly to ad agencies.

It’s ‘found’ money for Yahoo.

Google did it first, IIRC.

It’s what funds the free browsers out there.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 06:24:34 +0000

Re Hiding the “Log Out” or “Exit” button.

My theory is the longer you’re trapped in Yahoo mail (or some other app), the more ads they can throw at you.