{"id":2490,"date":"2008-04-11T09:14:28","date_gmt":"2008-04-11T09:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/04\/11\/bad-toasters-and-software\/"},"modified":"2008-04-11T09:14:28","modified_gmt":"2008-04-11T09:14:28","slug":"bad-toasters-and-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/04\/11\/bad-toasters-and-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Toasters and Software"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seth Godin offers a parable about toasters and web sites<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

We recently acquired what might be the worst toaster in the history of the world. It’s pretty fancy and shiny and microprocessor controlled. And it makes toast.<\/p>\n

But here’s what I have to do to use it:<\/p>\n

[list of 10 steps<\/i>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to draw a parallel between the excessive demands of his toaster and paying a $6 bill to EBay, which requires 11 clicks.<\/p>\n

My response: Yes, YES, YES<\/strong>!!! What he said!!<\/p>\n

There are more examples of this than I can count, starting with the dreadful interface of the new Microsoft Office. The academic “content management system” Blackboard is the current bane of my online existence. It requires at least three clicks for even the simplest operation– to change a student’s grade on an assignment, I have to click from the gradebook to a “change grades” page, then click into the right text box to change the grade, then click “OK” at which point I am taken to an otherwise blank page saying “Grade successfully changed.” Thanks so<\/strong> much. I wouldn’t’ve been able to figure that out without a whole new page to inform me of it.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to hone my mouse-clicking skills, I want to make toast<\/s> grade my assignments. Streamline the process, and get the software out of my way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seth Godin offers a parable about toasters and web sites: We recently acquired what might be the worst toaster in the history of the world. It’s pretty fancy and shiny and microprocessor controlled. And it makes toast. But here’s what I have to do to use it: [list of 10 steps] He goes on to… Continue reading Bad Toasters and Software<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}