Some UI Truths that Should be Self-Evident but aren’t (#tiny-rant)

I’ve honestly forgotten how many different UI frameworks I’ve had to learn and work with in my career over the course of at least 5 operating systems/environments, including the Web. Over the course of my dev career, computer user interfaces (UIs) have evolved significantly over that time. In the end though, text-boxes are still text-boxes, pop-up menus are still pop-up menus, forms behave like forms, etc. Some of the eye-candy is sexier (the first time I saw parallax scrolling my jaw dropped), but over time, some of the old has been borrowed, some new has been injected, and we’ve arrived at this juncture.

Regardless of that evolution, there are still some things that application developers get dreadfully wrong. Here is a partial list of UI faux-pas that are easily correctable:

• Modal pop-ups when I first visit a page or when I load the app. I don’t care if it’s a web-page or an application, if I already know what I want to do and I load your app or your page and the first thing I have to do is click away some non-critical superfluous marketing bullshit message, I’m cursing the developers under my breath. Now don’t get me wrong, I realize there are laws in the EU which cause websites to insist on a cookies warning or notification on my first visit, but I have sort of made peace with that. My annoyance derives from when I’m in a hurry or I don’t want to be further distracted from my task and I want to get straight to the functionality, and I get a some annoying pop-up that’s…