When an example is just too good
I've just got off the phone with my Dad. I'd been talking talking him through the installation and set-up process for DropBox, and came across a rather interesting usability failing.
I should say at this point that DropBox is one of the most useful, and easy-to-use applications I've come across in some time. It enables me to work in the office, and without even thinking about it, know that my files will be waiting for me when I get home. Like all the best technology, it melts into the background and just makes things better.
But the usability failing? That was during the installation process. Having clicked the link to download the file, Dad was presented with a screen of instructions. I confess I was not replicating his actions whilst this was going in, and so was helping 'blind'. Anyway, having downloaded the install file, he told me that he had three windows on the screen, one saying 'Dropbox.exe', one saying 'Do you want to allow changes', and one saying 'Welcome to Dropbox set-up'. Odd, I thought, but assumed he must've already been clicking things to bring up these alert boxes. I told him to click the 'Install' button he could see, but to no avail. When he clicked it, nothing happened. To cut a long story short, the examples on the Dropbox site were realistic enough to completely fool my non-techy Dad into thinking that they'd come from his own computer.
This isn't parental stupidity, as one pixel looks very much like another, no matter where it is on the screen. It is, really, a failure of the author of the page to realise that too realistic an example could actually dupe some users completely. It isn't something I've really thought about before, and until now I'd probably have made the same mistake, but I guarantee that the next time I need to include the same kind of thing on a web page, it'll have 'EXAMPLE' writ large across any mock software boxes!
