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Your Program is an Attention Whore

Cheap Microsoft ClipArt by Eric Cass
for CyberNAC

Software development has come a long way in the past two decades. An endless supply of small software publishers have evolved into industry powerhouses by producing innovative products, only to be challenged by a brand new crop of publishers. It seems to me however that now days, a parallel can be drawn between the software industry and mining for minerals; every once in a while you turn out a fine gem, but only after producing a whole lot of waste.

I know it’s not fair, but I’d like to propose a proverb: “There is no such thing as bad software; only bad programmers.” And some, as it turns out, are really, really bad. Clearly some of the blame lays with poor design criteria and mismanagement of the software development cycle, but ultimately the guy hammering out the code deserves some blame for not standing up for common sense.

There is a negative trend in software releases as of late that is worth calling out, one that can only be described as “Attention Whoring”, and it’s as annoying as its real world equivalent. Within the past few years, there seems to be an ever increasing amount of software that, like Britney Spears at a rehab clinic, demands constant attention from its user. Here are (in no particular order) some of the biggest offenders.

McAfee Personal Firewall

McAfee is quite possibly the “Rosie O’Donnell” of attention whoring software. On the surface, the subject matter in question is usually quite serious business. However, McAfee just won’t shut up with it’s nonsense. Now, I’m all for a little precaution, but this program in just a few days can successfully train the user to ignore actual threats through its constant crying wolf. “The program Internet Explorer is requesting access to the Internet. Do you want to allow it?” Gee… do you think I should? While McAfee epitomizes the problem, it does not stand alone in its guilt. In fact, most firewalls are guilty of the same problem.

Lesson: Notify the user of critical events with caution. Complacency is the biggest threat to any systems security.

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft has caught a lot of flack over the years for its lack of security. By choosing to play to the lowest common denominator, Microsoft has decided to design their operating system to people as technically inept as my grandmother and former employers, and it’s security has suffered as a result. Enter Windows Vista. While it’s not perfect by a long shot, most rational people would agree that it’s a vast improvement over its predecessors (except for hard core Linux zealots, but then I did say rational). However, in some areas, they just went way too far.

Now, I do understand the rationale, and the concept is a fair one. Windows User Account Control, or UAC, allows the system to run accounts in a least privileged mode, elevating those privileges only when necessary, and only when explicitly authorized to do so. On the same token, experience has taught me that the majority of problems I’ve dealt with resulted from a miss-configuration, which itself was caused by some moron messing around with stuff they shouldn’t have been messing around with in the first place. UAC helps protect an otherwise secure system from “mad clickers” through sheer annoyance.

Apparently, Microsoft scaled back the number of these alerts dramatically as Vista made its way through the testing process. Regrettably, they didn’t scale it back far enough. And, because it’s an all or nothing deal, turning off UAC also turns off other features, such as IE7’s protected mode. Fine tuning is available, but of course it’s not available in the consumer versions.

Lesson: Repetitive notifications should include both the ability to define a default action, and suspend further notifications.

Yahoo! Messenger

It wasn’t long ago that I found a need to install Yahoo! Messenger. I do most of my business communication via Instant Messaging, and a particular client favored Yahoo, so I adapted. In general, it’s not that bad of a program; It’s clumsy, but it’s functional. Try to shut the program down once. Yahoo has decided to rewrite some of the most basic rules regarding the user interface, and has redefined “Close” as meaning “Minimize to tray”. Yahoo even adds the word “Close” to its “Messenger” menu, which similarly redefines the word.

As it turns out, to actually close the program, you first must “Sign Out”, then “Exit”. Even then, you’ll be awarded with a pop-up demanding confirmation. You’d think that if I make it past the first two successfully, the third should be pretty obvious. This senseless repetition to confirm and reconfirm the most basic tasks is a classic example of attention whoring in software. It’s not like we’re talking about a risk of data loss… it’s a chat program for Pete's sake.

And here again Yahoo isn’t alone. A lot of applications have redefined the close button, and it’s downright annoying. Instead of teaching users to do things correctly, we’ve instead dumbed down the more experienced user base.

Lesson: Don’t redefine the user interface. By doing so, you force us to interact with you far more than necessary in order to adapt to your idiosyncrasies.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Responsible software publishers put out updates for their software to address bugs and security issues. Who could complain about that? However, Adobe takes it to the extreme with their Acrobat Reader product. It seems as if on a nearly daily basis Adobe is releasing another multi-megabyte update, and it’s really annoying.

I’m not certain exactly how Adobe defines their versioning numbers, but if it’s follows common practice, forcing users to update between maintenance builds is excessive, particularly when they don’t address security issues. And if they are all for security reasons, maybe there are bigger issues at stake here. What makes it even worse is that the program is useless until the update process completes or is aborted altogether.

Lesson: Give the users the ability to be involved, but do not force them. Also, be sure to give them the ability to become uninvolved at any time.

Practically Everything from Hewlett Packard

Hewlett Packard

With respect to the release of software products, Hewlett Packard seems to defy all rational logic. For example, the last printer I bought included a driver disc that, byte-for-byte, contains more data than the one included with a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista. It's not unusual for manufacturers of peripheral devices to include extra software designed to enhance the functionality and usability of their product, nearly all of them do. HP however, takes it to the extreme by including every conceivable iteration of software even remotely related to the product in question.

Adding insult to injury is the insistent nature of HP drivers constantly warning us of impending expiration of consumables, perpetual scheduled maintenance, and yet another in a seemingly endless string of paper jams. And if it’s not the drivers, it’s the senseless updating. Most of the “updates” seem to be not for the driver or support software, but rather for the update program itself.

Lesson: There are things that exist at the center of my world. There are also printers. Do not confuse the two.

Others…?

The above five are at the top of my list of attention whoring software, though I’m certain I missed out on some other excellent candidates. If you have a suggestion for the ultimate attention whore software program, speak up and I'll include them on future revisions of this article. Besure to describe the whoring action, and what lesson we can take from it to improve the software we write.

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