Uh Clem's Admin World

For some reason I pay a lot of attention to the small things in a design.  It bothers me when a GUI does something that doesn't make sense, or is just plain stupid.  For example, have you ever noticed in Notes 8.0.x when you click on a bookmark on the bookmark bar, then click on a second bookmark on the bookmark bar, it doesn't open the second bookmark, it just closes the first bookmark.  You have to click on the second bookmark twice, once to close the first one, and a second time to open the second one.   These kind of silly, stupid, easy-to-fix design flaws shouldn't occur.

On the other hand let me tell you about a good one that I just found.   I just got DirecTV after never had anything but broadcast TV, so I'm a little behind on this stuff.  But the DVR that comes with DirecTV has a really cool little feature that not only is smart, it anticipates human behavior.

Back in the old days of VCR's when I would fast forward past the commercials I would invariably overshoot my mark of where I wanted to resume play.   Well with the DirecTV DVR it actually goes BACK a few seconds as soon as you come off of fast forward.  THAT IS WAY COOL!   I will have to play with it to see if it is really smart and see if it goes further back when you are in double or tripple speed fast forward.  Now THAT would be impressive.

So some of you may be saying, "yeah, that's not news".  Well it's cool, and it's new to me, and these kind of simple little design features should be recognized, because I think all the little stuff makes a big difference in GUI design.

Do you have a favorite "small GUI design" feature that deserves recognition?