I like the concept of automatically updating software applications. However, they way it is done in most applications annoys me.
Case in point, Adobe Acrobat Reader. I click on a PDF file and up comes Acrobat. Somehow while its getting ready to perform its “acrobatics” it deems it necessary to see if my software is up to date. All of a sudden, it becomes very important for me to pay attention to the latest available updates and patches. Never mind the document I was so eager to read.
Alan Cooper said each dialog box is a room and there should a good reason to take the user away to a different room.
So I was on my way to a room to read a document but suddenly this friend of mine, acrobat, pulled me away, hurried me into this other room and started showing me all this cool stuff that he thinks I should download right now.
Ok, not interested right now? No problems. ‘Cancel’ and it will let me go where I was going originally.
Until the next time I want to read a PDF document.
Moral of the story: Checking for updates may be fine upon launching the software, however, confronting the user upon launch is certainly rude.
There are times when the software “punishes” the user by not allowing them to proceed unless they update the software right away. Users of MSN or Yahoo Messengers have experienced this on more than one occasion.
Its like going to a party and being greeted at the door with “we cannot allow you to proceed unless you go home and change your clothes. What you have on does not work anymore.”
Wow! What happened here? No one had even forewarned me this was coming. I cannot play unless I “upgrade”. Never mind, what I set out to do originally, it is not important right now.
Hey Mr. developer, how about letting me know in advance a day or two? Also why not upgrade me when I am shutting down, preferrably in silent mode. I don’t like the sentry at the gate asking me to upgrade.
If there is a critical bug that inadvertently slipped into the program and I must upgrade in order to protect myself from the all things evil, then prehaps I would not mind if you upgraded me, without presenting me with an elaborate Yes, No, Cancel choice and Then told me about it later in an unobtrusive manner.
You can even ink this understanding between us, in writing in that beautiful piece of “agreement” that I accepted before you let me install your application.
Here is a partial list of software programs I know that offend with automatic upgrade suggestions and occasional forced commands:
1. Adobe Acrobat Reader
2. MSN Messenger
3. Yahoo Messenger
4. Azureus BitTorrent client
5. Winamp
6. Konfabulator (used to before yahoo bought it)
7. Dell Updates (Dell’s version of Windows Update Balloon, only bigger and more annoying)
8. iTunes
9. QuickTime
10. iPod Updater Software
11. RealPlayer
12. Norton AntiVirus
13. McAfee AntiVirus
And here is a partial list of software that do not have sentries guarding their launch(I am not saying their mechanism is ideal)
1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Grisoft AVG AntiVirus
3. Windows Media Player
4. Microsoft Windows
5. Any Microsoft Office product
6. Calculator
In the same vein, there are some who would argue, that automatic updates without users explicit permission upon launch are purely evil and big-brotherly (see The Risk of Programs that Update Automatically).
If a software company wants to steal information from you, it is likely that by you simply choosing to acknowledge an update is not going to prevent this.
So it seems that we need a better way to be able to update installed software, make it less obtrusive, keeping users informed of exactly what is being updated here and why it became necessary.
This entry was written by , posted on October 19, 2005 at 11:14 am, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.