Why can’t you remember what I opened last…A tale of amnesia in Windows apps

Why can’t you remember what I opened last…A tale of amnesia in Windows apps

Dec 22

The file open / save dialog box probably gets the least limelight, it’s dismissed as fast as its invoked. However make no mistake the interface specialists probably gave a lot of thought. Microsoft doesnt seem to care to popularize the thought behind how its dialog boxes appear, but Apple does and I have a feeling that that MS simply read and copied from the Apple Interface

The “Apple Human Interface Guidelines” suggest very clearly one commandment, that I particularly like

“A pop-up menu that contains common places a user might save things and Recent Places (the five most recent folders the user opened or saved documents to). Your application specifies the default location, typically one of the predefined folders in the user’s home folder. If the user selects another folder, the dialog should “remember” the user’s selection the next time the dialog appears.”

From the Microsoft User Experience Guidelines ( Now updated for Vista)

Open File (bullet 3)
“For subsequent default folders, use the last folder opened by the user using the program”"

So there you go, the location is remembered fabulously in applications such as “Macromedia Dreamweaver, Editplus” , for every tab opened, the location is remembered when you do a “save as ” or open again. But Homesite developers somehow found this thing un-needed, so they just didn’t implement it. Everytime you open a homesite document on the windows platform and do a “save as” it just seems to forget where I opened/saved the last one, so you go fishing again.

On a sidenote, the windows vista guidelines seem to highlight Microsofts own mistakes historically, one thing that gets a mention is useless reminders like “Dismiss all reminders” in outlook. The new “vista” experience thought seems to be , dont show the users dialogs that have no harm if not responded to instead use balloons. Interesting Microsoft accepting its own mistakes?. The choice of language is amusing as well as to be noted.

 Via Dialog box design Concepts ( Scroll to end) >

Incorrect:
In this example, users don’t need this confirmation because dismissing Outlook reminders as no adverse consequences. This dialog box should never be displayed.