Windows Update Lacking XP
I hadn’t visited Windows Update for a while, so I thought I would swing by and see what updates were available for my Windows 2000 system. It was anything but a swing by.
The first thing I noticed was the new Windows Update interface. In Microsoft’s attempt to cross-brand Windows XP, they’ve redesigned most Web-based Windows services to look like the default Windows theme. I arrive at the site and it asks me if I want to install the newest Windows Update Utility. I agree to install the utility, and then click on the “Scan Now” button. Windows Update proceeds to look for available updates. (So far, nothing has been very different from previous visits.) Within a few seconds, I’m looking at this interface:
“10 critical updates?” Like I said, I hadn’t been there in a while, but 10 critical updates seemed like a lot. Then again, this is Microsoft. I grimace and continue by selecting the “Review and Install Updates” link. Shortly afterwards, I’m looking at this:
“Review and install your updates,” I read to myself. I look below and see a bunch of updates, but oddly each update only has a remove button. “But I thought there were 10 critical updates? Were these 10 critical updates previously installed or did Windows Update automatically select them?”
I’m confused. “Well maybe this red text up at the top will help.” I read the red text. “Huh? My total selected updates include an exclusive item that must be installed separately from other updates? I haven’t even selected anything yet!”
At this point, I consider giving up - until I look to the left and notice the menu:
“So I must be in the highlighted section. But how did I skip the other sections? And what do the numbers by the other sections indicate?”
I select the “Critical Updates and Service Packs” section and am presented with a screen similar to the first screen above, but slightly different. (I would show another screen shot, but it’s just as confusing as the others.) This time, in addition to the remove button, it specifically says which items were selected - whatever that meant - and also included a disabled add button, but I still didn’t know if these were updates already installed on my system or if they were just automatically selected. Finally I click “Remove,” and realized that Windows Update had automatically selected these updates, and I only needed to click “Remove” to deselect them. By discovery, I also was able to figure out that the numbers beside each menu item indicate the number of updates within that section, whether I’ve installed them or not.
I continue to the next menu item, “Windows 2000,” and find nine recommended upates that I could add. I select all nine of the updates. In the next section, “Driver Updates,” there are four updates. (The “Recommended Updates” heading has discreetly disappeared.) I select all four updates.
“So now I can select ‘Review and Install Updates’?” I select it and then see an “Install Now” button. By this point I’m so frustrated that all I want to do is install something and get it over with. I quickly hit “Install Now” and am prompted with an alert telling me that my list of selected updates contains an item that must be installed separately from all other updates.
(Five second pause.)
“Fuck it.” I quickly reach for the close button on Internet Explorer. I then get up from my desk, put on some water for tea, and pick up Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think to find a good quote that I could end this story with.
The point is, when we’re using the Web every question mark adds to our cognitive workload, distracting our attention from the task at hand. The distractions may be slight but they add up, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to throw us.
And as a rule, people don’t like to puzzle over how to do things. The fact that the people who built the site didn’t care enough to make things obvious — and easy — can erode our confidence in the site and its publishers
Microsoft developers, buy Steve Krug’s book. And if you learn one rule of usability, make it Krug’s: Don’t Make Me Think!
- 15 Jul 02
- interface, microsoft, usability, web application, windows
Go back to the top of this entry ↑
Comments
Remember now… Windows Update was designed to make thing simple for the average home user.
TrackBack from LibraryPlanet.com on 24 Jul 02
Congratulations on getting that far… I get to the Install page and in every circumstance the ‘Install Now’ button is disabled!
RoadCog on 20 Sep 02
Right on! Its like you were reading my mind. Consistent with their heritage, the MS programmers who designed the flow of this site considered only their strange, twisted MS perspective, forgetting that the rest of us have better things to do than to ponder different classes of Windows patches. Add this to my paranoia of all things MS, and it adds up to another user who bailed out.
Ed on 27 Oct 02