When I say OFF I mean OFF!

You have used light switches. They all work about the same. You turn them on and the light goes on. You turn them off and the light goes off. Any exception to this is a problem.

If a light is on and several minutes later it goes out by itself, that's a problem. If you turn off the bedroom light and go to sleep and a couple hours later the light turns on by itself, that is a problem.

Yesterday LJ did a "light turned on by itself" bit of stupidity. There is a "navigation bar" that some think is a really neat idea. It was first announced, that I saw, properly in news. It was sensibly defaulted to be OFF. If anyone wanted to try it, they could decide for themselves to turn it on. It wouldn't be a nasty surprise to those who did not want it. This is how things should be: no surprises. The "Principle of Least Surprise" is the basis of good design. I tried it, turning the navigation bar on. After a while I found it more annoying than useful and turned it off. I'll repeat that: I turned it OFF.

Yesterday it switched itself back on. I did not switch it on. Someone in their ever-so-finite wisdom decided that not everyone had been annoyed and so it was switched on for everyone, even those who had specifically turned the damn thing off and bloody well meant it. I didn't realize that had happened right off. No, at first I thought LJ had some glitch that screwed up the user interface. I understand that that does happen from time to time. But today I find this stupidity was a conscious act.

Worse, it was an un-announced commission of stupidity. Well, effectively unannounced. It was not announced in news where people might see it. No, it was announced in, of all places, the thoroughly inappropriate no_lj_ads in this post. Note that comments have been disabled and any comments are referred to other places that seem not to be taking comments on this subject. I find that very telling. While I understand that whoever made this mistake doesn't want to hear about it, whoever it is, needs to hear about it in order to learn and not do something so bone-headed again. Also, as the only place to really send feedback seems to be e-mail, that means that there is no thread that people can see, in one place, just what everyone thinks of this move. Even if there is nothing being hidden, it sure makes it feel like something is being hidden.

Now, in the announcement that might as well have been posted in the basement, in a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, there is the claim that this switch on was done as it couldn't be determined if it had been switched on or not by many. I am wondering why that was even a problem. The system certainly had kept track of my setting until then. The navbar didn't switch on and off randomly on me. But even if I go along with the statement, the Big Mistake was not announcing this move in the proper place - with instructions right there in the announcement for turning the navbar off. I get the distinct impression this is a "developer's pet" that "everybody will love" and "no right-thinking person would ever want to turn off."

Maybe this seems a small issue and you think I should "just relax." If I were convinced that feedback was truly being accepted and that it was being learned from then I might. Instead, I am left to wonder what other idiocies of bad user interface design will be foisted upon me and require my attention to set things to be like I have already set them to be.

PSA: Removing the navigation bar

Take this link: Manage Settings.

Scroll down to Navigation strip display options:

Un-check both selection boxes:

[ ] Always see the navigation strip when you view any journal or community

[ ] Always show the navigation strip to anyone who views your journal or community

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and press the Save Changes button.

And another thing...

It would be good if the navbar obeyed the ?style=mine bit and didn't appear to me on pages I went to from my own journal or friend's list. As it is, it doesn't follow that cue and is quite annoying.

Fixing it so it STAYS fixed.

I am used to using client-side overrides to defeat bad web design since there is so much amazingly rotten web design. In another oddly placed post it is mentioned how to use a user style sheet to completely rid oneself of the irritating navigation bar. I've tried this and it works well. It's annoying that I'll need to copy this bit onto each machine I use, but at least it's possible to make LiveJournal present itself to me as I wish it to.

ADDENDUM: I read a bit fast and overlooked that if one is using S2 styles, as I am, that their is a custom style sheet entry in the settings page that will make ?style=mine do the right thing without needing a client-side style sheet. The client-side style sheet is more universal, so I'm doing that as well.

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Something must've gotten through, almost, as the hidden announcement post now has comments enabled - though all will be screened, so make of that what you may.