When I say OFF I mean OFF!

[vakkotaur]

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.

Comments

[borderpilot.livejournal.com]

Just wait until they stick a Google AdSense ad up there. ;)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Sadly, that would not surprise me anymore. LJ once said "no ads, ever" and now there are ads. Recently they renamed "Free" to "Basic" and "Sponsored+" to "Plus" and made it the default new user level. That was at least mentioned in lj_releases though I'm not sure if lj_releases was ever announced in lj_news or lj_announcements where people might have seen it.

[borderpilot.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised they've lasted this long on the Internet without ad revenue. As long as their ads don't penetrate my paid account, I'll be okay.

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

Ug. And given my journal settings+text size, the "configure/remove" link was invisible against the background of the journal, which it inadvertantly(?) overlapped. *grumble* I only found it while trying to c+p something. So any idea that somehow it'll be easy for newbie sorts of people to remove is a falacy.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Though I do remember *somewhere* they announced that they'd be turning the navbar on for people who hadn't already explicitly turned it off.

I had quite explicitly turned it off.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I had it on because I find it useful. However, I had it set to gray rather than their default of black, so I knew something was fishy when it suddenly turned black.

Finding the setting to fix it was not easy. That is indeed buried in a bottom drawer of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory in the basement, and the light was out.

This is a fairly small thing, and I'm not sure it justifies your level of anger, but I agree it is irritating and has been seriously mishandled.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

When I first noticed it, I was merely annoyed. It was the rather hidden "announcement" that allowed no direct feedback that got me angry.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I agree, the announcement location is wrong, and the poster of that announcement has a serious attitude problem. I lashed out at him in his own journal in spite of his attempt to hide, and also sent an appropriately nasty message to feedback. I would have done nothing had you not pointed out the stupid announcement to me. I figured it was just a coding screw up, nothing unusual for anyplace as complex as LJ.