Information Design III:

Have you ever been “The target of an invocation” before?

As you know, I’m currently working on a software implementation for Girl Scouts of the USA. This software is know as Personify and represents one of the worst examples of interface design I’ve yet encountered. I thought I’d showcase one of the error messages the software returns as an example. I’ve included this example under the subject of emotional design, as it serves to increase feelings of anger and frustration in our users. As you can see, the message is non-descriptive, offering no explanatory feedback to help the user avoid actions that trigger the error message in the future. By the way, when users receive this message, the only thing they can do is shut down the application and restart Personify.

Wait... I can't include a screenshot of the error message because Blogger won't let me upload the image. I keep getting an error message. Very frustrating! Maybe the site designers should read Astletner's article and debug their software!