Usability (and the iTunes Upgrade Installer)
I primarily consider myself a User Interface guy. I certainly know my way around the other established tiers of a well architected program (i.e. - data access, logic, etc…), but I most enjoy working on the UI. I think I enjoy working on the UI because I feel that is where the tire hits the road, so to speak. It’s where my user interacts with the software I’ve written. Without a good interface, the user will not be able to take full advantage of the potential of the software (or garner all the compliments 
).
Over the years this has made me keenly aware of flaws in interfaces that I come across. It’s much easier to look at an interface and recognize when it’s bad, because, ideally one will never take notice of a good UI. A good UI will allow you to accomplish the task at hand with little thought of how it needs to be accomplished.
I don’t profess to be an expert on usability but it is forefront on my mind when I design software. Much of what I know comes from Jakob Nielson and I frequently quote him (even though he spells his name with a ‘k’ which I don’t find very usable). To that end, I’ll frequently talk about usability in my regular blog entries.
One of the usability gripes that I wanted to lead off with is a behavioral/interaction problem. Before starting this blog entry I chose to upgrade my version of iTunes. However, over the course of my typing this entry, the iTunes upgrade installer frequently kept switching focus off my current window and to the iTunes installer. One minute I would be typing in my blog and all of a sudden, the iTunes window pops-up and my keystrokes are being sent to iTunes, causing all kinds of unexpected consequences. Thankfully none of those unintended keystrokes cause a problem with the upgrade, but that doesn’t change the fact that it could have or that it was inconvenient having to go back to my mouse, switch back to my blog entry, and continue typing where I had left off. This may sound like just a nuisance but it could have other unintended consequences. Say you are typing your password and suddenly focus shifts to your text editor allowing all your coworkers to discover that your password is “fancypants2″ (not that I’m speaking from experience).
I would urge software developers everywhere to not force focus of a window. Let the user decide where he or she wants their focus. If there were a Bill of Rights for computer users, I would certainly make sure that was in there.
Oh and to cap-off my experience upgrading iTunes; at the conclusion of the upgrade I was asked to reboot my computer. Ugg!