ArticlesHey Mr. Windows Application Install-Script Developer, can I have a chat with you for a moment?
Did your team have a graphics designer work on the logo? Do you remember how long it took them? Ages, right?
I bet they said the time spent on it would be worth it – that the branding would help make your tool recognisable. They may have talked about how quickly people recognise faces, and that using a logo allows you to use that to your advantage.
Changing topic for a second, have you seen the feature in the Control Panel called “Add or Remove Programs”? Yes! It has been there for a while now, hasn’t it? Windows 95? No, I think you’ll find it even pre-dates that quite a bit. It has been there for a long time; I am sure it is very well known.
I guess uninstalling has to count as a fairly rare operation, doesn’t it? I mean in comparison to, say, launching the application. (If people even bother to uninstall! It seems to me a lot of people just leave old applications lying around on their copious hard-drives.)
So, yeah, anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about was the Start Menu. I notice that, in the Install Script, you create your own Start Menu subfolder, and you put two icons in it – the shortcut for the application (with the pretty logo) and a shortcut for the uninstaller.
When you think about it, the shortcut for the uninstaller is nice-to-have, but it is not really necessary, is it? People probably know how to uninstall the application anyway.
Suppose, just for the sake of argument, we dropped the Uninstall shortcut. Well, then the folder would only have one item in it. We don’t really need a folder then, do we? We could put the application shortcut straight under Programs.
Hey! Look what happens when you do that! Sure, you do save one click starting the application (which is far more common than uninstalling), but there’s a more important usability improvement. That pretty logo of yours actually appears in the Start Menu, where the user can learn to recognise it. Now they don’t need to sift through dozens of identical Application Folder icons, reading each one to find the name of your product – or is it the name of your company in the Start Menu? I can never remember at the moment when I am trying to start your app.
I just thought I would mention that. I am really glad we got a chance to have this chat.
Comment by Alastair on August 20, 2006
I suppose you also want him to stop polluting your desktop and quick-launch toolbar now that the Start menu is a moderately sane place to live?
Comment by Julian on August 24, 2006
Remove application shortcuts from my desktop? Don’t even think about it!
I love the idea of closing all of my carefully layed-out open windows and hunting through a random scattering of dozens of shortcut icons, just so I can launch another tool – especially if it was to help me complete a task on a document I just closed to see the shortcut icons.
Remove them? Surely you are not suggesting that being able to launch an application from the Start Menu (under Program Files), from the Start Menu (under the pinned items), from the Start Menu (under recent applications), from the Start menu (under recent Documents), from My Documents (by double clicking, or from the Context menu), from the Quicklaunch bar, from the Start Menu (Run…), from the Task Manager (Run…), from the Command Line, and from shortcut keys is any more than barely adequate? I need another way!
Comment by Cassie on August 25, 2006
I knew a guy that kept many water bottles in various locations around the house, so that a drink was always available without having to move too far.
How about a quicklaunch/start menu bar on all four sides, so you never have to move the cursor more than half the length of the screen?
Comment by Cassie on August 25, 2006
Like with internet keyboards and such, hardware companies can then launch a new series of monitors, designed specifically for the “quad-bar”: 17.5″, 19.5″, etc.
Comment by Improfane on September 6, 2006
I’ve always found it rather convenient with the uninstaller in the Start menu. Sometimes there are other useful links in the same folder such as a help/manual page and the author/company website.
Perhaps if the icon of each individual folder in the Start menu could be changed to suit the company or application (preferably application), the branding problem you speak of wouldn’t remain. It is frustrating to be hunting for an application in the Start menu only to realise they’ve organised it by company name rather than product, although it is pretty funny when the company has one product.
I admit it isn’t necessary to have the uninstaller there, but the Add/Remove programs interface has always been laggy, this is probably why. It’s also a pain for me to navigate. I can’t use my keyboard to search for applications whereas the Start menu I can.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on September 21, 2006
I thought that is already possible. At least I know I can assign a custom icon to any directory in Win XP Explorer; I assume the directories in the Start Menu are no different.
Comment by Julian on September 22, 2006
Improfane,
I’m embarrassed to say I turned up a few minutes to an appointment because I got sucked into reading the discussion on that Add/Remove Programs dialog. Some baaaad design choices were made there.
Aristotle,
I tried it out. You are absolutely right. Hooray!
So now we just need the graphic designer to produce one more icon-set representing the folder icon with product logo superimposed, and then the installer writer to overwrite the folder’a default logo with the new one.
Does anyone know who’s in charge of the Microsoft Look & Feel Guidelines to propose this change?
[p.s. Welcome back, both of you! We missed you!]