Amit Agarwal points to the list of most annoying tech products compiled by PC World. I think there are more products that can fit that category, and it is quite possible it will differ on who decide on them.
A lot of people I talk to get annoyed by the computer itself. They do not bother to identify what inside it irritates them, and I do not think it is wrong. Sometimes the webcam is not detected, sometimes the document does not get printed, sometimes the sound does not work or a lot of times the computer just stops responding. A computer is meant to be a single package for the layman, and it gets irritating at times, either because of the software, the hardware, the peripherals or the incompatibility between them. And it is because of the user’s fault, but it is the software’s fault to give unexpected response because of the user’s fault.
Does this mean that we should not build loosely-coupled products? No, I think it means that we need more tolerable products, that can stand more extreme environments and more stupid usage. When not possible the user should be made aware of certain facts and provide an option to work around it. What do you think?
