Apple is so often praised for their human centered design and software, so it amazes me to no end how often Apple’s software is absolutely un-friendly. Here’s a classic example that I encountered today:

(Click to see it enlarged).

“An older version of QuickTime Pro was detected on this machine. If you proceed with this installation you must purchase a new QuickTime Pro key to regain QuickTime Pro functionality.”

[Yes] [No]

This is wrong in so many ways:

• It doesn’t provide any detail of what version it detected, and what version it wants to install.
• There is not any help available regarding this problem (to either a web site or embedded help).
• It isn’t asking a question, yet it prompts for a “yes or no” answer (the dialog is titled “Question”, so maybe that will clear things up!)
• There’s no information as to the cost or benefits. If this isn’t a place for a real advertisement that actually gave some information I don’t know what is!
• It’s not clear if it will uninstall the old version, disable it or….?
• It’s ugly (but most dialogs in Apple’s Windows’ software are ugly and non-standard).

Don’t do this to your customers. Think about the experience of your software. Make sure the user is confident and understands the choices presented, especially when this type of information is presented.

What did I do as a result of seeing this confusing dialog? Hit “No.”