I'd like to nominate the following user interface for a "UI of Shame" award.

This dialog is shown in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to "aid" in selection of a series of folders, in particular to specify the locations for "Find in Files" search functionality (the dialog is barely changed from VS 2003).

Here's the list of things not to duplicate in your own UI (with some suggestions for improvement below):

• The help text at the top really isn't helpful and uses the phrase "search" folder three times. The actual term "Search Folder" appears only in the text of the help and the dialog caption, nowhere else.
• Common user directories (such as My Documents) are not available since this is a custom dialog in the folder browser.
• No way to specify a UNC style path (\\server\mynetworkcode).
• Non-standard folder browsing. The folder browser reminds me of the VBX control available for VB3!
• Long directory paths are easily truncated and require scrolling to see the entire path (on both selected and the available).
• The dialog is not resizable (see previous point as to why this would be useful)
• The folder browser is not a tree, even though that's the 95% case in Windows UIs (and Visual Studio UI)
• The up and down buttons aren't the same visual style as the other buttons on the dialog.
• Available folders is blue? It's not a hyperlink.
• Awkward layout of controls � selected folders list box is aligned with the top of the directory path, but then with the bottom of the group box
• The "<" arrow doesn't really make sense, as the list doesn't move from one list to the other. I understand it, but it's not great.
• A double-click on the available folder list drills down into the sub folder, even though a double-click is usually a "add this" in a UI like this. But because this is a non-standard folder UI, double-click would have two typical meanings.

Improvements:

• Reword the help text at the top to eliminate redundancy with th dialog caption.
• Try to eliminate the need for help text by improving the overall flow of the UI. If it was made more logical, I'd suggest the text could be eliminated entirely. Part of the problem is that the Folder Set functionality is the first thing the user encounters, which makes it more confusing. This is probably the least common task (although a useful feature which I don't use that often and prefer to just use the most recently used lists and built in ones �)
• Make the dialog resizable
• Use the standard folder browser controls at a sufficient reasonable width.
• Show the list of selected directories in a wider list. Consider below the directory list if necessary.
• Label the add > button, and the other < button really should be a delete.
• Reduce the amount of mouse travel if possible. Again, probably having the standard tree style directory browser would help.
• Line up controls more naturally. Consider alternate layout so that the group box around Available Folders isn't needed.
• Add a tool-tip over long directory names.
• Available folder address bar should be wider. Developers tend to paste addresses directly into places and it's nice to see more of what has been pasted.

What else would you change (or what else do you like)? Any examples of something like this but a lot better that you'd recommend Microsoft consider?

I continue to post these types of UI reviews, hoping that someone can benefit from seeing some analysis of user interfaces--both with crticicisms and improvements--and just maybe improving software applications and designs in the process.