by Joelle Steele

Yes, I really do want to know. Who writes the software programs that I use daily? Word, Outlook, QuarkXPress, WordPress, etc. These all appear to be written by people who never use these programs regularly.

Maybe they just don’t care that their programs are such time-wasters due to poor design. These are expensive programs that companies “upgrade” regularly without improving them. In fact, some of them are upgraded and made even more difficult or inefficient to use. If these software designers used these programs, they would know this. But, apparently they don’t, or they don’t care.

I am a one-person business. I’m not a programmer. I’m a user. Every time that I am forced to upgrade because a software manufacturer is no longer going to support the version I have, several things happen, usually simultaneously:

First, some of my other software stops working correctly, even though it ran seamlessly with the new software and both are current versions. A trip to my computer consultant found more than two dozen cases where the new program overwrote files in my other programs. Had to uninstall everything and start from scratch.

Second, things that I don’t want, don’t need, don’t have room for, etc., get installed without giving me an option to not install them, and now, no matter how hard I try, I can’t uninstall them. As a result, I have had to re-set all of my preferences in four programs.

Third, my older work files and research files stop opening when I need them, or I get a message saying they can’t be opened because there is an error or the file is corrupt. Really? It’s not MY error since they opened just fine multiple times before, most only a few days before installing the upgrades.

Fourth, I have to waste my time re-learning where everything is in the upgrade because they have moved everything around – for no apparent reason. This can be anything from putting items in different menus or taking them out of the navigation menu altogether and putting them somewhere else entirely on the page, or making them really tiny and cramped together so that accessing them is difficult and slow.

Fifth, the display of files is changed in Word and Outlook so that it’s bigger and two lines, taking up too much room, and I had to re-do the preferences to access the files through file explorer instead, and that doesn’t really work fully anyway.

Sixth, when I first started my own website in 1992, it took me two weeks to become fluent in HTML code. Easy to learn. Since then I’ve used many web design programs, the latest being Adobe Dreamweaver, and they are all very similar. Easy to switch from one to another effortlessly. But I’ve been using WordPress for almost three years, and it is the worst software ever. I had to hire someone to help me. I want my programs on my computer. I hate working online. WordPress lacks a fluent structure such as an easy-to-use drop-down menu system. No spell checker other than a line under a misspelled word. No search/find/replace function. Difficulty placing images where you really want them to be. Access to HTML code but no split screen to see design and code side-by-side. A design view that looks nothing at all like the published page. And there are sooooo many other issues with this program.

I love my work, but having to work with poorly designed software is really spoiling it for me big time. After all, I do have a life outside of my work, and I’d like to be able to live it rather than having to waste my time spending 30 minutes doing something that shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. Add to that having to pay someone to waste that 25 minutes to help me.

And now, as if things aren’t bad enough, software companies now want to sell you their software yearly and you have to use it online. Slow? I have super fast Internet, and I have two of these types of programs and they are so slow that I am now shopping for something better that is installed on my computer and nowhere else that they can update it without first asking me.

So again, I ask, who is writing today’s software? It’s time they started consulting with people like me who actually use their software before they pawn it off on new users who think things really should take that long to do.