IE Install Usability
13:04 Sunday, April 26
As a result of a reformat and some issues at work, I have reinstalled Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 several times (not all at once) in the past week. The UX of the actual installs for IE 7 and 8 were quite abysmal.
- Once the install begins, there is no way to cancel it. No cancel button; the "X" button at the upper right corner of the window is grayed out, as is the Close option when you right click it on the taskbar. Suppose if the install gets stuck at some point, (which it did for me) your only option is to end task.
- Most installation executables have a progress bar to show how far along the installation is. The IE 7 and 8 installs have something that they try to pass off as a progress bar. It is a bar alright, but it just keeps showing several green blocks scrolling from left to right, over and over again. It remains like this throughout the entire duration of the installation. And that's the only thing displayed while it's extracting its files or doing whatever it is that it does. Basically, it's the progress bar equivalent of the hourglass.
That's it. Just two things. But they were surprisingly frustrating. Come on, Microsoft, these are some pretty basic concepts that you're forgetting.
