A tale of two share registries

Every year around this time, the end of the financial year, I, like others, have to prepare share holding statements of my share portfolio for my accountants and this exercise takes me into close contact with the share registries managing the shares in the listed companies.

There are several registries in Australia and some companies use one while the others use a different one. It is not uncommon for a share holder having to deal with multiple registries.

The two largest ones are the ComputerShare and Link Market Services. Both have the facilities to generate holding statement document but they are vastly different in their implementation and this blog post documents my experience showing how one can be so badly designed to meet user's requirement while other is a joy to use.

Both systems offer several log in facilities to access the holding or holdings. Both allow a user to become a registered user and in so doing can let the user to define the collection of shares of interest. They also offer a user a single holding access to just one share's detail using the share identification number called the SRN and other details.

For people with a large share portfolio it is much more convenient to become a registered user. However as to be revealed, it is not always the case when dealing with ComputerShare.

ComputerShare has longer history than Link Market Services but the latter has a far user-friendly user interface that the former.

ComputerShare once had a very functional, though less colourful, system and had served it well. In that system, one could expand the particular share holding and could then enquire the holding at a particular date right there. Several years' ago, ComputerShare decided the functional system needed freshen up and decided to splatter the web site with eye-candy features and introduced an amateurish help system that is actually an insult to the intelligent of its users. More on this later on.

The eye-candy effect caused minimal changes to how holding details are shown to the user and the shares in the portfolio are listed alphabetically, just like the less colourful previous system. As a comparison to Link Market Services the eye-candy effect has not improved the usability one bit as compared to Link Market Service, speaking from someone with a long history of using both.

However, the most radical change in ComputerShare is in the way of generating holding statement  at a particular date. It is not about relocating the access of a feature from one user-interface to another location that is so unusable but the implementation behind that makes this so frustrating to use.

The 'Export Balance Letter' has the following user-interface design:

to let the user to generate the balance statement. For some strange or mismanagement reason, the designer of this piece of user-interface changes the terminology from 'holding' to 'account' in the 'Select Account'. In the opening statement of this user-interface, the designer is still referring them as holdings. The rest of the web site all uses holding to refer to a particular share holding. 'Select Account' should be corrected to 'Select holding' for consistence.

It is not the eye-candy stuff that makes this piece of user-interface totally unhelpful and unusable. It is what lies behind the combo box for the list of holdings (I will refrain from calling them accounts because they are not) that are irritating (and dare I say any users bar the designer).

This piece of implementation is a prime candidate for the book "Why software sucks". If you drop that combo down, any sane person would expect ComputerShare designer to show the share holdings in alphabetical sort order, just like in the Portfolio page.

But surprisingly or rather shockingly, the order seems to be rather random without seeing the code. In my access, the list box in the combo box shows the companies in the list starting with A, C, W, W, A, C, A, P, A, .... S, L. What kind of sort order is that? I managed to talk with someone from ComputerShare about what kind of collating sequence they are using to generate this. The answer, from someone without much conviction, suggested that it might be the order I acquired the share. Even if that is the case, what good does that sort sequence do to the users?

Having worked with many developers in my life I have never seen something as bizarre as this. It is a sloppy piece of work and how hard it is to add an ORDER BY clause on ASXCode column in your SQL statement?

Needless to say the person I talked with from ComputerShare is rather defensive (a trait I have commonly found in some development companies) giving me all other irrelevant excuses like the software has to work in different countries. I am not inexperience in I18n.

If the caller wanted to solicit user feedback to help them with their design, he had used the wrong tactic. No where in my Facebook (borrowing someone's access) message did I say anything about having the ability to download them to a spreadsheet. And yet, this person kept drumming into me of the ability to download into spreadsheet and that features might take some time. I told him all I wanted was for ComputerShare to list the holdings in the list box in alphabetical order - a much easier undertaking that will bring huge benefit. He certainly has failed the user-requirement solicitation process.

Now let's consider how Link Market Service handles this that makes ComputerShare looking like an amateur. Link does not use the algorithmic way of pulling in the share holding relevant for the registered user. Link allows user to pull in holdings of totally different owners as long as one has the SRN and it also allows user to group these holdings, a useful feature not available in ComputerShare.

Hence in Link, one can have BHP, for example, owned by Albert, Mary, Jack and Tom, each with distinct SRN of course.

In Link, the balance statement is located in the 'Balance History' page which contains a similar user-inferface

Once again it is not what hits your eyes that matter but it is in the implementation of that list box in the combo box for the holdings. Link sorts the holdings alphabetically and a sort order I challenge ComputerShare to show me that is less useful.

Rather than to torture myself with the ComputerShare's illogical sort order when I came to compiling the end of the year holding statement for shares managed by ComputerShare, I did not use my registered log in detail. Instead I used the single holding access which seems irrational. Even with having to provide log in details and entering the CAPTCHA for each holding, it is still the quickest and less stressful way to get the job done. This is still might quicker than to navigate through poorly arranged list of holding in ComputerShare.

Not contented with driving their users crazy with their idiotic design, they try to pretend to provide some 'human' assistance; they introduced the 'Ask Penny' which must be built with a penny as it lacks any form of intelligence or  knowledge. If you can't provide an AI assistance, perhaps a general helpdesk e-mail facility is more useful and more capable of giving that human touch. Their 'Contact us' facility is equally useless because it is share-centric.

In sharp contrast, it is a joy to use Link to compile that end of the year holding statements. Thanks for a job well done.

A bug in Jorte Calendar - Always showing am in the Task popup

This is clearly a bug in Jorte Calendar version 1.5.10 running in Android 4.x.

If you create a Task and assign the start or/and end times as somewhere in the pm, in the brief view, shown here, it always shows am:

Notice the time circled in red.

If one goes ahead and edit this task, the full editing view shows a different story:

The times are clearly defined as in the pm and not in the am. In fact, regardless if one defines the time as am or pm, the brief version dialog box always shows am.

It therefore appears to show that the programmer has failed to parse the times and to choose the am or pm at all! It seems they have left that at the default, which I guess is the am.

While this Calendar app is one of the better ones in the Google Play, its user interface leaves plenty to be desired. For example when defining time, why put the AM/PM selector on the left hand side of the numeral where most others by convention and by standard putting it on the right?

Back to the drawing board and hopefully someone will test it properly and while at it, put the AM/PM selector on the right hand side of the numerals please. Or better still in the locale correct location.

Crazy idea - Razer mouse and cloud

It seems a day goes pass without some one becomes seduced by the cloud - just for something to store things is enough to be called cloud, totally crazy.

Now Razer Mouse has to be registered with its Cloud activation server before its full capability can be used.

I totally agree and sympathise with the author of this post in lambasting the Razer for their crazy unfriendly scheme.

Razer's Ming-Liang Tan's justification is every more questionable:

Instead of having mouse settings limited by the space in onboard memory, Synapse 2.0 allows gamers to now have almost unlimited space for their profiles and macros.

Do they really need unlimited space? Perhaps Razer should publish some survey or statistics to convince doubters. What's wrong with such thing as USB drive. How much memory are you talking about? 16G USB memory drive is as common as mouse attached to machines.

Why not have a SD Card slot into your Razer USB drive that the user can stash their settings into that.

While Razer is free to request their user to register but should not coerce, what I have found the order in the process some what unfriendly and draconian. Accord to Razer

Once registered, Synapse 2.0 works offline and never needs to be online again. So basically, a user creates an account, saves initial settings, and if there's no internet connection, it doesn't matter - settings are saved on the client PC and are not synced to the cloud. Synapse 2.0 works offline. 

If I have bought one of these mice, I will definitely be annoyed - what the hell Razer has a right to demand my e-mail address in order for me to use the full capability of their product. Why should I have to register & activated?

I guess by now their cloud server is full of fake information and disposable e-mail addresses for people just simply eager to dismiss the pest. I do that all the time after all it is a virtual world and honesty has not place.

Perhaps their developers have not considered their users' feelings properly. A much more user- friendly way is to reverse the order of the above mentioned process. That is:

• Let the user on to the settings program - regardless. They are already your customer and you have their money, mind you!
• On saving (I hope Razer has a way to save the settings) offer the user a choice, like all good user caring program does.
• If they choose to register, they have the benefits blah blah blah - do your Razer advertising to convince your user to go your cloud way - but don't coerce.
• Or the user can choose to store the settings locally on their USB drive etc.

I have to say, your current implementation is too draconian - this is the way take it or leave. Not nice and deserves the user's wrath.

No use to defend an indefensibly bad user-interface

I was shown a web application designed to manage project and progress report, a la MS Project minus the Gantt Chart and time lines. I am not a user of any project management software and hence this post is not about its capability, though my shallow knowledge of this topics tells me that it is rather incomplete.

As a software developer with low tolerance of terrible user-interface that only the creator loves, this package has an example that really enrages me into highlighting it here. Consider the following screen capture showing the 'Select All' check box circled in red:

A shaped-eye reader will instinctively spotted something amiss in this diagram; the 'Select All' check box is checked but the other check boxes in that column aren't. Well according to the developer, this is a feature. Let me describe how this 'Select All' check boxes works in this application.

Normally it was not checked and the user can check the relevant row by using the check box which operates in the standard manner.

The minute you click on the 'Select All' check box, it selects all the check boxes in that column. Nothing strange about that and it is the same behavior as in Google's GMail or Hotmail, just to name a few.

However, the user-interface becomes non-intuitive and distorted when you try to de-select all the check boxes by clicking on the 'Select All' check box, which by now has a check mark on it, an operation that comes naturally for all users. In this crazy illogical scheme, the developer literally creates a different class of check box but with the same look and few as the standard ones. A true bastardization of the check box.

When one clicks on the 'Select All' check box the second time, instead of extinguishing the check mark and de-selecting all the check boxes in that column as everyone (bar the developer) expects, this check box maintains the check mark - a kind of one shot check box but not exactly. If you click it in vain attempt to de-select all, it in fact selects all check boxes for you. There is no way to de-select all and the 'Select All' check box is not disabled or grayed out. Because there is no way to uncheck all the check boxes in one operation, experimentation with this 'Select All' check box brings frustration and curses.

The standard check box has a binary state - click it to check and click it to uncheck - and that is the behavior any user expects when one sees a check box and not a distorted one as highlighted.

The developer maintains that it is not a bug but a feature just like so many when cornered into this indefensible situation. I think the developer is wise to read this book and constantly reminding himself that "Your user is not you". In clear vain attempt to defend the indefensibly wrong user-interface, the developer offers this way to extinguish the 'Select All' check mark, which is an other brilliant example of his failure to understand "Your user is not you":

• Uncheck each check box in the column manually
• Then press the update
• The round trip back from the server will clear the 'Select All' check box.

I am surprise that he did not suggest to log out of the application and relog in as that would have done the same job more quickly saving you manually unchecking each check box. Interesting no other users think that this is a brilliant design! My advice: listen to your users as you software is as useful as seen through your users' eyes. Your user is not you or there are more users than developers.

The correction of this distorted user-interface is technically very simple but psychologically difficult as the developer has to admit that it is a bug first; they already have JavaScript code to check each check boxes in the column and it is just a simple process to run the code through to uncheck them. In fact, they expand more efforts in creating this only-creator-loves distorted user interface.

 This software also has another time wastage feature, which clearly has not gone through any user design mock up such as "Paper Prototyping" by Carolyn Snyder.

There is a page where the user has to indicate the progress of each milestone and at which date. The date must be entered by using 3 combo boxes - one for day, month and year as shown here:

This means to enter a date, one needs a minimum of 6 mouse clicks. If the date can be entered via a edit box with an calendar icon to invoke it if necessary, the user could enter the date much more quickly.

But this will require more developer's input validation effort. Since it is already using client side JavaScript, it is not such a big deal with the most difficult task for determining the client's locale.

When you have a dozen or so dates to enter, every saving is a real bonus and the developer should consider redesigning. The current design is really for the benefit of the developer - saving code. In fact, they still need to validate the input. What if someone select 31/04 or 30/02?

Why software sucks - Picasa is another example

I have been a user of Picasa grudgingly since it was first released. While it has many good features and is free, its user interface leaves a lot to be desire imposing a strict rule of operation on their users to the point of being annoying.

The feature that has antagonized many users is the feature that it must scan, in a very intrusive manner, your hard drives for image files to add to the library without user's consent or desire.

There is no shortage of people seeking assistance on how to turn off this annoying feature on the Internet. Perhaps it is a reflection of Google's culture of insatiable thirst to stick their nose into others private information without consent, in this case image files. This undesirable feature still exists despite many protests on the Net in its latest version, version 3.6. It is getting worse now including face recognition.

I have since uninstalled Picasa opting for PhotoScape, another free photo editing software that definitely does not intrude into my hard drive without my instruction.

Many recommendations to fix this undesirable features are superficial and ineffective. Let me show you why. All of them focus in the File Manager and recommend users to mark all drives/folders 'Remove from Picasa' like this:

Notice the folder circle in red as I am about to pick up a JPG file from that folder from Windows Explorer and drop it onto Picasa causing it to flip into edit mode of the file, a very nature and common operation. While the file is being opened in the editor, Picasa nosily scans that folder and its sub-folders recursively looking for images without my consent. A visit to the File Manager confirms such action has taken place as shown below:

Returning to library shows the presence of the images that are picked up in the background despite my instruction that that folder is removed from Picasa. This shows that the recommended remedy does not work. It further shows that Picasa' logic is faulty. The first picture indicates the user wants Picasa to have nothing to do with that folder and yet it can't help itself to nose around that folder and its sub-folders.

Picasa please mind your own business. To Picasa's developers: while you might think that feature is cool and you love that feature. Remember this saying "Your User is Not you".

Turning this ultra intrusive feature off is very simple - just add a check box in your options dialog box to say "Turn on auto scanning of images". If the user selects it (opt-in) Picasa can scan to your heart's content but if the user opt-out of that action, you should honor it.

To show Picasa is not interested in offering you such option, have a look at the dialog box when Picasa is first started up:

Picasa should take a leaf out of the book of Firefox, which politely asks the user if they want Firefox to import favorites from Internet Explorer; no such option is offered to the user. Automatic actions like these belong to the users and not the developers; Firefox and just about all the anti-virus software know that except Picasa.

With Tera Bytes hard drive not uncommon these days, your feature has been demonstrated time and time again to be a total time wastage and not a scalable feature.

Furthermore my experiment above shows the stupidity of such a logic - it is like someone calling a Square Root of 3.5 in a maths library and the program scan through the maths library calling sine, cos, tan, log, etc. every maths functions it can find. Or like opening a document in your editor and it scans and opens all others documents!

This feature really makes Picasa sucks and is definitely a prime candidate for this book.