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In research environments we often have to use software with UIs designed by, and subsequently abandoned by engineers. Typically some expensive piece of highly c
by knolan 9y ago
In research environments we often have to use software with UIs designed by, and subsequently abandoned by engineers. Typically some expensive piece of highly complex equipment that only runs on some older version of Windows that every PhD student is expected to use. They're often buggy, resulting in Skinner pigeon troubleshooting workflows to get anything done.
First guilty party to mind is FLIR. Their software is truely awful and since they monopolise the market by buying out everyone else no two cameras behave the same.
Various CAD packages too are a design mess. PTC could learn an lot from Adobe about UI design. Heck, Blender's UI is miles ahead of anything from the big CAD companies for pure productivity, nevermind install size.
Fortunately my primary overpriced USB dongled bit of research equipment is pretty easy to hack. All the data types under the hood are simple text files that I've got python scripts for handling.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoThe worst offenders by far have to be National Instruments, entirely because they loosed LabView upon the world. LabView essentially makes it impossible to make UIs that aren't terrible. Most of the volume controls in these posts are more usable than the best that can be done with LabView.
- knolan 9y agoI've managed to completely block NI from my mind. When I have to use their hardware (which is mostly good) I use pyVISA or the session based interface in Matlab.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoIndustry-specific software is also really bad for this. So is university software. Basically anything where the purchasers never use the software, so there's no real incentive to improve.
- MBCook 9y ago> resulting in Skinner pigeon troubleshooting Oh, that's genius. I'm going to have to use that.