Adobe: Is There A Problem Here?: Adobe

Showing posts with label Adobe. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Adobe. Show all posts

20120610

Problem ID: 4852183055465593784
Entered by: Ben Simo

We know nothing

Gary Kemp tweets: Thanks, Flash Installer, for your hugely helpful error message...

20110909

Problem ID: 4345784141305441904
Entered by: Ben Simo

Stab me in the eye

@dithy0101 tweets: That moment in the day when everything goes from "swimmingly" to "stab me in the eye." ... This is when I know it's time to restart computer and hope that it restarts the day. ... I mean, my error message can't even tell me what the heck is going

Hey software developers! Please consider who will be using your software when you write error messages. Unless you are building software development tools, your users aren't likey going to understand things like this -- and if they do, they won't be able to do anything about it.

20110905

Problem ID: 6601389754533295641
Entered by: Ben Simo

When you aren't even using it

@justinhalldsgn tweets: Does anyone else randomly get this Photoshop error when you aren't even using it?

20110901

Problem ID: 1293414026076037925
Entered by: Ben Simo

Processing the appearance of an object

@Racco tweets: such a usefull error message Adobe. thanks

What object? A code object? A GUI object? Some other kind of object?

And, what error occurred while processing this unspecified object?

My 10th grade English teacher often said "There are no such things as things and stuff. Be specific." I'd like to add "object" to "things and stuff".

20110420

Problem ID: 2147666069347144158
Entered by: Ben Simo

How long is the installation time?

Problem ID: 2165894609669818655
Entered by: Ben Simo

How to improve chances that no one will ever read a software license agreement.

After turning on and logging into my computer, an Adobe Flash Player install dialog appears on my screen. The dialog is asking me to read and agree to a license agreement. I click the link to read the license.

Firefox opens beneath the installer dialog. Firefox is not my default browser. Clicking on the Firefox window does not bring it to the foreground.

The installer dialog that states users must "read and agree to the terms" stays on top of all other windows, making it difficult to read any terms.

Also, instead of opening and displaying a single license agreement, Adobe took me to a web page containing dozens of license agreement documents. I not only need to find the application they are installing, I need to find the version.

I check the dialog for an application name and version; then I find it in the list. I notice that the license agreement is a 3.3 megabyte PDF document. A 3.3 MB license agreement!?

I click the appropriate link for the Flash Player that is being upgraded. A new tab opens. I try to drag the Installer dialog out of the way, to see the license agreement, but that only makes things worse.

The computer appears to be having trouble loading and displaying the license agreement. About 10 minutes later, the screen refreshes and an ambiguous error dialog is displayed. "There was a problem reading this document (14)." You don't say?

After clicking away the dialog, I am able to browse through 280 blank pages. I notice the default zoom level for viewing the document: 6238%, but zooming out still reveals only blank pages. Is this license agreement written in invisible ink?

I finally give in and click the check box stating "I have read and agree to the terms" that I could not view.

But wait! There's more.

Now it says Firefox is conflicting with the installer. I did not open Firefox. The Adobe Flash Player Installer opened Firefox.

I close Firefox and wait for the Installer to "automatically continue". Nothing happens.

So, I go into Task Manager and see that the Firefox.exe process is still running. I kill it. (Are non-techie users expected to do this?)

Finally, "Installation complete", over 15 minutes after I turned on my computer.

Now, the Adobe Acrobat Reader wants to install an update.

I do a little investigation and discover that the Adobe Reader Firefox plug-in appears to not be capable of displaying the 280 page license agreement for the Flash Player. The Firefox plug-in on my computer can successfully display other documents -- including large documents. The stand-alone Adobe Reader can display the document, but not the Firefox plug-in.

280 pages!?

20110406

Problem ID: 6635541726128806738
Entered by: Ben Simo

Surprise! You must restart!

I finally give into Adobe Acrobat Reader's requests to install an update. Then after several minutes of installing, it tells me I must restart my computer before using the Reader. Had I known a restart was required, I would not have upgraded at this time.

20100823

Problem ID: 7930990612292587912
Entered by: Ben Simo

All those other errors were jokes. This time it's serious.

@undividual: HEY! It's SERIOUS ERROR time!

20100226

Problem ID: 532048644940274910
Entered by: Ben Simo

Dear Developers

@pikemurdy: Dear Developers, when you create an error message, please help us out and be specific.

20100212

Problem ID: 6042797848968349272
Entered by: Ben Simo

Close Download Manager

The Adobe Download Manager automatically opens after logging into my computer and offers me no options except it. If there are no updates to apply, why did it open?

20100207

Problem ID: 4097121432677530888
Entered by: Ben Simo

Acting out to get attention

"If I leave #Photoshop alone for too long it gets lonely and throws this #error" - @jolyon_russ

Just like a two year old child? ;)

20100205

Problem ID: 1931985911690998256
Entered by: Ben Simo

?

"Wow, that's the most helpful error message I've ever seen :/" - @Mindez

20100131

Problem ID: 1462817150198588414
Entered by: Ben Simo

Locked out for five minutes

@DanielTome: Really annoyed with the user experience of Adobe Online Creative Festival (login image) #ux #login #fail

Locking a user out for logging in when they have an active session is not very friendly. How about asking the user if they want to cancel the old session?

20100130

Problem ID: 6673425543365702978
Entered by: Ben Simo

Does color matter?

Go ahead. Select a location on the map. Don't recognize the map?

The fine folks at Adobe Online Festival are being creative. The water is white and the land is blue. How's that for intuitive?

20100125

Problem ID: 1042517710969060582
Entered by: Ben Simo

Where's the PDF?

When viewing PDF files attached to emails, Round Cube WebMail resizes itself and the PDF viewer to be as small as possible -- an apparent attempt to conserve screen real estate. ;-)

20100122

Problem ID: 6998350413499569878
Entered by: Ben Simo

????????F????????t??????????

Awesome error that I got when trying to print using the 'ADOBE PDF' print option. That's a lot of question marks. - @BayouBengal56

I'm not surprised it can't find that. However, I have to wonder why it is trying to.

Problem ID: 4936381163241936479
Entered by: Ben Simo

Something prevented the text engine

@AllieG: - Photoshop, quit failing. Does anyone know how to deal with this error message?

I don't know what Allie was trying to do, but this doesn't seem to be a very helpful user-facing error message.

20100111

Problem ID: 4191233566740590368
Entered by: Ben Simo

Rollover_Click_Widget.cp

“ahhh, just like #microsoft developers, this is just not helpful:” - @ahmednuaman

This looks like it might be the work of Adobe developers, not Microsoft.... or maybe the combination of the two.

What kind of permission error? Or is the issue that something isn't responding? Not much help for the user here.

20100105

Problem ID: 1174907079109647884
Entered by: Ben Simo

A strange situation

@benjaminaker: Got a funky error message in Adobe After Effects. Simply tried to import an image sequence...

20091227

Problem ID: 1282321303791990625
Entered by: Ben Simo

Not enough disk space to uninstall

“'you don't have enough disk space to uninstall' error message is awesome” - @zeroday

Software testing tools: Heuristics for recognizing problems.

Usability Heuristics

from Jakob Nielsen

• Visibility of system status Visibility of system status: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
• Match between system and the real world Match between system and the real world: The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
• User control and freedom User control and freedom: Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
• Consistency and standards Consistency and standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
• Error prevention Error prevention: Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
• Recognition rather than recall Recognition rather than recall: Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
• Flexibility and efficiency of use Flexibility and efficiency of use: Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
• Aesthetic and minimalist design Aesthetic and minimalist design: Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
• Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
• Help and documentation Help and documentation: Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Consistency Heuristics

from James Bach
and Michael Bolton

-F amiliar Familiar: The product is not consistent with the pattern of any familiar problem.
E xplainable Explainable: The product is explainable.
W orld World: The product is consistent with the real world.
H istory History: The present version of the product is consistent with past versions of it.
I mage Image: The product is consistent with an image that the organization wants to project.
C omparable Products Comparable Products: The product is consistent with comparable systems.
C laims Claims: The product is consistent with what important people say it’s supposed to be.
U ser Expectations User Expectations: The product is consistent with what users want.
P roduct Product: Each element of the product is consistent with comparable elements in the same system.
P urpose Purpose: The product is consistent with its purposes, both explicit and implicit.
S tatutes Statutes: The product is consistent with applicable laws.

FAILURE Heuristics

from Ben Simo

F unctional Functional: The error detecting, reporting, and handling functions properly.
A ppropriate Appropriate: Errors are reported at the appropriate time in an appropriate manner.
I mpact Impact: The impact of the failure is communicated to those impacted.
L og Log: The error is appropriately logged; or not logged.
U ser Interface User Interface: The error is reported in the user interface in terms that the user understands.
R ecovery Recovery: The user is informed of what they need to do to recover from the error.
E motions Emotions: The error handling and reporting has a positive influence on user emotions.

Security Vulnerabilities

the OWASP Top 10

1. Injection Injection: Injection flaws occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without authorization.
2. Broken authentication and session management Broken authentication and session management: Application functions related to authentication and session management are often not implemented correctly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities.
3. Cross-Site Scripting Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): XSS flaws occur whenever an application takes untrusted data and sends it to a web browser without proper validation or escaping. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites.
4. Insecure Direct Object References Insecure Direct Object References: A direct object reference occurs when a developer exposes a reference to an internal implementation object, such as a file, directory, or database key. Without an access control check or other protection, attackers can manipulate these references to gain unauthorized access to data.
5. Security Misconfiguration Security Misconfiguration: Good security requires having a secure configuration defined and deployed for the application, frameworks, application server, web server, database server, and platform. Secure settings should be defined, implemented, and maintained, as defaults are often insecure. Additionally, software should be kept up to date.
6. Sensitive Data Exposure Sensitive Data Exposure: Many web applications do not properly protect sensitive data, such as credit cards, tax IDs, and authentication credentials. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data deserves extra protection such as encryption at rest or in transit, as well as special precautions when exchanged with the browser.
7. Missing Function Level Access Control Missing Function Level Access Control: Most web applications verify function level access rights before making that functionality visible in the UI. However, applications need to perform the same access control checks on the server when each function is accessed. If requests are not verified, attackers will be able to forge requests in order to access functionality without proper authorization.
8. Cross-Site Request Forgery Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF): A CSRF attack forces a logged-on victim’s browser to send a forged HTTP request, including the victim’s session cookie and any other automatically included authentication information, to a vulnerable web application. This allows the attacker to force the victim’s browser to generate requests the vulnerable application thinks are legitimate requests from the victim.
9. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities: Running software components with known vulnerabilities can compromise the vulnerable components and anything those components can access -- undermining defenses.
10. Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards: Using untrusted data, without validation, to determine the destination of redirects and forwards can enable attackers to redirect victims to phisihing or malware sites.