Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  The Bug Hall of Fame (03 Mar 2005) This was an outcome up with which the engineers would not put. A new and "improved" trash can was introduced. When empty, it was the familiar Macintosh trash. But when it was full, magic happened: The engineers just though they were providing users with a "neato" way to tell an empty can from a full one, but to many users, the new appearance suggested a painfully distended belly. Millions of people developed the unnecessary and undesirable habit of immediately emptying the trash as soon as the swelling showed. Drop something in; empty the Trash. Drop something in; empty the Trash. It became unconscious habit. Remember the fellow who dropped the document in the trash by accident? Now, when he saw the trash instantly swell up, he was likely to erase it forever—drop something in; empty the trash—relieving the trash of it's apparent distress, even as another portion of his brain, in very real distress, was yelling, "No! No! No!" Article URL: http://www.asktog.com/Bughouse/BugHallOfFame.html Read 76 more articles from Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: When Good Search Engines Go Bad     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy