The form below is from the Xbox.com website. I was entering a contest to win an Xbox 360 when it launches, and was given this form to register:

Right away, you’ll probably see some of the issues it has. I’ve seen text fields used to get date info before, but usually with some instruction on how to enter the data. Something like (mm/dd/yyyy) for example. Or, if the developer wanted to guarantee the date format, they just used some combo-boxes to select the month and date. So, not knowing how to enter the format, I took a guess:

Apparently, that’s not what they wanted. Looks like they forgot one important thing - if you want info a certain way - SAY SO! Sure, as a developer, I was thinking that entering ‘12′ should work, but I figured if they’re going to let me type ‘december’, let’s see what happens.

Also, how am I supposed to read these Terms of Use? Oh wait, maybe I’m not supposed to.

I don’t claim to be any sort of usability expert, but at least I know enough not to build a form like this.

I got this page when trying to login to my account in the Apple Developer Connection.

Apparently, even though things weren’t working, and I couldn’t log in, there was no error. Glad they let me know.

(I’ve omitted the client’s name in order to protect the not-so-innocent.)

In developing a project for one of our clients, we needed access to some of the .fla files that the client had already created for portions of the site.

Now, sometimes, the source files we get from clients aren’t always put together the best way possible. The client will usually have someone in-house that has used Flash before, and they try their best. You get the swf, and it seems to work out ok. But then, you get the .fla, and about die looking at the contents. I’m sure we’ve all had experience with this before.

When the Library to this particular .fla was opened up, we soon discovered the Greatest Naming Convention Ever! Look how beautifully it was organized. By looking at the name, you can obviously tell what each symbol is without clicking on it. Later on, a convention of “lv-help”+asffe, “lv-help”+qwrea, etc. was established, adding even more clarity to things.

Now, I’m not in the position to be setting standards or anything, but if I could suggest that we all start using this system, the world could be a much, much better place.