Some companies overlook the importance of software updaters and regard them instead as dull but necessary utilities undeserving of serious investment. But because they are so integral to the user experience, and because they enable users to upgrade to the latest software versions, software updaters are a savvy investment that users notice, for good and bad.

Design a software updater right and users will upgrade without hesitation, saving you money as previous customer complaints are silenced by appreciated bug fixes and enhancements. The truth is that customers love to upgrade if it’s not too expensive—and not too scary.

Design a software updater wrong and confused customers may delay upgrading as long as possible and may refrain from upgrading altogether, extending the time that those bugs go uncorrected and requested enhancements go seemingly ignored.

Design it terribly wrong and customers will call technical support, adding to your expenses. Soon after, they might stop being customers.

Many people have written to say how much they dislike Adobe Updater. Some dislike how pestering it is, how it always seems to pop up to announce yet another obscure update; others dislike how often it fails to update successfully; and still others deplore how un-Mac-like it is.

Everyone agrees on one point, though: Adobe Updater is confusing.

The confusion likely arises in part from terminology, because Adobe Updater uses multiple terms to refer to similar or identical elements.

In the following progress dialog, shown while Adobe Updater is downloading new updates, note how similar the terms are for product and update:

It is clear these terms are related, but less clear exactly how. Here are a few questions these terms might make confused users ask:

1. Do I really have a “product” named “Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2″?
I don’t remember ever buying or installing that…Checks in Spotlight…Hmm, an alias for “Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2″…chooses Show Original…huh? What’s that? “Setup”. I don’t know what that is? So what’s “Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit 2″?

2. Why is the update named “ExtendScript…” and not “Adobe ExtendScript…”?
Is this not from Adobe?

3. Why is the product named “…Toolkit 2″ but the update is named “Toolkit 2.0.2″?
Am I updating the entire product to 2.0.2, or just a portion of it?

For another confusing term, note the “Cancel…” button in the bottom-right corner. This dialog is shown while downloading multiple updates in succession, so the user might reasonably assume that clicking “Cancel” would cancel everything this dialog does, including deleting any updates downloaded prior to the one currently shown in the dialog.

But that user is about to be confused again, because “Cancel” merely stops the current download and cancels pending downloads; it doesn’t affect already-downloaded updates at all. It should therefore be named “Stop”, rather than “Cancel”.

The Adobe designers were a little confused about this themselves, because here’s what they show when you actually click that Cancel… button:

“Cancel”, which in the progress window clearly meant “stop downloading now“, means something else entirely in this second window, which appears to refer to updates that are supposed to happen in the future. Remember, we’re only downloading now— we’re not updating. This difference might seem slight, but it may be enough to unsettle the confused user while that user is making an important decision whether or not to stop the download.

The terminology doesn’t help, but it’s the introduction of the notion of those future updates—the third radio button—that really complicates things. When the user clicks Cancel… back in the progress dialog, it’s reasonable to expect that the following dialog will ask for a simple confirmation, but it doesn’t. Instead, it introduces a three-way decision that greatly complicates and confuses.

If, as the second radio button says, it’s possible to stop downloading and continue later, why not just leave it at that? That’s all the user wanted, really: please stop downloading now. If the user also wishes to cancel all scheduled updates, that can be handled elsewhere, not right in the middle of an important decision.

Keeping that decision simple keeps the flow simple as well, and makes it far less likely that the user will become confused. If the following dialog really did just ask for confirmation, here’s what it might look like:

Confusing terms and choices like these occur throughout Adobe Updater, lowering the user’s confidence about performing even simple actions. The resulting dissatisfaction calls into question Adobe’s commitment to quality software design—and to its customers. It’s mystifying that Adobe tolerates this, given its well-deserved reputation for world-class software.

But Adobe’s slipshod installer certainly affects their brand. And customers notice.

Sunday, March 16th, 2008, 8:06 pm    Trackback.