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Submission details

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43 +49/-6 votes
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"Busy" animated cursor in pre-/post-desktop screens not aligned in the middle with text descriptions

Submitted by jepherberich on June 12, 2008 to Aesthetics, Annoyance

Refer to the image attached: where the text that describes the status (of the installation of a Windows udpate, service pack, etc), look carefully at the animated cursor.

When there's only one line of text, the "busy" animated cursor/icon appears to be superset. Fine, I would've liked its center point aligned horizontally with at least the x-height (see 1 below), but whatever, right? Moving on...

Where there's two lines (never seen this screen with more than 2), then the animated cursor/icon is magically aligned to the middle. Great.

If they're super-setting the icon, at least be consistent about it. In most other screens within applications (e.g., Windows Update from within the desktop) where the same "Busy" animation is used, the icon is middle/centered with the text. That makes me think that is the original intent (i.e., horizontally-centered)

I don't think I'm the only one complaining about this. Chris Pirillo also mentions this in his laundry list of UI quirks (see 2 below) even before Vista was released. It royally irks me everything I have an encounter with these screens because it's the small things like this that contribute to the overall impact of Vista's fit and finish, which in turn contributes to the general perception of the UI/UX.

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1 http://www.microsoft.com/typography/graphics/cds.gif
2 http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/24/windows-vista-feedback

while I prefer a horizontally-centered icon, just be consistent. Leave it superset on both if that's the idea

Medium

Low

Not fixed

Discussion (7 comments)

jepherberich wrote on June 12, 2008, 9:44pm

Changed problem description.

lawrencejob wrote on June 12, 2008, 9:49pm

Its flat out ugly having it there. It should be aligned in the center, not as part of the text. Perhaps locating it above the text will help.

tino wrote on June 12, 2008, 11:22pm

Hmm, does look right for me but I'm using 120dpi scaling. so I vote for it.

wojtekmaj wrote on June 13, 2008, 9:46am

This is reeeeally annoying... promote

jepherberich wrote on June 14, 2008, 4:42pm

OK I don't get it. Why do people demote submissions without providing info on why they did so?

rajkosto wrote on June 15, 2008, 1:28pm

a big version of the busy icon on top of the text would be awesome

hydrogen wrote on January 24, 2009, 10:55am

I would prefer having the text right-aligned with the Busy vertically centred between.

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