Confusing Print Dialogs

Modern com­put­ers are bro­ken. They are too com­plex, they ask too many unnec­es­sary ques­tions, give choice when none is nec­es­sary, and no choice when one needs it. If a cre­ative and smart kid can­not fig­ure out how to print a doc­u­ment pre­pared ear­lier in Microsoft Word, the prob­lem has to be in the design of the interface.

In this instance, the issue is the print dia­log. Asking a user to choose between print­ers that are not con­nected to the machine is just plain stu­pid. The task is to send the doc­u­ment to the printer, not to mem­o­rize the exact name of all print­ing devices that has been installed in the past. If a printer is not avail­able, why even show it?

We still seem to be unable to get the sim­plest ele­ments of inter­face design straight, even in times like these, with com­put­ers becom­ing more and more portable and thus being con­nected (and auto­mat­i­cally con­fig­ured) to many more devices of all kinds. With dia­log win­dows show­ing too much infor­ma­tion, it has to end with clut­ter and confusion.