Let me go out!

In some programs there is no possibility of easy exit from them. Initially, this seems to be an interface design error, but it seems that the creators of some programs simply believe that exiting the program is an optional and harmful possibility.

Indeed, why give such a tool to the user? He is stupid, he will come out unintentionally, and then he will get lost and will not return to the program. Therefore, you need to lock the user inside it, and if he wants to go out - then let him first suffer the pain so that it does not happen.

Under the cut there is some reasoning about why an easy exit function from the program is necessary at this stage of software development, and a demonstration of a bad approach using the example of Skype for Android and Dr. Web for Windows.

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In an ideal world, the exit function could be discarded. But in the real world, programs don't work for free, but they eat resources. This is especially noticeable on mobile devices, when a non-optimal code begins to devour a battery with a wild appetite.

Take, for example, Skype for Android. He quickly eats the battery, moreover, when you communicate through the computer, the phone constantly “gurgles”, signaling that a new message has arrived. Naturally, this is all annoying and I want to get out of this program as soon as possible as soon as it is no longer needed. But in order to do this you need to perform a ritual of at least 5 tapas. And there will be not an instant exit from the program, but an exit from the network, after which the user will be taken to the login form, and not to the main screen. And the next time you have to log in again, and not just run the program.

I have the impression that the dreary exit is made with the expectation that users will not leave Skype because of this and therefore will be much more often online, thereby raising some accessibility indicators through the system. I don’t know if it works on most users, but I myself now run this program only when absolutely necessary. And in order to quickly get out of it, I even downloaded a separate Stop Skype utility (the mere presence of such a utility already says a lot).

The second illustrative example is Dr. Web for Windows. The program seems to consider itself so important and necessary that the user simply has no right to stop it. More precisely, it can be suspended, but only after entering the administrative mode, from there choosing a stop for each component, entering a captcha. And then you have to manually start all the components on a new one. And this instead of just quitting the program and then logging in again.

Well, virus protection is an important thing, and disabling protection should not be given, for example, to ordinary users in the corporate network or to your child / grandmother / younger brother. But an experienced user can decide when he needs an antivirus, and when not. Why does the program believe that its opinion is more important than the opinion of the user?

Perhaps, if the antivirus was an inconspicuous utility and only in the event of a threat it made itself felt (what a home antivirus should be), then the problem of getting out would not be so acute. But after all, this infection periodically begins to devour completely the resources of one core. And at the same time, it hides itself from the task manager, and one can guess what happened only by starting to break away from the surface of the laptop table, which will fly away from the cooler on the jet stream.

All this led to Dr. The web just had to be removed.

In general, I believe that the computer is the property of the user. And the user must decide when to exit from which program. Programs that do not give up themselves easily come out - like guests who stayed in your house, do not understand hints, requests, etc., but leave only with the call of the police. And even then not always. Therefore, such a program causes irritation and the prohibition of exit leads to the opposite effect: users begin to run the program as little as possible or delete it altogether.