Non-standard routing
I’ve just bought a new Linksys Wireless-G router. I’ve been very impressed with it’s performance and features so far (way more so than the Belkin Pre-N router I had before, which was very flaky and felt like a prototype device). However, I’ve been distinctly unimpressed with its web admin screen. First, it doesn’t work on a Mac. At all. Well, actually I only tried it on Firefox, Safari, Opera, Camino, Mozilla and Internet Explorer, but then I lost the will to live. On Windows, it only works in IE5/6. Some might say that this is a tad unprofessional.
Also interesting is the way that the admin interface uses an empty text field as a container for a progress bar. As I was updating the firmware for the router, the field became progressively filled with vertical bars. It’s an innovative use of form elements, that’s for sure. And there was me thinking that they were designed for data input…
In summary. Recommended for it’s routing capabilties. Not recommended for the user experience of the admin screen!
[NOTE: Since updating the firmware to the latest version, it seems to work OK in Firefox]
Comments
2 Responses to “Non-standard routing”
Leave a Reply
About
I'm Stuart Church, a user experience consultant with Pure Usability in Bristol, UK. Sensorydrive is my personal blog and covers user experience design, information architecture, product design, psychology, research methods, perception and pretty much anything else that takes my fancy! You can find out a bit more about me if you want...
Latest Flickr images
Hi Stu
I’ve got a Linksys Wireless-G router too. Mine’s the WRT54G so it’s a bit older than yours. The admin interface on mine works with Firefox under Windows, Mandrake Linux and Ubuntu Linux so I can only assume they’ve tried to ‘improve’ it with the later version.
Cheers
Kieren
Yeah, I think it was the version of the firmware that it came with – all seems fine now. Mind you, if it doesn’t work with the firmware version it ships with, it makes it pretty tricky to update!
Stu