Talk about poor design! The Typepad ‘Post’ page–the page I’m on right now– is a great example of a poor interface. What do I mean by this?
Well, lets take a look at it. Now in my opinion, when we get right down to the heart of it, the object of an interface is to help the user accomplish a task. Weather the you want to obtain the latest baseball scores on espn.com or to configure an electronic substation monitoring system, the interface you use is designed (hopefully) to help you accomplish what it is you set out to do.
When building a web site, designers usually have to deal with the uncertainty of potentially large numbers of visitors (or ‘users’ for consistency) and associated tasks. However, there are pages like this one here were all users are performing the same task.
The object of the design here should be pretty straightforward, and that it to make writing and posting a blog as painless and efficient as possible. The buttons that perform functions associated with posting (such as adding pictures or links) should be easy to understand, and most importantly, the act of posting the blog shouldn’t cause lots of confusion.
Here are some examples of the poor design of the Typepad ‘Post’ page…The "Insert Image" and "Insert File" buttons are icons with no accompanying text despite the fact that there is plenty of room.
The button that adds white space for larger posts is confusing, again, despite the fact that there is plenty of room for a more descriptive button. Keep in mind that users, afraid of losing the post they are writing, will be hesitant to click on any links, so it becomes even more important to make button actions clear.
The design blunder that causes the most confusion is the positioning and terminology of the button that does the posting. When the ultimate object on a screen is always the same, and the completion of the task is accomplished with the click of one button, that button should be named for the verb phrase of the task being accomplished. In this case I am posting a blog entry. The button is called "Save", which is not what I think of doing when I want to post what I’ve just written. More confusing still, the proper term for the button, which of course is ‘Post’, is the name of the prominently placed clickable link that erases what you were writing and starts over.

I just wanted to say that I really enjoy reading this blog. Ever since I stumbled upon this after finding InfoDesign, I look forward to your posts ever since. It really helps me feel more immersed in what I am studying now and what I plan on studying in the future. Keep up the good work!