In this day and age, especially in the IT field, it seems everybody's looking to better themselves. Better ideas, better technologies, better tools, better apps. Well, what would you say if you found out there was a group of people who are trying their best to worse themselves? They work hard, day in and day out, just to come up with the stupidest ideas, the crappiest apps using yester-decade's crappiest technologies. And guess what, they're very good at what they do, and their products are used by millions of people.
Surely that can't be true, you say! How can a crappy product be used by millions of people? Hey, it's simple. All those poor people don't use it 'cause they want to, they use it 'cause they have to. And they have to because these guys that get better at worsing (is this even a word?) themselves with every new product they put out work for...ta-da...the Romanian state! They are, the so-called, "state-programmers". Kinda like "state-troopers", but armed with keyboards and mice, instead of guns and mace, but, as their fellow "staties", underpaid and bored to death. So they just put out these programs that everybody's gotta use since now the good 'ol Romanian state is pushing out the paperwork and bringing in the com-pu-tahs. The theory's good: eliminate all those queues in the finance offices, eliminate all those sweet relaxing chats that you used to have with the clerks ;), just use the d#mn program, fill in some forms, export the data (about 10k) onto a CD ;), bring it to the clerk (which can, as technology develops, be substituted with a nice looking robot) and he'll shove it somewhere and take your data away.
Now comes the practice:
1. 10 point question: what does the stereogramy background represent?
2. Who says state apps can't be sexy? (also notice the half developed background stereogram. Was fixed in later versions :))
3. Forms made easy...on the eyes
4. Sexy looking report: check out the uber-cool scrollbars placement.
5. Always a good idea to include a "screenshot" of how the application will (not) be used.
6. Who needs UI design guidelines when you can have a big pink button?
7. A new invention: themes with random color and control placement features.
So as you can see, there's always room for improvement, when worsening yourself. Too bad you can't see the apps actually working in these stills, but upon request I guess I can put together some animated stuff for your viewing pleasure... or worse! :)