Upload to Flickr via Windows XP Explorer

Usability and communicating about usability are what QA (Qommunity and quality Assurance) is all about. At least once a week, I want to post about my non-Flock usability issues from “real-life” situations

On my new laptop running MSWin, I wanted to add a Flickr upload tool. Of the tools listed the one at the bottom of the page seems most elegant, “Upload to Flickr via Windows XP Explorer”. It does not involve installing another application, only (in Firefox) downloading a text file with an .reg extension, and then double clicking on it.

The text file only contains:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\PublishingWizard\PublishingWizard\Providers\Flickr]
"Icon"="http://www.flickr.com/tools/flickr.ico"
"DisplayName"="Flickr"
"Description"="Photo sharing and management"
"HREF"="http://www.flickr.com/tools/wizard.gne"

That is elegant!

The Flickr team provides good instructions. There are two minor problems for me with this experience for me:

1. The file name is wizard.reg. Why isn’t Flckr in the name of the file? I download a lot of things, and a month from now, if that file is still sitting in my download folder, then I am going to have no idea what wizard.reg is.

2. “Step 4 – Upload some photos” show Microsoft’s (folder) Explorer looking like:

My Microsoft’s (folder) Explorer does not include that left “task” panel, nor could I had it from the View menu. My personal computer is personalized for my usability + performance. The Flickr instructions do not mention that if I do not see “Tasks” that I need to look in Control Panel -> Folder Options -> General: Tasks: “Show common tasks in folders”. Shame on Microsoft for not including this under the View menu!

Should the Flickr team “correct” either of these problems? Probably not, how many users are like me?

Technorati Tags: flock, flickr, mswin, qa, user experience