I have a color HP Laser Printer that I have used for many years, I have used HP products for over 20 years and they have a an acceptable quality, today I encountered a problem that left me scratching my head. I was in a hurry, I needed to scan some documents and pack them nicely into a PDF to be sent before 2PM, I pressed the Scan button and this window came up on my screen.

The options are there, I saw this and thought the obvious choice was to select ‘Scan’, but nothing happened, a loading screen showed up and said the following:

Create an account to scan with your printer using HP Smart.

WHAT? I need to create an account? To scan a document to my computer from a printer that I own? Nope, I will not open an account.

USABILITY : The quality of being able to provide good service

I ended up using Windows Fax and Scan Application, no problem. Why do most new programs require you to open an account to use a product? Not everything has to be connected to the internet you know! It should be a simple press of a button and the machine starts whirring and doing its thing. Corporations have forgotten the basic principle of product design : MAKE IT EASY TO USE! HP, you win the USABILITY FAIL of the week!

P.S. The ink indicators are all wrong, they have been like that for months and the printer still prints without a problem.