Microsoft Download Center

Apparently Microsoft forgot that people read from top to bottom.

I have a file that was created in Microsoft Word 2007 and I need to open it on my home computer, a Mac with Word 2004. The new extension is .docx, and as a result my computer can’t read it. After some Google research, I found that I could download this little thing above to do the conversion. In any case, I got to the page, chose my connection speed, and then went looking around for the Download button. I scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the page — about four screen heights — and scanned over text, text and more text. But I just couldn’t find that lousy button. See the page

Convinced I was on the wrong page, I scrolled back up to the top. And there it was, mischievously hiding in the top-left corner of the blue box. I had missed it because my eyes had immediately darted to the connection speed dropdown. It defaulted to Dial-Up and as a result gave me an estimated download time of 52 minutes. Eager to find out what it would be for cable, my eyes skipped right over everything at the top of the page.

Am I crazy, or is it simply the standard to have the “submit” button at the bottom of a form? In this case, my best guess is that they were trying to make it faster to download the file so they put the button higher up on the page. However, by defaulting to Dial-Up and scaring me with the download time, they totally defeated the purpose of giving the button more prominence.

Isn’t it time to default to broadband, and put the button where it belongs?

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