Wii Parental Control

The makers of this application tout it as a tool for parents to regulate their children's computer usage, but Wii Parental Control fails to deliver. Curiously, this product has no apparent connection with the popular Nintendo gaming console of the same name.

At first glance, the small, ordinary UI looks simple to operate, but a closer look reveals that off-center labels and the lack of instructional information make it difficult, if not impossible, to use and understand. During our tests, most of the dialog boxes did not function properly and contained odd labels such as "Quit," "ahead," and "Evaluate day." A visit to the help file served to add to our frustrations, revealing several differences between the screenshots and the actual UI we were testing.

Our testers were not able to add or delete users or to set rules and time restrictions during program assessment. In addition, clicking Setting generates a runtime error that shuts down the program instantly. All of the issues we encountered warrant skipping this 15-day trial application.