Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 19, 2004 05:03 AM
"Useablilty is simply a matter of taste and choice, that's why when you ask a quesiton about useablilty all you get is opinions."
No, this is simply untrue. Usability is not only a matter of choice. There are rules how a human mind works, how it reflects what one sees and how everyone out there handles his workflow.
I know some interface designers at SAP/Germany, and they are all graduated psychologist - mostly with programming skills, but they know much more about human standards then technical ones.
I think one reason why we fail so badly is because there are no people "checking" the interface design. All big companies that are successfull in interface design *seperate* program logic and interface design, because it's much easier to do one thing at a time.
I always ask out-of-project people when I'm unsure if they can navigate through "my" interface without having to think "where to click next". If this can't be done, there's a flaw in the interface.
One of my worst experiences was xcdroast; this program is simply horrible. It works great, it has all features, but the interface logic sucks as much as possible. There are important buttons on the lower left of a page, you have to SWITCH from the first to the second tab to add things first before you can continue on the first tab. All this is simply *stupid*.
I know very well how this happens, I make the same errors almost every time. But I try to improve steadily.
The first step for all of us should be learning to step back and think "could I use this without knowing anything but the goal?"
Big companies simply throw money at the problem, we have to use our own brains. I think it can be easily done, because we have superior ones. Don't we? Let's 0wn them<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;)
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Re:The Reason why
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 19, 2004 05:03 AMNo, this is simply untrue. Usability is not only a matter of choice. There are rules how a human mind works, how it reflects what one sees and how everyone out there handles his workflow.
I know some interface designers at SAP/Germany, and they are all graduated psychologist - mostly with programming skills, but they know much more about human standards then technical ones.
I think one reason why we fail so badly is because there are no people "checking" the interface design. All big companies that are successfull in interface design *seperate* program logic and interface design, because it's much easier to do one thing at a time.
I always ask out-of-project people when I'm unsure if they can navigate through "my" interface without having to think "where to click next". If this can't be done, there's a flaw in the interface.
One of my worst experiences was xcdroast; this program is simply horrible. It works great, it has all features, but the interface logic sucks as much as possible. There are important buttons on the lower left of a page, you have to SWITCH from the first to the second tab to add things first before you can continue on the first tab. All this is simply *stupid*.
I know very well how this happens, I make the same errors almost every time. But I try to improve steadily.
The first step for all of us should be learning to step back and think "could I use this without knowing anything but the goal?"
Big companies simply throw money at the problem, we have to use our own brains. I think it can be easily done, because we have superior ones. Don't we? Let's 0wn them<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;)
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