Author, "Design of Everyday Things" explains problems
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Don Norman:
I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me.
The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP. Don Norman on how design fails older consumers[^]
Don Norman via article:
Take the screen design for Apple’s phones. The designers at Apple apparently believe that text is ugly, so it should either be eliminated entirely or made as invisible as possible. Bruce Tognazzini and I, both former employees of Apple, wrote a long article on Apple’s usability sins ,which has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Once Apple products could be used without ever reading a manual. Today, Apple’s products violate all the fundamental rules of design for understanding and usability, many of which Tognazzini and I had helped develop. As a result, even a manual is not enough: all the arbitrary gestures that control tablets, phones, and computers have to be memorized. Everything has to be memorized.
Quote:
Everyone needs better design Do not think that thoughtful design is just for the elderly, or the sick, or the disabled. In the field of design, this is called “inclusive design” for a reason: It helps everyone. Curb cuts were meant to help people who had trouble walking, but it helps anyone wheeling things: carts, baby carriages, suitcases. Closed captions are used in noisy bars. As Kat Holmes points out in her book Mismatch, all of us are disabled now and then. Some of us have permanent disabilities, but all of us have suffered from situational and temporary problems. When outside in the sun, the text message that just arrived is unreadable: wouldn’t it be nice if the display, whether cellphone, watch, or tablet, could switch to large, higher contrast lettering? Are elderly people handicapped? Maybe, but so is a young, athletic parent while carrying a baby on one arm and a bag of groceries in the other (and perhaps trying to open their car door). Ride-share bicycles and scooters can
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Don Norman:
I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me.
The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP. Don Norman on how design fails older consumers[^]
Don Norman via article:
Take the screen design for Apple’s phones. The designers at Apple apparently believe that text is ugly, so it should either be eliminated entirely or made as invisible as possible. Bruce Tognazzini and I, both former employees of Apple, wrote a long article on Apple’s usability sins ,which has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Once Apple products could be used without ever reading a manual. Today, Apple’s products violate all the fundamental rules of design for understanding and usability, many of which Tognazzini and I had helped develop. As a result, even a manual is not enough: all the arbitrary gestures that control tablets, phones, and computers have to be memorized. Everything has to be memorized.
Quote:
Everyone needs better design Do not think that thoughtful design is just for the elderly, or the sick, or the disabled. In the field of design, this is called “inclusive design” for a reason: It helps everyone. Curb cuts were meant to help people who had trouble walking, but it helps anyone wheeling things: carts, baby carriages, suitcases. Closed captions are used in noisy bars. As Kat Holmes points out in her book Mismatch, all of us are disabled now and then. Some of us have permanent disabilities, but all of us have suffered from situational and temporary problems. When outside in the sun, the text message that just arrived is unreadable: wouldn’t it be nice if the display, whether cellphone, watch, or tablet, could switch to large, higher contrast lettering? Are elderly people handicapped? Maybe, but so is a young, athletic parent while carrying a baby on one arm and a bag of groceries in the other (and perhaps trying to open their car door). Ride-share bicycles and scooters can
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Don Norman:
I wrote the book on user-friendly design. What I see today horrifies me.
The world is designed against the elderly, writes Don Norman, 83-year-old author of the industry bible Design of Everyday Things and a former Apple VP. Don Norman on how design fails older consumers[^]
Don Norman via article:
Take the screen design for Apple’s phones. The designers at Apple apparently believe that text is ugly, so it should either be eliminated entirely or made as invisible as possible. Bruce Tognazzini and I, both former employees of Apple, wrote a long article on Apple’s usability sins ,which has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. Once Apple products could be used without ever reading a manual. Today, Apple’s products violate all the fundamental rules of design for understanding and usability, many of which Tognazzini and I had helped develop. As a result, even a manual is not enough: all the arbitrary gestures that control tablets, phones, and computers have to be memorized. Everything has to be memorized.
Quote:
Everyone needs better design Do not think that thoughtful design is just for the elderly, or the sick, or the disabled. In the field of design, this is called “inclusive design” for a reason: It helps everyone. Curb cuts were meant to help people who had trouble walking, but it helps anyone wheeling things: carts, baby carriages, suitcases. Closed captions are used in noisy bars. As Kat Holmes points out in her book Mismatch, all of us are disabled now and then. Some of us have permanent disabilities, but all of us have suffered from situational and temporary problems. When outside in the sun, the text message that just arrived is unreadable: wouldn’t it be nice if the display, whether cellphone, watch, or tablet, could switch to large, higher contrast lettering? Are elderly people handicapped? Maybe, but so is a young, athletic parent while carrying a baby on one arm and a bag of groceries in the other (and perhaps trying to open their car door). Ride-share bicycles and scooters can
Preach it, brother/sister! When I was first starting with WPF, I heard about Expression Blend. I downloaded and installed it. The app was completely unusable. Monochrome icons and gray text on a darker gray background. I couldn't see anything in the app. Switching themes did no good, as they all had the same low contrast "oh, don't have anything distract from the work" design. I complained on Microsoft Connect about the app's usability. They closed and deleted my issue immediately with no response. And I only used the phrase "age-ist pricks" once.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Preach it, brother/sister! When I was first starting with WPF, I heard about Expression Blend. I downloaded and installed it. The app was completely unusable. Monochrome icons and gray text on a darker gray background. I couldn't see anything in the app. Switching themes did no good, as they all had the same low contrast "oh, don't have anything distract from the work" design. I complained on Microsoft Connect about the app's usability. They closed and deleted my issue immediately with no response. And I only used the phrase "age-ist pricks" once.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
They closed and deleted my issue immediately with no response.
That's interesting because that's the 7th level of pain/annoyance that these kinds of frustrating issues create: you can't even report the issue because they just close them since it cannot be true that their design is terrible.
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
They closed and deleted my issue immediately with no response.
That's interesting because that's the 7th level of pain/annoyance that these kinds of frustrating issues create: you can't even report the issue because they just close them since it cannot be true that their design is terrible.
I don't bother reporting issues to Microsoft any longer. Every time I have they've either responded with a form response ("did you try rebooting?" :rolleyes: ), or closed the issue with no comment. My experience has been that they treat most developers with nothing but contempt.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I don't bother reporting issues to Microsoft any longer. Every time I have they've either responded with a form response ("did you try rebooting?" :rolleyes: ), or closed the issue with no comment. My experience has been that they treat most developers with nothing but contempt.
Software Zen:
delete this;I agree with you. Not sure why they have that attitude about it but that's the same experience I've had in reporting issues to them. I've reported a couple of real bugs with Visual Studio a couple of times and provided details and screen shots so they can reproduce and they just post back, "not a bug" and close or even delete the issue. The one I had reported was reported by a large number of users and they closed it anyways.
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I don't bother reporting issues to Microsoft any longer. Every time I have they've either responded with a form response ("did you try rebooting?" :rolleyes: ), or closed the issue with no comment. My experience has been that they treat most developers with nothing but contempt.
Software Zen:
delete this;
