Intuitive Interfaces
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people who design and write interfaces should have the interfaces tested by novices in their presence, from day one. The designer is a bit subjective without this feedback. Ideally the designs should be driven by objective user test results. Boeing learned this when designing interfaces for their users. They found that subjective test data from experts (pilots, etc.) was not as good. Pilots all had various opinions about interfaces so Boeing went to objective testing results to find the most efficient design. Side note: I once flew in a Boeing simulator with zero flying experience. With the destination already set, I took off, flew and landed with minimal instructions. Very cool, except I blew out the tires landing too fast and steering too sharp. Their simulator even had that part of the landing modeled. That's the objective test results they were getting.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
That’s a fantastic post & a great example. UI Designers often blame the user or say “well it’s complex software so the UI is complicated.” But your example shows that even something as complex as piloting a jet aircraft could be simplified for general use if the designers cared to do so. Have you read The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition - Kindle edition by Norman, Donald A.[^] The book explains how designers often do things wrong then blame the user and the users often feel stupid even though they really aren’t. The design just makes them feel that way.
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That’s a fantastic post & a great example. UI Designers often blame the user or say “well it’s complex software so the UI is complicated.” But your example shows that even something as complex as piloting a jet aircraft could be simplified for general use if the designers cared to do so. Have you read The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition - Kindle edition by Norman, Donald A.[^] The book explains how designers often do things wrong then blame the user and the users often feel stupid even though they really aren’t. The design just makes them feel that way.
You overlook the stupidity of management. Before I retired, I tried to design based on real user input. Often, when I demo'ed the result to management, they just had to change it, making it needlessly complex and cumbersome to use. Instead of putting the most common two or three items at the top of a list followed by the remainder of the choices in alphabetic order, they required full alphabetical order.
For example, let us look at selecting client language. In the United States, English and Spanish are the most common languages; they would require Africaans and Arabic at the top of the list and Spanish way down below Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and a host of others.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
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You overlook the stupidity of management. Before I retired, I tried to design based on real user input. Often, when I demo'ed the result to management, they just had to change it, making it needlessly complex and cumbersome to use. Instead of putting the most common two or three items at the top of a list followed by the remainder of the choices in alphabetic order, they required full alphabetical order.
For example, let us look at selecting client language. In the United States, English and Spanish are the most common languages; they would require Africaans and Arabic at the top of the list and Spanish way down below Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and a host of others.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
I wouldn't call this management "stupidity". It's trying to make it look as if you add value even though you're far from expert in, or have only put superficial thought into, what you're commenting on. Code reviews are just as useless when "reviewers" harp on variable names or formatting because they have nothing to say about design or merely skimmed the code and missed bugs that could have been spotted with due effort. I would have told them that the UI was carefully considered, that their input would be noted but that they would not be making decisions on the UI, and that the demo's purpose was to show that a milestone had been reached and provide a preview of what would be shipping.
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That’s a fantastic post & a great example. UI Designers often blame the user or say “well it’s complex software so the UI is complicated.” But your example shows that even something as complex as piloting a jet aircraft could be simplified for general use if the designers cared to do so. Have you read The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition - Kindle edition by Norman, Donald A.[^] The book explains how designers often do things wrong then blame the user and the users often feel stupid even though they really aren’t. The design just makes them feel that way.
Thanx. I haven't read the book you referenced, but its now on my Amazon buy list. My experience occurred in 1994 when the 777 made its first flight. The company I was working with flew a group of us to Boeing in Seattle for a mini-conference to discuss designing user interfaces. The 777 was the first aircraft (they say) that was designed, built and tested using electronic design and simulation software. Boeing, of course, does not always follow their advice (737[^] User interfaces are first driven by requirements, which management usually has complete control (their mistake if not include the interface designers). Requirement creep is usual the reason for management intervention and not always well done. Oh well, not a perfect world.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
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This one always gets me: User Inyerface - A worst-practice UI experiment[^] :laugh:
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Funny stuff. BTW one of UI topics some of my team researched with objective testing was the YES/NO, ON/OFF, etc (binary states). User confusion of what is the current state versus changing the state is increased. One button, versions and two buttons versions. The human subject testing was quite thorough and comprehensive. There were multiple phases of this testing. In aerospace a mistaken judgement of the system state could be fatal. BTW Apple users a sliding binary button which is quite effective. Their UI is generally pretty good but not always obvious.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
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You overlook the stupidity of management. Before I retired, I tried to design based on real user input. Often, when I demo'ed the result to management, they just had to change it, making it needlessly complex and cumbersome to use. Instead of putting the most common two or three items at the top of a list followed by the remainder of the choices in alphabetic order, they required full alphabetical order.
For example, let us look at selecting client language. In the United States, English and Spanish are the most common languages; they would require Africaans and Arabic at the top of the list and Spanish way down below Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and a host of others.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
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You overlook the stupidity of management. Before I retired, I tried to design based on real user input. Often, when I demo'ed the result to management, they just had to change it, making it needlessly complex and cumbersome to use. Instead of putting the most common two or three items at the top of a list followed by the remainder of the choices in alphabetic order, they required full alphabetical order.
For example, let us look at selecting client language. In the United States, English and Spanish are the most common languages; they would require Africaans and Arabic at the top of the list and Spanish way down below Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and a host of others.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
Isn't that an excellent example of a developer centered design? If you sit e.g. in Norway, as I do, or in some East European, Asian or African country, English or Spanish is not the primary language alternatives! You may say "But the US is our primary market! (Besides, that is where I am living ...)", fair enough if you simply do not care about other markets. Why then worry about all these other languages at all, if you do not care about the users of those languages? In Windows - but also in *nix - the environment always informs you about the locale and the preferred language. If you really cared for the user, you would honor that. If you want to do the job well, you would use the locale to select not only the top entry, but a few more down the list, such as French and English as the two top entries in Canada (if the user's preferred language is a third one, it obviously goes ahead of both). If the user at some time has selected yet another alternative, he is probably making use use of that language, so put any explicitly selected language up on top as well. Then you can list the rest of the languages - those with no indication of being relevant to the user - in alphabetical order. Those that goes on top are those that are more likely to be chosen by the user. And not those preferred by the developer! This obviously goes for all locale related UI aspects, not just the language, but e.g. date and numeric formats and lots of other things. If you use system provided functions for the formatting, you may evade the issue, until the user is given a chance to select some other format, some other value. Say, a valuta calculator: A user in Norway who sees USD on top of the list every time, even after having selected NOK a hundred times before, gradually gets sort of p***ed. If you don't care to do a proper job, then you might as well do as your boss says: Do not give any preference to any choice. Giving preference to your choice, rather than that of the user, does not improve the quality of the user interface.
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This one always gets me: User Inyerface - A worst-practice UI experiment[^] :laugh:
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That is truly obnoxious. It took me 11:49 to get to the dancing Carlton. I'd hazard a guess that the author of that horror copied about 80% of the instances of idiocy found on that interface from sites they had encountered at one time or another. I know that I've run across several of them. My pet Peeve is password requirements that don't specify a maximum length. I also hate "you must use a special character" ... Oh, sorry, "&" is invalid.
I eventually gave up at the captcha. Positioning of the tickboxes is genius. But a little close to the mark - I hate the common one that asks me to "Select all schoolbuses". How the *%#$ am I supposed to know which are schoolbuses? Here in the UK they come in any size, shape and colour... and some are trains!
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Funny stuff. BTW one of UI topics some of my team researched with objective testing was the YES/NO, ON/OFF, etc (binary states). User confusion of what is the current state versus changing the state is increased. One button, versions and two buttons versions. The human subject testing was quite thorough and comprehensive. There were multiple phases of this testing. In aerospace a mistaken judgement of the system state could be fatal. BTW Apple users a sliding binary button which is quite effective. Their UI is generally pretty good but not always obvious.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
I detest those sliding binary buttons. Especially when used for cookie options. Totally arbitrary selection of colour / position, worsened (possibly? I can't tell) because I'm colour blind. :mad:
Telegraph marker posts ... nothing to do with IT Phasmid email discussion group ... also nothing to do with IT Beekeeping and honey site ... still nothing to do with IT
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I eventually gave up at the captcha. Positioning of the tickboxes is genius. But a little close to the mark - I hate the common one that asks me to "Select all schoolbuses". How the *%#$ am I supposed to know which are schoolbuses? Here in the UK they come in any size, shape and colour... and some are trains!
Telegraph marker posts ... nothing to do with IT Phasmid email discussion group ... also nothing to do with IT Beekeeping and honey site ... still nothing to do with IT
In this particular case, I think you're supposed to check them all. And as you said, the tickboxes are positioned in a way that the upper row isn't visible and you have to scroll for it :laugh: Real-life captcha's like these are a pain. Like, select all traffic lights, but one of them just goes slightly into a new box, so does it have a traffic light or not? :~
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That is truly obnoxious. It took me 11:49 to get to the dancing Carlton. I'd hazard a guess that the author of that horror copied about 80% of the instances of idiocy found on that interface from sites they had encountered at one time or another. I know that I've run across several of them. My pet Peeve is password requirements that don't specify a maximum length. I also hate "you must use a special character" ... Oh, sorry, "&" is invalid.
FreedMalloc wrote:
My pet Peeve is password requirements that don't specify a maximum length.
I've been in a situation where corporate wanted me to reset my password, but didn't tell me the requirements. IT told me at least 8 characters, I had 16 I think. Other than that I had upper, lower, number and symbol, but it still wasn't valid. Ultimately, IT let me enter my password directly into the AD to circumvent all requirements :~
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I am sitting here trying to do some work while alongside me my wife is attempting to set up a Zoom discussion with a friend. Neither of them know what they are doing, so it has been interesting hearing their learning curve. At least it was at the start, now I will have to go and chop some firewood before my blood pressure goes off the scale. I know that I find that interface fairly transparent, but maybe they need a "just heard about computers" interface as an option?
I tend to find that when people expect something to be complicated and hard to understand going in, it will be for them, and I think this is one of the biggest barriers to computer literacy - expectations.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I am sitting here trying to do some work while alongside me my wife is attempting to set up a Zoom discussion with a friend. Neither of them know what they are doing, so it has been interesting hearing their learning curve. At least it was at the start, now I will have to go and chop some firewood before my blood pressure goes off the scale. I know that I find that interface fairly transparent, but maybe they need a "just heard about computers" interface as an option?
My wife has been using her own Windows computer daily for over 10 years. For the last 5 years that is a Dell laptop running Windows 10. She surfs the web, reads newspapers online, uses Facebook. She receives and sends email. She takes photos on her phone and also on a compact camera and likes to get the images out onto a USB stick to take to the local photo-printing place. Yet, after 10 years, she still cannot use any of these and has to ask me help EVERY TIME: - Ctrl-click to add/subtract to/from selection - Shift-click to select a range. - Cut/Copy/Paste to get files from Downloads to memory stick - Cut/Copy/Paste to work with text in an email or Word document - Use ability of File Explorer to sort files by extension, name, date etc to help find desired files. - Use ability of File Explorer to search for desired files by name - Navigate an Open File or Save File picker to any folder.
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You overlook the stupidity of management. Before I retired, I tried to design based on real user input. Often, when I demo'ed the result to management, they just had to change it, making it needlessly complex and cumbersome to use. Instead of putting the most common two or three items at the top of a list followed by the remainder of the choices in alphabetic order, they required full alphabetical order.
For example, let us look at selecting client language. In the United States, English and Spanish are the most common languages; they would require Africaans and Arabic at the top of the list and Spanish way down below Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and a host of others.
__________________ Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that there are some things I just can’t keep up with, the determination to keep up with the things I must keep up with, and the wisdom to find a good RSS feed from someone who keeps up with what I’d like to, but just don’t have the damn bandwidth to handle right now. © 2009, Rex Hammock
It's "Afrikaans", not "Africaans". I suspect the management of whom you are so contemptuous would have known that.
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I am sitting here trying to do some work while alongside me my wife is attempting to set up a Zoom discussion with a friend. Neither of them know what they are doing, so it has been interesting hearing their learning curve. At least it was at the start, now I will have to go and chop some firewood before my blood pressure goes off the scale. I know that I find that interface fairly transparent, but maybe they need a "just heard about computers" interface as an option?
Something that makes my blood boil is menus where items not currently available are removed rather than greyed out - leaving the user confused and bewildered about where that item is buried. Such a dumb UX idea!
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I am sitting here trying to do some work while alongside me my wife is attempting to set up a Zoom discussion with a friend. Neither of them know what they are doing, so it has been interesting hearing their learning curve. At least it was at the start, now I will have to go and chop some firewood before my blood pressure goes off the scale. I know that I find that interface fairly transparent, but maybe they need a "just heard about computers" interface as an option?
2 second comparison of meet.google.com and zoom.us both - have to create accounts to use meet - minimal starting page - medium plus size window the new meeting is on left, would be prefer center, focused - click new meeting opens another dialog :doh: , would prefer show 3 opens just as without select menu. hidden options not always the best - create for later, unclear what I would do with link. Simple prompt for share with or copy and save somewhere on computer. - don't need account if just joining, same as zoom. zoom - accept cookies message. double checked meet (private and cache clear) and no cookie warning, props to google. - require login (same on google, but when already signed in it wasnt obvious) - oh, wait, no there is a Join in top menu. I assumed the MASSIVE join for free was prompt to create meeting:confused: - one landing page. lots of clutter compared to meet. - also the left side of create login X| - also when get links from others the amount of use the desktop app makes it confusing and another hurdle on pain. both could be improved. but imma suggest use meet.google.com unless you got the googleitest alergy
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Isn't that an excellent example of a developer centered design? If you sit e.g. in Norway, as I do, or in some East European, Asian or African country, English or Spanish is not the primary language alternatives! You may say "But the US is our primary market! (Besides, that is where I am living ...)", fair enough if you simply do not care about other markets. Why then worry about all these other languages at all, if you do not care about the users of those languages? In Windows - but also in *nix - the environment always informs you about the locale and the preferred language. If you really cared for the user, you would honor that. If you want to do the job well, you would use the locale to select not only the top entry, but a few more down the list, such as French and English as the two top entries in Canada (if the user's preferred language is a third one, it obviously goes ahead of both). If the user at some time has selected yet another alternative, he is probably making use use of that language, so put any explicitly selected language up on top as well. Then you can list the rest of the languages - those with no indication of being relevant to the user - in alphabetical order. Those that goes on top are those that are more likely to be chosen by the user. And not those preferred by the developer! This obviously goes for all locale related UI aspects, not just the language, but e.g. date and numeric formats and lots of other things. If you use system provided functions for the formatting, you may evade the issue, until the user is given a chance to select some other format, some other value. Say, a valuta calculator: A user in Norway who sees USD on top of the list every time, even after having selected NOK a hundred times before, gradually gets sort of p***ed. If you don't care to do a proper job, then you might as well do as your boss says: Do not give any preference to any choice. Giving preference to your choice, rather than that of the user, does not improve the quality of the user interface.
One thing drives be nuts is that on a list of countries in alphabetic order you press U and it comes up with the first 'U' country at the bottom. Logically it should be at, or near, the top so I can find UK (in my case) with a single click. Are there any positive reasons for this behaviour?
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FreedMalloc wrote:
My pet Peeve is password requirements that don't specify a maximum length.
I've been in a situation where corporate wanted me to reset my password, but didn't tell me the requirements. IT told me at least 8 characters, I had 16 I think. Other than that I had upper, lower, number and symbol, but it still wasn't valid. Ultimately, IT let me enter my password directly into the AD to circumvent all requirements :~
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An insidious trick is to accept a long password when registering or resetting but silently truncate it to the maximum length. The next time you log in it fails because the hashes between what you set and they ultimately accepted don't match. Then your account is locked as you repeatedly try to log in by shortening the password a character at time. At which point I call support with 3 requests: 1) please reset my password; 2) please tell me the max password length; 3) please locate the developer and break their kneecaps.
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In this particular case, I think you're supposed to check them all. And as you said, the tickboxes are positioned in a way that the upper row isn't visible and you have to scroll for it :laugh: Real-life captcha's like these are a pain. Like, select all traffic lights, but one of them just goes slightly into a new box, so does it have a traffic light or not? :~
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Sander Rossel wrote:
Like, select all traffic lights, but one of them just goes slightly into a new box, so does it have a traffic light or not?
That’s the thing that always gets me. Drives me crazy! Something I learned long ago is that captcha uses the data from the user’s selection to be the answer for the next users. Did you know that? That means if the majority of people select a particular part of the image then it is considered part of the answer. Users are selecting and training the algorithm. Seems kind of nuts. I also found that captcha wants 3 picks. So if you have 3 chosen and there is a sliver of traffic light in a 4th then it should not be selected. Isn’t that crazy?
