be considered/worked on. How can you help
out?
Susie Robson
-Original Message-
From: Luis de la Orden Morais [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 4:55 AM
To: Susie Robson; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Hi Susie,
I tried to get
On Jan 22, 2008, at 11:23 AM, Bruno Figueiredo wrote:
My question is: why do people keep buying products with crappy
interfaces? I
guess that since most products ship with poor interfaces, people
have very
low expectations. But these kind of products have been around for
what? 15
On 25 Jan 2008, at 21:34, Christine Boese wrote:
I'm having this wild urge to blaspheme in the temple again, don't
ask me
why.
OK, devil's advocate answer to the question: Why do crappy interfaces
sell?
What if, in the immortal words of Bill Murray in the classic summer
camp
film
LOL. Good answers, y'all!
And to Jared, I was fondly reminded of the '67 VW Beetle my dad got me as my
first car. There was one interface that mattered. He could lift the engine
out with one arm (he was an electrician, with years of pulling wire through
conduit) and swap it, which was a good
On Jan 25, 2008 3:00 PM, Jared M. Spool [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
A fart in the wind, when well placed, can certainly matter.
A couple more syllables in the second clause and you've got a fine Haiku,
Jared :-)
Michael Micheletti
Pedro said: For that, the efforts must of UNION, Usability, IxD,
Architecture, Graphic Design ...
I think that's really important. I just posted on that topic on
another thread and it has also come up in the definitions
project.
I think that people are afraid that if their particular specialty
Interesting metaphysical question.
What if there was no God? What if all the praying, reading Torah (or Bible,
or Koran, or Dianetics), good works, moral life, had absolutely no impact on
anything - all that praying - farts in the wind.
To your question - if good interface design just doesn't
On Jan 25, 2008, at 4:34 PM, Christine Boese wrote:
A fart in the wind?
A fart in the wind, when well placed, can certainly matter.
That said, it's the case that the quality of the interface only
matters in a selling situation sometime.
Having just purchased a car for my 17-year-old, I
] On Behalf Of Susie
Robson
Sent: 23 January 2008 19:01
To: Luis de la Orden Morais; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Luis,
Interesting. Has this been brought to anyone's attention that can make
the necessary changes? I would have thought, though I could
Hi Susie and Luis: I don't know if this helps but in Portugal we call
it Dia Mundial da Usabilidade. I think it helped a lot in letting the
word out to the general public. Usually the press is always very
interested and P-UPA (Portuguese UPA)representatives even gave some
interviews.
I know that
On 23 Jan 2008, at 17:41, Stew Dean wrote:
On 22/01/2008, Todd Zaki Warfel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
6. Buyer isn't the user. How many people here in large-mid sized
companies? Go ahead, raise your hands. Okay, how many of you get to
pick the platform and applications you use? Oh, right.
this can be considered/worked on. How can you help
out?
Susie Robson
-Original Message-
From: Luis de la Orden Morais [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 4:55 AM
To: Susie Robson; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Hi
The term usability is not a term used much by the public and I think
that we should change the name of World Usability Day to something
more like Making things easier for everyone (OK, that can be much
improved). World Usability Day seems like a term for usability
practitioners and not the
I completely agree! I have had nothing but blank stares from anyone
outside of our field, followed by who cares? Honestly, that is what
has kept me from getting more involved myself -- I've seen very little
come of it beyond a birds of a feather rally.
I'm a huge evangelist of design and
In this context, I'd like to not see the word user used since it
apparently differentiates practitioners and the lay public from one
another. We are all users of something (and far too often of
something poorly thought out and badly designed).
I have no idea how it would translate, either in
Katie said: In this context, I'd like to not see the word user
used since it apparently differentiates practitioners and the lay
public from one another.
I agree. User has some bad connotations too, at least in English
... drug user, so-called friends who are users ... etc. You
don't want to stir
The use of the term %u201Cuser%u201D (in a different context) was
raised and debated not long ago on this list:
http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=18748
Besides the negative connotations of gun %u201Cusers%u201D and drug
%u201Cusers%u201D don%u2019t forget to include library
%u201Cusers%u201D
Yes - we've beat this poor horse dead before - looks like someone dug the
poor thing up for an addition round of beating.
Semantically - people who are interacting with machines to accomplish a task
are using the machine.
Drug addicts to not use the drugs, they take the drugs - but that horse is
Before we go haring off too far on the question of whether the word
user itself is misleading or derogatory or whatever, I'd really
like to pull your attention to the fact that my issue with referring
to users in this context is limited to this:
Users marks a group of people as other and in
Katie said: Before we go haring off too far on the question of
whether the word user itself is misleading or derogatory or
whatever, I'd really like to pull your attention to the fact that my
issue with referring to users in this context is limited to ...
All points well taken, Katie. My comment
; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
I completely agree! I have had nothing but blank stares from anyone
outside of our field, followed by who cares? Honestly, that is what
has kept me from getting more involved myself -- I've seen very little
come
On 22 Jan 2008, at 12:07, Bruno Figueiredo wrote:
Anyway, I think that the main problem is the general lack of knowledge
on how good an interface can be. I'm not talking about ROI, athough
that's a very strong (and also difficult to proove) argument. I'm
talking about the lack of frustration
On 22 Jan 2008, at 19:23, Bruno Figueiredo wrote:
[snip]
My question is: why do people keep buying products with crappy
interfaces? I
guess that since most products ship with poor interfaces, people
have very
low expectations. But these kind of products have been around for
what? 15
.
- Original Message -
From: Jeff Seager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Andrew said: Back to where I started, the effect of a bad interface
on, for example, a set of online learning
Having read the Jared Spool article Susie pointed out, I think that
it's now clearer to me. The development stages he outlines there
make perfect sense and explain a lot about the maturity of markets
and why on the initial stages of exploring a market niche products
are so ill conceived.
. . . .
Something that I've noticed across usability and design discussion
groups is that those of us who design and evaluate products often have
a difficult time agreeing on what a great user interface really is.
In fact, as a field, we are excellent at critiqueing products and
providing bad examples,
PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
I agree with educating people more. I found in user testing how much
people put themselves down when they are having a hard time with the
task. I tell them they are doing fine and if they can't find it, it
means it's
Here's my 2-cents:
Fact of the matter is, crappy UI's DO NOT SELL. If you don't give
the user/client a choice, they won't know any better and just take
it as it is. Down the line, they'll be figuring ways to reduce
overhead not knowing that a crappy UI may increase productivity time,
thus
This is why World Usability Day was started a few years ago.
With all due respect Sue, I cannot see how WUD is trying to reach the public
with the World Usability Day when from the start the name of the event is
not consistently localised to a country's language. You know, the always
On 22/01/2008, Todd Zaki Warfel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
6. Buyer isn't the user. How many people here in large-mid sized
companies? Go ahead, raise your hands. Okay, how many of you get to
pick the platform and applications you use? Oh, right.
I think the term is 'Golf course purchases' :)
I hope I don't come off as the cynical sandwich in the picnic basket,
but I believe it sometimes happens to keep
power in the hands of the developers/software company - they remain
the gatekeeper of knowledge about their
product and its interface. Just sometimes.
Scott
--
sing while you may
, January 23, 2008 10:34 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
This is why World Usability Day was started a few years ago.
With all due respect Sue, I cannot see how WUD is trying to reach the
public
with the World Usability Day when from the start
I just spoke with a client for who I did an interface review for a CD
product that is almost on the market. They told me that they loved my work
but they have been showing the product with the old interface to clients and
they already have a couple of orders for it so they're scrapping the review
Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Bruno Figueiredo
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 2:24 PM
To: discuss@lists.interactiondesigners.com
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
I just spoke with a client for who I did an interface review
Maybe the problem is that this product is targeted to a very small
niche. I don't even know if they have competition at all.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=24918
But these kind of products have been around for what? 15 years?
Bruno, I think that's the very root of the problem: inertia. When there are
only one (or few) players in the field, the market for a product tends to
mature slowly. The financial and medical industries are classic examples.
i don't have the research to cite but i also suspect that virtually any
interface can be learned given enough time.
i used to do data entry for custom mainframe software as a summer job and
later i beta tested Merrill Lynch's DOS-based brokerage information system
in the early 90s. both interfaces
Anyway, I think that the main problem is the general lack of knowledge
on how good an interface can be. I'm not talking about ROI, athough
that's a very strong (and also difficult to proove) argument. I'm
talking about the lack of frustration when using it.
The product that I'm talking about is
Easy answer in two words: Brilliant Marketing!
This applies especially to products that do something never done
before. Most people don't know such a thing as interface design
exists. Brilliant Marketing convinces them that if they don't
understand how to use the product, or if its functions are
Interestingly enough (or not), when I was recently digging through HFI's
CUA list, I noticed a large amount of folks getting certified were in the
Financial (and Insurance, I believe)--at least in the midwest.
I wonder what we can derive from that?
--Russ
The Finance industry is starting
On Jan 22, 2008, at 2:43 PM, Nasir Barday wrote:
financial and medical industries are classic examples
These are two industries that need to most help and can show the
biggest ROI, IMHO.
Cheers!
Todd Zaki Warfel
President, Design Researcher
Messagefirst | Designing Information.
I guess that there's also a lot of hidden frustration out there.
Fisrt, people don't want to be deemed as stupid. So, if they're
shown a crappy interface by a vendor, even if they find it cumbersome
and hard to use, they won't say it. And second, there's the sense
that whoever designs these
I've given this idea (that any interface can be learned given enough time)
some thought for the past few years, and I have (for now) two direct
observations about this idea.
#1 What about Blinking 12? Enough time could not save Blinking 12, because
there was enough motivation. Actually, these
This thread is a total deja vu of The Inmates are Running the Asylum and
Design of Everyday Things. After reading them long ago, I felt I understood
the insanity.
Not necessarily at peace with it (or I wouldn't be an IxD), but certainly
understood the psychology of the insanity and how to fix it
Actually, those two books were the ones who opened my eyes and made me
shift towards usability and interaction design. I think they're
really great books but most people won't read them, so how can we
send them their message?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Bruno Figueiredo
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 6:50 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Why do crappy interfaces sell?
Maybe the problem is that this product is targeted to a very small
niche. I don't even know
What has really worked for me, honestly, is showing off the good that IxD
can do, over and over, until people started seeing the light. Eventually
people within the company start getting convinced that it's worth it to take
the time to do things right. Then a well-designed product eventually makes
Oh! I forgot that you don't work internally. Don't have much experience
there, except to get a prototype in front of your client's customers,
gather feedback, and use that to your advantage. Hopefully that'll garner
some more work, too (I do and sell my work as if I was an outside consultant
and
Bryan said: By and large I think most people 'make do' with what
they have, and only really demand things when they're physically
painful, EXTREMELY annoying or offend our values.
Great point. In a former life I was a police and court reporter for
newspapers, and I learned some interesting things
The odd thing here is that I did user research and we tested with
users, who considered the redesign a huge improvement. But in the
end, if it's selling without having to effectively redesign it, why
bother? It's just basic economy.
And Nasir, I understand your points, but I'm not talking about
Thanks for the article, Susie. Very insightful. Amazing that it was
written almost 11 years ago. I love Jared's work and the way he
always seems to think so clearly and ahead of time.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
Bruno wrote: Thanks for the article, Susie. Very insightful. Amazing
that it was written almost 11 years ago. I love Jared's work and the way
he
always seems to think so clearly and ahead of time.
I completely agree. And I'm very surprised that I still remember that
article after all these years.
Has it already been mentioned in this thread - but my gut tells me that a
big reason crappy interfaces sell is that the person buying is not the
person using. I won't name names - but a huge complaint about many ERP
systems is that the CIO/CFO is sold the goods - and she never ever uses it -
so
Bruno said: I'm talking about how to make the general public DEMAND
better interfaces?
With all due respect, that's not your problem at all. People will
not demand what they don't know about. Your Brilliant Marketing must
succeed within the company before it can succeed elsewhere.
More
I agree with educating people more. I found in user testing how much
people put themselves down when they are having a hard time with the
task. I tell them they are doing fine and if they can't find it, it
means it's not there. Figuratively speaking in most cases as it is
there, the design has
1) simplicity sells, a ui that is crappier functionally, but looks
'easy' is likely to sell better than a more powerful complicated ui.
2) and most people are essentially color blind when it comes to design.
3) users have no preconceived notion/expectation like you. If it works
it's good
On Tue, January 22, 2008 2:01 pm, Todd Zaki Warfel wrote:
financial and medical industries are classic examples
These are two industries that need to most help and can show the
biggest ROI, IMHO.
Interestingly enough (or not), when I was recently digging through HFI's
CUA list, I noticed a
My question is: why do people keep buying products with crappy interfaces?
Hey Bruno,
If it serves as a consolation, the familiarity of the old interface, the
risk of raising legal implications with clients who pre-ordered the CD with
the old interface, manufacturing laziness and savings had a
Andrew said: Back to where I started, the effect of a bad interface
on, for example, a set of online learning materials, is to be a
distraction from the content and a slow-burn frustration for users.
This doesn't necessarily have any impact at point of sale.
Well said. Especially true for
I'll give a witness to the godawfulness of WebCT, Jeff! How terrible is that
tool? Let me count the ways.
1. Totally horseless carriage. All it does is strive to reproduce
face-to-face old fashioned classroom tools online.
2. Teacher-centered instead of student-centered. When it comes to
Often times, crappy interfaces sell because the new and improved ones
offered to replace them don't pass the threshold required to make the
investment to learn a new interface worth it. New interfaces can't
just be better, they have to pass a threshold that makes the time
investment, the
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