Yes, I think I point out the obvious, too. Sometimes something seems so staggeringly obvious you can't understand why no one else has thought of it. (And I kvetch.)
An example of the obvious: a couple of days ago I was shown a form for traffic operators to enter messages such as "INCIDENT AHEAD" for the electronic signs on the side of the road. The form contained a single frame with a radio button to choose "Alternate" for a two-frame message and a forward button to click for the second frame. The form easily allowed side-by-side display of two frames so I suggested that it do that. This eliminated the need for "Alternate" and forward buttons (even with frames displayed on two screens only one button should be required) and also allowed operators to view the complete message. Apart from other things that might trigger this idea of side-by-side display, the lines of the frame far exceeded the length required to display the number of characters allowed. There had been about four people working on the form and no one had thought of it, even someone who was very exposed to side-by-side frame display in another system. It was shown to me two days before development was to start and the others were very surprised that I had something to contribute because they felt satisfied it was such a big improvement on the previous version and thought they'd covered all possible angles whereas to me a two-frame display was a no-brainer. Regards, Petra Liverani -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Hoekman Jr Sent: Wednesday, 28 May 2008 7:04 AM To: Bryan J Busch Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] What do you do best? > > Ask the questions that nobody else is asking (granted, sometimes > that's because the answer is "obvious", but it doesn't hurt to > ask). > Funny-another thing I do best is ... point out the obvious. I feel like it's half my job. (Of course, many things are not "obvious" unless you're a designer thinking like a user, so you have to keep pointing them out.) -r- ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
