Our outward product may be an information architecture, a web site
structure, a user interface for a program. But the
generative process is one of asking questions. I think of observing
user behavior as another kind of questioning, asking and receiving
with non-verbal language.
These
Friends (with many apologies for cross-posting),
I have a theory I'd like you to help me prove or disprove. If you have five
minutes (in all - tops) and are involved in both:
- presenting proposed visual web designs to clients
- observing user testing of these designs
Christine,
You make an intresting point.
Some academic claim that Usability is not Science but instead an ethic. See
Paul Cairns Harold Thimbleby 2008 http://en.scientificcommons.org/42316368
I am not fully convinced of this but I think it is an intresting argument.
If Usability is an Ethic
On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Jonathan Abbett jonat...@abbett.org wrote:
Say you're brought in to do user research and feature definition for a
software project that's already underway (i.e. development began on
day one).
You have your tried-and-true process where you interview users long
R. Groot wrote:
Companies like Google and Apple have gotten so skilled in getting it
right, in having such an outstanding user experience, that we are drawn to
their products like months to a flame.
They're also skilled in buying companies who got it right and burying
it when they get it
- Something wholly new.
- The dev team understands that their current UI may change radically.
- We're working for a group of academic research institutes. This is
their first project together.
Our normal approach is a wide one -- looking at the greater context
around the client's perceived
Christine,
I agree with what you say and I did not think that aspect through
enough when posting. I subscribe to everything that you say;
additionally, I like the research that says that our language affects
our thinking, and that it has been proven that the thought patterns of
different
I had a feeling we were both honing in on the same goals, Jaanus, and
weren't really too far off. I'm just sensitive to the neutral tool argument
because at one time I tried to hold to that reasoning, and was shown how it
didn't hold up.
But we hold the same values, and I really like that we're
One of the things that we did on a recent project is to provide a message
that their session is about to expire and a button for them to click to
extend the session. Should they go beyond the allotted time for the
session, we show a message that asks for their password and we return them
to where
