March 2, 2007
Is your UI intuitive enough?
This Video is a pretty funny reminder of the difficult time that users have as they try to learn how to use your product! It brings up some very good questions:
- Is your UI intuitive enough?
- Do you have “help” built into the product to reduce the need for manual support?
- Do you have easy approaches for helping users get back to the “state” of the system that they understand how to use?
Thanks to Brian Styles for e-mailing it to me!
Kerry said,
March 6, 2007 at 10:20 am
Very funny video. The good news here is that the info tech guy is willing to listen and help.
IT has a bad reputation for listening.
A recent Computerworld article captured the general opinion: http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,94676,00.html
“IT has its own annoying quirks … some IT people label users as neophytes and then blame them for any difficulties. The user insists their e-mail doesn’t work, and the IT person says, ‘My e-mail works perfectly,’ and assumes the user is the problem. Users really find this annoying, … Some IT people are so sure they know what the problem is that they don’t even listen to the user”
This listening issue is even more critical when it comes to the developers who create the software itself. This posting talks about what stops developers from really hearing what the user has to say:
http://simplematterofsoftware.typepad.com/weblog/2007/02/hearing_the_cus.html