|
|
|
 |
Users Are Not Designers...
As human beings, we can rely only on our current and past experience when interacting with the world around us; we also need semantic models. For example, we need to give meaning to whatever happens to us. That's why we often hear people talking about their experience with computers: They are familiar with the concepts of files, databases, mouse gestures, and so forth. But that doesn't mean that an end user will be able to read the designer's mind. What might seem an easy application for the designer team might be awkward and difficult to employ by the end user. It has often happened that even developers couldn't cope with buggy applications, whose internal model was cryptic.
So, because the end user will have to figure out how the software will work by being given few, artificial hints, these same hints will have to be as coherent as possible; the basic ideas, the visible items and their interaction, their names, and everything else should be thought out at design time.
When planning a UI, a designer should focus on the needs of end users. It often happens, instead, that designers are too busy with citations from other cool products that may result in a nightmarish implementation for the developer and a complete mystery for the end user. But when the UI is designed by a developer (as it frequently happens in small firms, for lack of money), the scenario might be even bleaker: the developer-newly-turned-designed will cast his old programmer's mindset on a less-usable interface. That's only because the developer is far too aware of how demanding a good UI might be. However, big companies and other organizations are spreading their design guidelines, written by their team of professional designers, and that will, eventually, make their way through in common software also.
|
|
|
|
 |
For more information about GLnet and our services, please contact us with any questions,
or call 408-230-8079.
Tell us your ideas and your marketing and communications needs.
|
|
|
