After simple introductions, we began our usability test:
I asked, "So how do you log into your university e-mail?" What followed next would astound me in immeasurable ways for years to come.
She grabbed the mouse pointer and began actively jamming away at the keyboard. Her typing speed wasn't very impressive (she was utilizing the standard two-finger poke method), but she eventually made it the university home page.
Of course I thought to myself, "Wait, did she misunderstand my question?" I continued to survey this curious spectacle.
Click. Office of Student Affairs. Click. Contact. Click. Financial Aid Help. Click. How to log into my e-mail. Click. Student E-mail. Click. I was floored. Each click seemed to affirm my reason for being there, and so I had to ask, "Why did you decide to go to the university homepage to find your e-mail instead of going to the site directly?"
She happily answered, "Well, someone put the links there so I feel like I should use all of them."
Her answer reminded me of the baby boomer generation (and thus, my parents and many of my relatives) that came before me; they always seemed to discover the solution via trial and error, but to ask them how they got there was just begging for a mental facepalm.
But after some time, you'll realize that there's always a reason why people do things. To empathize, discover, and understand is key to learning a little bit about our humanity, even if it's just one interface at a time.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
Topics
- Accessories (60)
- Advertising (14)
- Advice (15)
- Anime Reviews (12)
- Apple (47)
- Appliances (9)
- Architecture (65)
- Art (329)
- Bath (6)
- Bedroom (47)
- Bikes (44)
- Branding (15)
- Business (8)
- Cameras (42)
- Cars (18)
- Clothing (64)
- Concerts (2)
- Customize (8)
- Decor (155)
- Dermatology (1)
- Design (496)
- DIY (1)
- DS Lite (11)
- Economy (1)
- Entertainment (5)
- Event Reviews (2)
- Exposition (251)
- Fashion (73)
- Feature (2)
- Finance (3)
- Food (44)
- Funny (126)
- Furniture (131)
- Game Reviews (20)
- Games (68)
- Gear (124)
- Girls (127)
- Giveaways (3)
- Graffiti (2)
- Green (8)
- Hair (1)
- Hardware (20)
- HCI (82)
- Head-Fi (23)
- Health (1)
- Hip-Hop (13)
- Home (271)
- Ideas (50)
- IKEA (30)
- Inspiration (75)
- Interface (6)
- iPad (5)
- iPhone (11)
- iPod (6)
- Jokes (1)
- Kitchen (60)
- Landscape (2)
- Laptops (20)
- LCD (14)
- Lighting (1)
- Linux (1)
- Marketing (2)
- Materials (2)
- Medicine (1)
- Movie Reviews (201)
- MP3 (104)
- Music (261)
- Music Reviews (6)
- News (24)
- Nintendo (12)
- Office (59)
- Pens (3)
- People (4)
- Phones (2)
- Photography (59)
- Picks (1)
- Poetry (9)
- Politics (10)
- Print (1)
- PS3 (35)
- PSP (2)
- Publications (7)
- Puppies (1)
- Quotes (28)
- Random (127)
- Reads (1)
- Real Estate (3)
- Recipes (31)
- Retro (5)
- Roundup (5)
- Shopping (1)
- Software (12)
- Software Review (1)
- Speakers (2)
- Square-Enix (2)
- Style (131)
- Technology (224)
- Technology Reviews (6)
- Television Reviews (5)
- Tools (1)
- Toys (15)
- Travel (8)
- Trends (40)
- Tutorials (40)
- Video (242)
- Wallpapers (2)
- Windows (12)
- Xbox360 (7)
Popular Posts
-
This is a great example of exactly why I don't like Ben Stiller. It's one of those movies where you're thinking to yourself thro...
-
3 years in the making you say? Those boys at Duba-B8 ain't playing around. Built from ABS plastic and available in black, white, ...
-
First, Comic Sans. Now this. I'm this close to banishing Microsoft products from my every day language.
-
Dr. Ronald Chevalier from Gentleman Broncos on "The Art of Inspiring Oneself." I sorta do the same thing, except I only wish I ha...
-
Word on the street spreads fast. Refusal to reimburse, disrespect to the old board, chairs that fail to meet criteria, dull meetings, preten...
-
Any built-in look is a definite eye catcher, and a desk is no exception. I love the little details on this one; like the red phone that cont...
-
"If you have any answers, I will be glad to provide full and detailed questions."
-
Though they are still constructed from the same laminate + particle board combination, the harder oak layer should somewhat justify the heft...
-
It's got looks, I'll give it that much. However, the inability to switch out the hard drive and RAM, in addition to its already terr...
-
Ain't nothing like a dedicated gallery for something I have completely no understand of nor money to support as an addiction. Still, it ...
Archives
-
▼
2010
(391)
-
▼
July
(52)
- Moving Day
- Salutations
- Hunting for the Greenest, Healthiest Water Bottle
- Snack On This
- Kick-Ass Review
- Into the Sun
- 100 Things Designers Carry
- I Miss My Spike Jonze
- Design X Friction
- Serbia
- High Fashion Interaction
- Inception Review
- Hello Chi-Town!
- Goofus and Gallant Teach Tech Etiquette
- Super Portable Cameras
- Leaka
- A Long House in Melbourne
- Coaster Brakes Rap
- Masi, I'm Looking at You
- Candy
- Best Design
- Nina Nina
- Wise Man Once Said
- Diffuser
- Celestial
- How To Import Jing SWF Files into iMovie '09
- Aleksandra
- Rainbow Girl
- Northeast
- Electro
- Homer Simpson
- When My Hair Turns Gray
- Civil Fields
- French Cobra
- Beach Diamond
- Gypsies and Thieves
- Spheres
- Bats for Dubstep
- Pansonic X1 Series, Calibrated
- Abby G in Heaven
- From Paris With Love Review
- Brooklyn This Summer
- Uffie Nightly Sketch
- Anri Sugihara in Photoshop
- I Think I'm Turning Kawaii
- The Things They Carried
- Workarounds
- Wacom Bamboo vs. Abe vs. The 90's
- Poetry in Motion
- Identity in Print
- A Dirty Carnival Review
- Fireworks are Legal in Indiana
-
▼
July
(52)
0 comments:
Post a Comment