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
-
An office chair is one of the best investments a person can make - especially if that person spends most of this days dwindling away on his ...
-
The Bodum Yokhi jars are also super awesome. Easy on the fingers, these glass jars come with either plastic, cork or stainless steel lids. B...
-
After having seen multiple post-apocalyptic movies (and almost every zombie-filled movie ever made), The Road comes as a big refresher to th...
-
While I hesitate to go so far as to call this an ad - Cadbury themselves call it a “piece of content” - it’s definitely, well…different. An...
-
My next biggest tech project involves setting up a file server. Not sure if I should invest in WHS just yet, despite Jess' very convinci...
-
Revisited. I don't care. I would like to work here. Yes, free is fine. Thank you.
-
Despite the negative connotations with school life animes as being ineffectively "soft" and lacking any form of depth, Dennou Coil...
-
Yep, those designers at Bruton Stroube Studios are up to no good again. This time around, we got a wonderful shot made easier (or harder if...
-
Yeah, that's right. There's no stoppin' this train of unstoppable cool. Feel the funk. Get jiggy. This is what one's 2nd yea...
-
Grow up corporate boys. All of our IP's? Give me a break.
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