[thelist] User perception

Jason Handby jasonh at corestar.co.uk
Mon Nov 15 13:16:11 CST 2004


> So your system may be technically sound. And looking at it 
> from the omniscient (within the bounds of the system) 
> viewpoint of the developer, you can of course understand how 
> things should work. Makes perfect sense to you.
> 
> But  I'd say, if you're having that many problems - "emails 
> on an almost daily basis" - then the fault is not with your 
> users. It's with your system.

I agree.

This reminds me of a talk I went to a few years ago, by Blay Whitby at the
University of Sussex. His paper looked at the problem-solving methodologies
that are applied in the investigation of air accidents, and suggests some
interesting lessons for computer interface design:

  http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/blayw/flyingl.html

"Lesson 1 - Blaming the user is always easy and always worthless."




Jason



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