SPAM-LOW: Re: [thelist] User perception

[Peter Brunone (EasyListBox.com)]

	Good point.  Gotta love those X10 people...

It's easy to say that the form design should implicitly guide users to
use it correctly, but that doesn't really mean anything without knowing
who your users are and what they're expectations are. If your users are
non-computer science students, they may have the expectations of new
users and really, they just have to gain experience.

	Right; it was just interesting to us that people who use
computers 90% of their day seemed to miss the fact that half their page
was obscured by a big sign that said "Please Wait".  Then again, Alan
Cooper would probably say most of the UI's they use are crap anyway
because people like us would rather not put ourselves in the user's
shoes.

-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of chris hardy

<quote>
my point was how we can think something is really obvious (like a big
sign with a moving graphic in the middle of the page) and users can find
it otherwise. </quote>

Well, consider that the average american (and I imagine statistics for
other countries are similar) sees over 3000 advertisements per day.
Ignoring "obvious information" is a cognitive survival strategy that
applies as much to the giant television on the highway as it does to the
blinking image on a webpage. 

It's easy to say that the form design should implicitly guide users to
use it correctly, but that doesn't really mean anything without knowing
who your users are and what they're expectations are. If your users are
non-computer science students, they may have the expectations of new
users and really, they just have to gain experience.

-chris
http://www.semioticpixels.com