[thelist] User perception

[Stephen Rider]

On Nov 15, 2004, at 11:00 AM, Chris wrote:

> To reinforce leaving the hardware plugged in, there was big bold text 
> that said to leave it alone and a photograph (roughly 200x200) of 
> someone unplugging the hardware with a giant "no" symbol on it.  
> Honestly, I don't know how much simpler it could be.

Having not seen the graphic, I'm not sure, but I can easily imagine a 
graphic designer putting up a photo that they think clearly depicts 
something being unplugged, and another perfectly intelligent person 
looking at it and thinking that it's a picture of something being 
plugged in.

Meaning that maybe some people looked at your big button and thought 
the picture said "don't plug it in".

Of course, they probably shouldn't have missed the aforementioned "big 
bold text", but I can see how the picture might have created more 
problems than it solved.

Jason Handby said:

> 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

I recently finished a great book on software interface design, titled 
_The Inmates Are Running The Asylum_, by Alan Cooper.  In fact, at one 
point it talks about exactly that same subject: software design in the 
cockpit.  The book was as much a business book as a design book, but I 
understand that the same author has written design-focussed books as 
well.

Steve