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In past articles, we discussed human-illiterate computers, usability, memorability, learnability, Tognazzini’s Paradox, design integrity, simplicity, abstraction, discount usability testing, and personas. Now, we will discuss goals and tasks. These are similar terms, and sometimes used almost interchangeably. But using the terms task and goal sloppily is, according to expert software designers, an error that leads […]

In past articles, we discussed human-illiterate computers, and we discussed usability, memorability, learnability and Tognazzini’s Paradox: how  changing a single word can make big differences in usability. We also discussed design integrity, simplicity, abstraction, and discount usability testing. Now, we’ll talk about personas. It seems to me that personas are a bit like Critical Incident […]

In the first of this series, I tried to persuade you that your computer was human-illiterate, and we defined and discussed usability, memorability, and learnability. In the second, we discussed Tognazzini’s Paradox: how the hardest part of designing an effective program is often what seems the most trivial—sometimes simply a matter of changing a single […]

In the first of this series, I tried to persuade you that your computer was human-illiterate, and we defined and discussed usability, memorability, and learnability. In the second, we discussed Tognazzini’s Paradox: how the hardest part of designing an effective program is often what seems the most trivial – sometimes simply a matter of changing […]

(A version of this series was first published in the newsletter of the Informatics Section of the American College of Emergency Physicians) Those of you who know me (or maybe have just heard about me) know that I am a zealot about user interface design. With good reason! Those who think they are computer-illiterate are […]