My favorite usability story was at my expense. I was watching a demo for a tool crib software - essentially, it allows people to gain access to tools like a lib

My favorite usability story was at my expense. I was watching a demo for a tool crib software - essentially, it allows people to gain access to tools like a library. The one that impressed everyone the most * was in Visual Basic 6 * was ugly as anything I had ever seen * had an incredibly cluttered screen but everyone raved about it when they left. Why? It was far and away the most usable software we had seen. Instead of thinking about the pleasantness of the screen, they were thinking about workflow. Every time we asked, "can it do X", it did so, and with far greater elegance than we had hoped. Even with the clutter, it was easy to use. Now, when I look at designing a user interface, I think of it with completely different eyes.