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my users are so stupid I need to remove or break stuff that would be useful for 99% of my userbase Yes, that's what engineers often sound like when we try to i
by dkarl 7y ago
my users are so stupid I need to remove or break stuff that would be useful for 99% of my userbase
Yes, that's what engineers often sound like when we try to interpret the conclusions of usability professionals. We get frustrated because the features that we would find easiest to work with are not necessarily the features the product should have. I'm not saying I'm a UX professional who does know better than engineers; I'm just saying that as engineers we should get used to the fact that what is horrible design from our perspective is often the result of careful work done with a more representative sample of users.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoPerhaps I'm just too much of an engineer. But I'm finding it hard to imagine how anyone would find it easier rather than harder to choose a bookcase when IKEA's search results include media units, shelves, doors for kitchen cupboards, hinges for doors for kitchen cupboards, and doll furniture. To be fair, the experience is as confusing and distracting as wandering through a store, so perhaps it really is deliberate.
- eitland 7y agoStill I suspect people are applying this out of context: When people are designing business applications, ecommerce software etc using ideas from Google and Twitter, companies that are trying to eke out the last percent of usability, and in the process destroys their product for everyone else I don't think it is smart. Case in point: Google has lost me and I guess a number of other engineers as users and evangelists because their software just doesn't cut it anymore after 10 yeas of dumbification as it now too often refuses to respect even double quotes and verbatim setting.
- perl4ever 7y agoGoogle will now take a three or four word search and remove precisely the critical phrase that makes it useful at all. Like, I was looking for "New York XYZ" and it cheerfully spits out top hits with "New York" crossed out.
- eitland 7y agoGiven how many Googlers are here on the forums I assume Google is well aware of the problem and we are just collateral in the quest to make Google usable for cats and dogs ;-)
- Shacklz 7y ago> We get frustrated because the features that we would find easiest to work with are not necessarily the features the product should have. "Product should have" implies a direction in which you want to optimize. Best user experience? Maximum profitability? There's a reason supermarkets tend to shuffle their products around all the time - people need to search for stuff again, so they might see things they otherwise won't see, and buy more. Shitty UX, better profit.