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The user is drunk (2013) [video]
- joshbert 12y agoI remember watching this last year. It's one of the best UX videos I've ever seen, thanks for the reminder.
- sizzle 12y agoany more you could recommend?
- cordite 12y agoThat was quite enjoyable, straight forward, and entertaining for the < 5 min duration. I really appreciate putting the user in context of their own lives compared to as if locked in a room with just that interface in front of them. Microsoft brings in people a lot (or so I hear) to do user testing. I wonder how processes can be redesigned to also take "The user is drunk" approach.
- xorgar831 12y agoMicrosoft sent out a high level research team to a company I worked at to collect data and feed back on Outlook. During my interview I asked the lead researcher why he's going through all this trouble to collect data, when he uses the same product himself, and can pay attention to how he's using it and see the disconnects between the use cases and the UI directly? It was a fair question, but I don't recall him having a good answer, other than jotting a note and agreeing. My follow up question was surly there's innovation in Microsoft around UIs, why not interview those folks? To which he and his team laughed and said you don't want any of those folks ideas. Amusingly honest, which I didn't expect.
- nchlswu 12y agoThe simple answer to your question is that you(the researcher or dogfooder) are not your users. I'd say most people overestimate how much their own personal experiences generalize (to a meaningful n) or overestimate their ability to empathize with users. Even user researchers.
- golergka 12y agoIt's very difficult to switch to a user's perception when you've spent a lot of time working on a product. Even if you didn't, being a professional in the field (game design, software development, even being an audio engineer while listening to music) really distorts your vision — so, if you want to predict the actual user/consumer's reaction, you'll better ask them.
- uchi 12y agoThis mentality tends to protrude in a lot of non-software related fields as well. There are many times for example where I question the layout of the instruments in my car or why my local grocery store stocks items the way it does. When you work with software/ui a lot, you tend to develop an internal organizational logic that's very different from normal users. This influence becomes quite noticeable when you have to respond to unfamiliar tasks.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoSomeone working on a product is likely more familiar with it than a regular user of it.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago> During my interview I asked the lead researcher why he's going through all this trouble to collect data, when he uses the same product himself, and can pay attention to how he's using it and see the disconnects between the use cases and the UI directly? It was a fair question, but I don't recall him having a good answer, other than jotting a note and agreeing. I'm surprised he didn't have a better answer. Experienced users cannot intuit the problems that new users will have, and the ones who think they can are the reason we have bad production interfaces. If you're used to pressing Control-Alt-Space, F, Shift-G to perform a common function, then that seems easy to you, and pressing F1 instead seems hard because it's not wired into your muscle memory. The only good way to find snags in your UI is to ask novice users in the field.
- sergiotapia 12y agoOff-topic: Is the person in the video a little person, or is this some strange effect of my hangover from last night?
- kyberias 12y agoI don't get it. Why do you think he is little? His hair may be crazy but I didn't think he was particularly tiny.
- sergiotapia 12y agoI noticed it when he cracks open the beer. And please, I just asked this with the most respect possible, I'm just curious.
- gdrulia 12y agodidn't notice until read this comment. watched it again and well it does look like a little person.
- thomasfrank09 12y agoHere's a longer version of his talk that answers your question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9esN3BqbI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9esN3BqbI
- sizzle 12y agodidn't know there was a longer version, thanks for this.
- bvanvugt 12y agoEspecially enjoy the "drunk but not dumb" part. Minimal design and big buttons do not make great UI. It's all about user intuition and guided experiences - recognizing what a user is wanting to do and helping them achieve it.
- collyw 12y ago> Minimal design and big buttons do not make great UI. I hate stuff that looks pretty, but is makes absolutely no sense unless you have used it previously.
- _mikz 12y agoEven the things mentioned there are obvious it is funny and well made! Congratz!
- thisjepisje 12y agoI don't remember ever having blurry vision or something like that. Yes I've been drunk occasionally.
- randywaterhouse 12y agoIt's perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it is to make his point that "UI dead simple" >> "Complex UI that you can't tell what's what with a blur". You may not have had blurry vision... But your attitude may have been as if you did have blurry vision. Oh there's no big colorful button? X. Oh this sight is monotone? Boring. X. His points are prescient, if exaggerated.
- thisjepisje 12y agoOf course I get the point, I just found it a bit strange he explained the blurry screen the way he did. Blurry screens are indeed very useful when designing UI's.
- thesimpsons1022 12y agodifferent people experience drugs differently.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ryan-allen 12y agoYou need to drink more. Much, much more.
- goshx 12y agoGreat video. I've seen more and more websites with the huge button that "does what it is supposed to do", but in many cases the companies are leaving out a description of what their product actually does.
- aniijbod 12y agoSensitivity to the user's emotions, and thus their capacity to feel insulted by such things as simplicity, explanation and repetition, is not an excuse for failing to address the need for simplicity, explanation and repetition, but advice to interface designers on the need to be both relentlessly explicit and yet at the same time not insultingly condescending is both familiar and unhelpful. His examples are clear elsewhere in this otherwise thought-provoking talk, but in the case of reconciling treating the user as 'being drunk' with treating them as 'not being dumb', I think he leaves the door open to interface designers not still subjecting their work to sufficiently rigorous scrutiny: what does a dumb drunk user do that one who was drunk but not dumb would not do? How drunk do you need to be be to act dumb even if you are smart when you're sober?
- Permit 12y agoIt's kind of interesting to take an approach like this and contrast it with the user experience of something like Vim or Emacs. These editors are extremely popular despite not making it easy for first time users. Is this because the target demographic of Vim/Emacs are all power users? It seems like making powerful tools like these are at odds with treating the user like they're drunk.
- golergka 12y agoIt's all about the point at the end of the video — the amount of attention and effort the user wants to give to your app. If it's a usual consumer app, the potential user obviously has a lot less attention to give to it then you, the creator; to feel this, you really should imagine that the user is actually drunk. But for a professional app, like vim or emacs, it doesn't apply. I switched from Sublime to vim this february, and it was a real effort, but I knew why I'm doing this, and I was willing to put this effort in. And it wasn't my first attempt either; I tried using emacs a year ago, but it still was to much of an effort and I had too much work to complete, so I dropped it.
- gravity13 12y agoI've been thinking about this for a while and my current thought on it is that authoring UIs are fundamentally different than task-oriented UIs, as they are premised more on giving the user expressivity and power of creation. The same might be said of a UI like Photoshop- complex, need to learn how to use it, can do shit with it.
- xixixao 12y agoI beg to differ! These editors are extremely popular because of lack of better alternatives and because of the great conservatism (it doesn't matter that there might be something better, I have already mastered this one tool). I give you Sublime Text as an example - it has exploded in popularity simply for its great user interface. A lot of the engineers I have met, that used Emacs or Vim, have either never heard of Sublime or never tried it. If they were curious enough to give me 30 seconds of their attention, they all agreed "this thing might come in useful". Some I have converted. The same thing is true for Word, Excel, for that matter Windows, Photoshop. These are not the best user interfaces for the main bulk of their target market - they are simply dominating because of lack of better alternatives and/or the great conservatism. My point is, just because you target power users, your software should not get away with a poor interface. As another example, look at the crippled tool we use every day - the shell (csh, bash) and compare it with something like fish (that is far from ideal but makes at least a bit of progress). The video is the best thing I have seen on HN in long while.
- golergka 12y agoNot an eye-opener, but very professional presentation. I've heard this ideas before and even talked about them myself, but I still enjoyed watching to it, and I'll definitely use the metaphor afterwards.
- jnorthrop 12y agoIf you enjoyed that, here[0] is a recording of Will speaking live at a conference. It is on the same topic, only funnier and expanded to roughly 20 minutes. [0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9esN3BqbI&list=PLYVXx3zCnkX5ka0IkWMC-bnXIL0-s54_C http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9esN3BqbI&list=PLYVXx3zCnkX...
- mutagen 12y agoSo in a moment of Sunday night serendipity, I liked the video enough to follow the link to Will's consultancy site and then his personal site[1], where I was intrigued enough with the interface to click through a few items. Seeing the name 'Bankai' took me back at least a couple of years when I spent plenty of time on the then new thesixtyone.com interface admiring their interface and gamification of new music discovery, where I had 'hearted' a few of Bankai's tracks. Will appears to be prolifically creative and dedicated to sharing, inspiring qualities. [1]http://willdayble.com/ http://willdayble.com/