mhoyeNov 5

A little louder, a reminder:

"Good UX" mostly means "I've seen this before."

Have you ever seen an adult without your cultural baggage approach a doorknob for the first time? They'll start by pulling it, then pushing it. There's nothing "intuitive" about turning a round doorknob. But you've been trained, so you don't even notice.

"...but Apple, but the iphone", the iPhone was never "easy to use" or "intuitive". They bombarded TV with training videos disguised as ads for 6 months pre-release.

Show threadmhoyeNov 5

"You just point and click and drag everyone knows that" you spent hundreds of hours training to "just" point and click and drag, but you didn't call it training, you called it solitaire and minesweeper.

You practised.

Today, if we want a better user interface for any computing - and I think we do, and it's possible - we have two choices. Entirely 100% new - clean-break, fresh-start new - tech or to acknowledge and own that we're going to spend some time fighting reflexes honed over decades.

Show threadMx. Aria StewartNov 5
@mhoye Anyone who thinks "just drag" is intuitive has never tried to help an 85 year old do it. Weak muscles, shaky arms, sticky old mouse, a bit of a tremor... it's actually _very_ hard to describe the motion they need to make and then all of that!
Show threadAndrew
@aredridel @mhoye we've had so much trouble at work trying to make sure our shiny drag-and-drop list editor works for people who can't drag. there are so many things you need to think of and end up building twice if you really want an inclusive product
Nov 6 at 4:50pmWeb
Show threadmhoyeNov 6
@andrewt @aredridel If you don't have a lot of cultural bench depth among the people in the room at the earliest stages of some product's life, people who feel safe and empowered to speak up, then an awful lot of your design and iteration process is going to end up wasted.
Show threadAndrewNov 6
@mhoye @aredridel we've definitely found that, absolutely