Comments on: How Little You Really Know

By: whitney

whitney — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:12:28 +0000

WordPress is sucking at spam comments lately. Trying to delete these fast. My apologies.

By: Erin Young

Erin Young — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:22:50 +0000

Great reminder. I would agree that the worst UX designer out there is the one who thinks she knows everything there is to know about the user. As consultants, we never reach the end of the long road of learning. Not only are our accounts changing, but so are our users and the way they perform their tasks. Nonetheless, I can sometimes appreciate how far I’ve come in this area. I recall recently interviewing a candidate who, when asked how she approached UCD, said that she met with the client and discovered their needs, then created a site map and met with the clients to make sure that it was usable. In my mind I thought, “maybe she thought I said client-centered design” but I’m fairly sure there would have been a day when I answered an interview question exactly the same way. I sometimes wonder how I ever secured employment in the first place! :)

By: Melita Ogden

Melita Ogden — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:13:31 +0000

In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed (wo)man is king….the reason people persist in overcomplicating things is for their own purposes, to show how great they are..you are SO right . I have worked on both sides : for the client who didn’t even know what an intranet was until I helped them build one which they understood and in the process made them think I was a genius (“what? so we can keep our stuff in one place and access it from 30 offices? How did you do this?)and with the developer who literally quoted 50 hours for a minor change in usability because he simply didn’t agree with it. It’s about ego and the real world of users is not about ego it’s about building a site that is usable, accessible and , , hey why not?, fun for all those who go there. What’s your view on Google moving from it’s divine simplicity to compete ?

By: Erik Vorhes

Erik Vorhes — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:38:29 +0000

Socrates was considered the wisest man in ancient Greece because he understood how little he actually knew. A little humility goes a long way!

By: Pleasure and Pain » Awesome Email of the Day: How Little You Really Know

Pleasure and Pain » Awesome Email of the Day: How Little You Really Know — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:32:39 +0000

[...] in February, I wrote a blog post titled How Little You Really Know. If you haven’t read it, go check it out [...]

By: Nathanael Boehm

Nathanael Boehm — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:57:10 +0000

I was just reading about this last night in Don Norman's DOET:

"There is a big difference between the expertise required to be a designer and that required to be a user. In their work, designers often become expert with the device they are designing. Users are often expert at the task they are trying to perform with the device".

I experienced this last year when developers were telling me the interface I had designed was too complex, that users would never understand it. Of course, having involved users I knew they loved it and knew exactly what to do with it.

But then the developers couldn't understand when I would insist that certain interface elements be implemented in a certain way - it was a minor technical simplification, yet from a task perspective it had a huge impact.

It seems we're speaking different languages sometimes ... but the point is, users aren't idiots. They're smart, intelligent people who just want to get something done ... just don't confuse them by giving them a pair of pliers when they're expecting a hammer.

By: hugohugo

hugohugo — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:31:08 +0000

You are mis leading the term. Under the context your are using here I see you are refering to a “Web Browser” and NOT a “browser” which is more general and most of the interviewed persons almost correctly deduced.

By: Neil Redding

Neil Redding — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:20:41 +0000

Always good to be reminded of this myopia - thanks Whitney!

So let's see - what's a domain in which your readers are similarly clueless?

How about these:

* What's a seed?

* What's a poem?

* What is transubstantiation?

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:30:50 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by whitneyhess: New blog post: How Little You Really Know http://bit.ly/93Yqic...

By: ejesse

ejesse — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:01:59 +0000

Did you have a chance to see any of Nielsen's “avoid voodoo usability” talks in the late 90s/early 2000s? He tried to make a really similar point by first complimenting the audience for being smart and knowledgeable and then pointing out that every time they try to be clever they are asking their users to be MORE knowledgeable about computers than they are. I'm probably butchering the paraphrasing but it was over a decade ago that I saw the talk. I can't find any videos or transcripts :(