[Sigia-l] Users know how to set default font (was: RE: large font use)

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Gunnar Langemark
> 
> Boniface Lau wrote:
> >Mind you, regardless of how much you don't like about the report
> >findings, a report deserves the benefit of the doubt.
> 
> I don't agree. I believe that reality deserves that benefit more.
> If someone publish a report and do not include enough evidence for
> your conclusions,

When people do not want to accept the conclusions, they can keep
asking for more evidence. So, what is enough?


> we must have the right to doubt it and dismiss it.

Indeed. But that is not the issue. Giving people the benefit of the
doubt means treating them as if they have behaved properly even though
you are not sure that is the case.

Many designers like to believe that users are so dumb that they don't
even know how to set the default font face and size. Such assumption
of user dumbness makes designers' job much easier. They simply
override whatever might have been set by the users. They don't have to
know about robustness, let alone coming up with a robust design that
works well with various default font faces and sizes.

Now, when a study revealed that users are not as dumb as many
designers have thought, some people tried to discredit the study's
findings by calling into question the study's due diligence when there
was no evidence to suggest that something improper took place.

Thus, in my last reply, I mentioned that a report deserves the benefit
of the doubt.


> We may be wrong in doing so, but that can be corrected. If - on the
> contrary - You take it "face value" and just implement the
> conclusions in the next project

Only very naive people would implement a conclusion just because they
had seen it in one study. People with common sense would look for
confirmations from various sources. If there was no confirmation
found, the conclusion would be treated as a data point in the
decision-making process.


Boniface