[Sigia-l] Forcing practice

[Whitney Quesenbery]

At 11:49 AM 10/7/2003 -0400, Laura S. Quinn wrote:

>Taking a hard line towards user experience - saying that there is never any
>situation in which we should agree to anything less than an optimal user
>experience - only defeats our own goals.


I was one of the first people to say "question the assumptions" so I'll 
jump in here.

I didn't mean, "plant your feet, draw a line in the sand and hold your 
breath until you turn blue"

I did mean, raise the issue, consider where the cost-benefits are, question 
assumptions, be sure that it's really truly impossible to change anything 
about the existing program, raise the issue for next time....

And, make sure you know where the costs are. If a $5 job aid will reduce 
errors to tolerable levels, by all means do it. But don't spend $100 on 
training for a problem that would cost $125 to fix forever.



Whitney Quesenbery
Whitney Interactive Design, LLC
w. www.WQusability.com
e. whitneyq at wqusability.com
p. 908-638-5467

UPA  - www.usabilityprofessionals.org
STC Usability SIG: www.stcsig.org/usability