Signage

I saw a stairwell recently with a sign posted clearly at the top: "Warning: Slippery Stairwell". I wonder how much it cost to find and post a sign, versus simply making the stairwell less slippery.

So often we do the same thing when developing applications: present warnings and errors rather than designing to eliminate the errors to begin with.

Usability Testing: Quotable Quotes

My colleague and I recently conducted one-on-one usability tests over several days for an internal project. The tests were very productive and revealed findings that helped our client make some informed design decisions.

During the week, we had many "quotable quotes" from the participants. One of my favorites was the following helpful tip: "You know what you should do? You should talk to a bunch of different people about how they would use this, because everyone is going to have a different perspective."

Say...wish we had thought of that!