Five Sketches™

If a group of users is accustomed to a complex software system, and you’re designing its replacement, how simple can you design that replacement to be?
Simpler software—software that is discoverable, easy to learn, and easy explain to others—frees its users to focus on tasks that add value. It may also frustrate former expert users […]

A few days ago, I tried to pump up my bicycle tires. I had to borrow a pump.
The connectors and attachments suggested this pump would fill North-American and European tire tubes as well as air mattresses, soccer balls, and basketballs.
But the thing is, neither the pump’s owner nor I were able to make it work. […]

The Agile Manifesto includes twelve principles. These two are related:
Deliver working software frequently [in short sprints that last] from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
From discussions with other practitioners, I know that software teams can get dogmatic about the above […]

I recently moved into a home where the light switches are all wrong. I was able to fix one problem, and the rest is a daily reminder that usability doesn’t just happen by itself.
In one pair of light switches, the left switch controlled a lamp to the right, and the right switch controlled a lamp to […]

We don’t always know what a design is intended to convey. We don’t always recognise or relate to a design’s intended user groups. But we don’t have to know everything that an object’s design is intended to do, in order to make effective use of the object.
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I […]

Last week, while waiting for friends, I picked up a community newspaper in hopes of finding a puzzle to help me pass the time. I found a sudoku puzzle.
A sudoku puzzle consists of nine 3×3 squares, sprinkled with a few starter numbers. The player must fill in all the blanks by referring to the numbers that are already […]

For the past few months, I’ve been taking an average of 1.6 flights per week on commercial airplanes. Most of these offered seatback entertainment, so I could watch the TV show or movie of my choice, or listen to satellite radio while reading. Touch-screen controls are easy to use because they let me touch—or tap—the item or […]

This week, I’m attending a few days of training in agile software development, in an Innovel course titled Lean, Agile and Scrum for Project Managers and IT Leadership.
My first exposure to agile was in Desiree Sy’s 2005 presentation, Strategy and Tactics for Agile Design: A design case study, to the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) annual conference […]

A simple and good design can last and last. Consider the qualities of a BC Telephones operator’s chair from the 1930s:

Environmentally defensible. It is made primarily of a renewable resource—wood—and is so durable that, after decades, it still withstands daily use.
Functional. Originally, at BC Tel, this chair fit a small space, swivelled so the operator […]

When designing the user experience of software, UX- and Development teams often focus on how the user interface supports user performance, because that’s within their locus of control. Once the product is in the wild, environmental factors may reduce user performance despite the team’s best product-design efforts. But I believe it’s possible for a UX team to […]