This is an adapted version of a story from Selling the Wheel, by Jeff Cox: Once upon a time, long ago, a resourceful fellow named Max came up with a brilliant idea and invented the Wheel. He said to his wife, ‘you know what, the Wheel is going to make us lots of money’. His… Read more »
Category: usability
In praise of dummies
We live in a world so diverse and so complex that everyone has to deal with situations where we’re really don’t know what’s going on. We have to ‘drive blindly’ – we’re all dummies at some time or another. The reality is, it’s rarely your fault. The last person said to know everything about the… Read more »
Why do Technical Authors only use two of the three qualities of good design?
Why do Technical Authors only use two of the three qualities of good design? Vitruvius, the Roman architect, claimed a structure must exhibit the three qualities of firmitas, utilitas and venustas: it must be solid, useful and beautiful. Paul Mijksenaar, a modern day Information Designer, turned these qualities into a practical three-point formula: Reliability, Utility and… Read more »
Creating more engaged users
As part of my prep for my presentation on user documentation as a more emotional experience for the user, I revisited this presentation by Kathy Sierra. This hasn’t ‘made the cut’ into my presentation due to lack of time, so I thought I’d post it here.
Should we offer a workshop on documentation as a emotional experience for users?
We’re presenting on documentation as a emotional experience for users at the TCUK conference later this month, and we’re considering whether we should develop this 40 minute presentation into a workshop. Technical documentation written today really doesn’t take into account the different states of emotion users can have, and this can lead to users bypassing… Read more »