A really good article on software usability

[Scott van Looy]

Today William Case did spake thusly:

> Anne, if I may take the liberty of whole heartedly agreeing with you
>
> Les's proposal sounds like a MicroSoft proposal.

In an ideal world, you'd create an application dummy. Get prospective 
users to use it in various scenarios (UAT). Watch them. Take that feedback 
on board, develop a sensible set of defaults, then develop a way (user 
prefs or something) to override all those defaults. Then do another UAT 
cycle, clean up any issues discovered, and that's it. Voila, best of 
both worlds.

This is how software *should* be developed. Programmers all too frequently 
forget that they are servicing the user, not telling them what to do.

-- 
Scott van Looy - email:me at ethosuk.org.uk | web:www.ethosuk.org.uk
site:www.freakcity.net - the in place for outcasts since 2003
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