Monthly Archives: June 2016

UI Tip: The User Is Busy

I’m passionate about user-interfaces. And so I thought it would be worthwhile to expand on a UI discussion I was in on Slack today.

You should never call a user dumb. I prefer to use the phrase busy, one of the great suggestions from Al Cooper’s About Face. I prefer that phrase because nearly all users are not dumb: The bell curve and a whole heap of population statistics say otherwise.

The real issue is that most users are just too busy and too harried to really think about your software or to spend any time with it or to spend any time learning it. They only use it because they have to use it, most likely because some manager at their company bought it and said, “This is your new [X] now.”

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Windows 10

Microsoft really screwed the pooch with Windows 10.

Over the past six months, I’ve had the opportunity to both install 10 and use it on quite a lot of machines.  It’s better than Windows 8, but that’s a lot like saying two broken legs are better than cancer:  You really wish there was another option.

So, look, lest you all think I’m just a hater, I have intentionally upgraded my devices to Windows 10, and stuck with it for long enough to get a real feel for it.  I want to be using the new operating system.  It’s just simply not ready for prime time.

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