Ruth Stalker-Firth

Like many usability consultants I have spent hours locked in rooms with strangers saying: “What do you think about this web page?” It is boring way to earn a living especially as you often know the answers and could tell clients without asking the questions.

Alas, most clients only believe opinions about their websites when it comes from random users - not you, the expert. Luckily the industry takes Jakob Nielson’s advice on testing: five users only to establish a pattern of responses (and because it’s cheap). Although, if we were really serious, we would need 30 users to talk about the statistical significance of our results.

Some of this boredom could be avoided (and client money saved) if everyone employed the patterns which already exist in users’ heads to create more intuitive webpages and GUIs. Cognitive science, the study of mind and intelligence, enables us to understand what makes our users tick. (more…)

People are the weakest link in all computer systems. We hear about the best cryptography money can buy: integrity checking, sender/receiver identity authentication, digital signatures, and then someone leaves a list of passwords on a post-it note stuck above a computer and in an instant renders all the algorithms pointless. Or the same someone automatically gives out his password over the telephone or by email when ‘technical support’ asks so that they can reset it - another victim of phishing. (more…)

Humans are involved in 80-90% of IT security system breaches. We have the technological capacity to keep our software systems secure with but we cannot control the way people use IT. As the complexity of IT systems increase, designers must view users as key factor in the design process. (more…)

The recent furore over the 2012 Olympics Logo reminds me of how people react to the user interfaces they find on everything they interact with, from websites to washing machines. If an interface, like a logo, is well-designed, no one notices or mentions it. If it is difficult or unsightly, people complain loudly and when given a choice, won’t use an interface they don’t like. Interaction designers, like IT support staff, are never thanked when all is well and severely criticised when interfaces cause users problems. (more…)

(The Great Fire of London map at the British Library website)

In the 1530s when Henry VIII realised that dissolving the monastries would get him much needed assets, he commissioned a map of London, paying particular attention to ‘lawless’ Southwark. He wanted to see if the borough had any money he could take off them. Henry VIII was a smart man, he knew that the right sorts of information bring wealth and power.

I saw the resulting map last year at the British Library exhibition London: A Life in Maps along with many others - maps of wills and estates, Victorian cab fare maps, cycling maps and tourist maps. Each map was primarily motivated by the need to learn more about an area of London in order to make or save money, especially when making your way around the ever growing London.

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