Rather liking this post and article about signs of the usability professional in childhood. I did some pretty strange projects as a child, but never designing mousetraps from a user/rodent interface perspective.
It reminded me of the user interface element of technical writing though. I started tech writing from an organise-the-buggery-out-of-the-information-and-everything-will-be-alright point of view. From a usability point of view, I assumed that everyone would react much like I would and left it at that.
Over the years I've retained my love of organising the info but become much more tentative about how the information is actually displayed. Little things make such major differences. Such as dividing table cells by lines instead of white space. Most of the adjustments I've made have been a direct result of usability testing - namely watching some poor reader try to actually *use* the documentation.
I think there are parallels with actors and the theatre. The actor picks up the product and applies craft to it. They get a bunch of lines, story, etc. and then they try to package it and display it so the audience gets the required message. And in this, the director almost stands in for the usability testing. "No, Adrian, you don't look surprised when you do that, you just look like you've forgotten your next line." Except the director is also the producing craftsperson so a lot of the dispassionate quality is lost. I know the film 'test audience' is derided, as it should be when it is solely for marketing purposes. But when the director's story gets lost in the telling - perhaps some usability testing might have saved everyone a lot of pain.
p.s. I have a vague sense that dramaturgs may be a partial answer to the director capture problem, but I don't know enough about theatre to say.
Posted by carla at September 7, 2004 10:32 PM