What a sewing machine taught me about user interfaces
My wife has just taken up a new hobby of making teddy bears. Which meant she had to buy a sewing machine. She had a look at the manual and said that looks complicated why don't you look at it, you like gadgets and work in computing. Of course I am a developer and the mere thought of hardware sends shivers down my spine. Anyway I read through the manual, which was very detailed and tried to explain everything. The problem was I had never used a sewing machine and so I was uncertain what I was meant to achieve. Why for example did you need two threads one from above and one from below. I realised I could follow all the pictures but and understand all the words but I was still lost. I especially liked the lever called "dog feeder control". I was half expecting an ultrasonic sound to be issued and all the dogs in the neighbourhood to suddenly appear. Eventually, once we had done everything it all seemed very simple.
So what does this have to do with software development. Quite a lot I think, take a package like SAP. The accountants love it but the users often hate using it. Now I think I know why, they don't know what they meant to achieve with it. The terms it uses are different from the ones that users employ and the interface, though a lot more jazzy, doesn't look like the one used by all the other programs on their computer.
Other great examples are: "hanging indents" and "orphans" in Word. Great terms, invented by the developers. But most users would never think of looking for those terms in the help. Especially in international companies using american software and many non native english speakers.
I don't know the complete solution but I am beginning to realise why so many users do not use the help. Also I beginning to start re thinking how I do user design.