Red Echo

August 11, 2008

This essay about software usability has some solid, useful tips backed up with specific examples. The text is unfortunately black-on-white, which I find almost unreadable, but it’s worth copying and pasting into a text editor.

2 Comments

  1. Trivia: pressing cmd-option-control-8 also solves the white text on black page problem.

    Comment by Asher — August 12, 2008 @ 12:07 pm

  2. My favorite: “Give the user the chance to ask for forgiveness rather than forcing them to confirm a (destructive) action.”

    And if that’s true for destructive actions, it goes quadruply for non-destructive ones. Makes me think of the game “Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones”, which involved the following confirmation process every time you save the game (which, when you’re a compulsive game-saver like me, is really annoying). Courtesy of Absolute Anime:

    Game: Do you want to save?
    Me: Press UP to select the yes option, then press the X button to initiate it.
    Game: Select the game save slot that you want to save on.
    Me: Press DOWN to select my previous save slot, then press the X button to initiate it.
    Game: Are you sure you want to save on this memory card?
    Me: Press UP to select the yes option, then press the X button to initiate it.
    Game: Are you sure you want to overwrite this existing save?
    Me: Press UP to select the yes option, then press the X button to initiate it.
    Game: Your game was saved.

    Comment by Micah Cowan — August 13, 2008 @ 4:56 pm