There are times when the lack of quality in government and other organizations seems explainable: People work there!
From recent news stories:
Dumb:
18% of people fall for phishing emails. Hacking Critical Infrastructure Companies – A Pen Tester View
Dumber:
11% of Americans think HTML is a sexually transmitted disease. 1 in 10 Americans think HTML is an STD, study finds
Dumbest:
An elementary school principal:
responded to a Craigslist advertisement over the weekend and talked with an undercover officer who posed as a child’s mother looking to arrange for a man to meet her teenage daughter. (Bond set for Douglas County principal arrested in sex sting)
It’s been a while since I was a teenager but I don’t remember any mothers taking out ads in the newspaper for their daughters. Do you?
Take this as a reminder to do realistic user testing of interfaces.
- Pick people at random and put them in front your interface.
- Take video of their efforts to use the interface for the intended task(s).
- Ask what about your interface confused the user?
- Fix the interface (do not attempt to fix the user, plenty more where that one came from)
- Return to step 1.