The Life Changing Art of Being Wrong by Kathryn Grayson Nanz

  • Assumptions
    • Falsehoods that programmers believe about names (there's a whole website on this). Wouldn't the fix for this be one field that is 'Full Name' that allows all characters necessary, and don't use this as a unique identifier
    • My users can read the user interface. English as a second language. Literacy level (In America, 54% can't read at a 7th grade reading level)
    • Interface literacy (don't know the difference between click and double-click, or identifying the Save button, zooming in on a touch screen)
    • Users choose to be here
    • Users will use the interface. I made a button. I assume they will use the button. But not if they use a screen reader or adaptive switches or eye tracking technologies
    • Software or the internet is not the 'real world'. Examples are when people try to complete employee benefits online but it's bad. Or when something like Facebook shows a memories notification, and that includes someone that's passed away, causing you grief
  • How to Be Wrong (Better)
    • Usability Tests (high level talk or oreilly course by her)
    • The 5 Whys
      • Define a problem statement, ask Why, consider the answer, ask Why again, consider that answer, repeat
    • Determine the extreme personas to consider how they would interact with your app
    • Mind mapping
    • Online ethnography
      • Identify a user group, find online spaces where they gather, follow creators, lurk, learn language used to describe problems, frustrations about existing tools, workarounds, pain-points, recurring questions (subreddit)
    • Rewording - take sentences and think through whether there is more flexibility, more accurate wording, etc
  • Action Items
    • Make things more assistive-technology friendly