Re: Rant... please let me help you fix the user interface

["Simon North" <sintac -at- home -dot- nl>]

Hooooo boy! 

My heart bleeds for you Mike. 

I followed a simple path at my current gig; except that our software 
has non-Windows, proprietary interface and the original docs were 
written by the QA manager - so they are/were totally software-oriented 
and read more like specs than user docs (except we don't have specs). 
Can you imagine a Dreamweaver help project where every single file is 
in a separate directory and they are ALL called 'index.htm'? 

The major difference is that I was lucky enough to be given the chance to 
'put my money where my mouth was' and come up with some suggestions. I 
put a lot of effort into making a full-scale presentation to my boss, who was 
fortunately impressed enough to make me repeat it to all of R&D, and I now 
get to help with the development of the GUI and do a formal usability 
evaluation of all products and projects. Of course, it sounds simple put like 
this, but the process took nearly 2 years and we have an awful long way to 
go yet.

The only suggestions I might give that could be of any use are: 1) don't give 
up! 2) take it one (small) battle at a time  3) pictures speak louder than 
words ... and some a few good 'reductio ad absurbam' of existing gaffes can 
win a lot of converts.  

For what little it's worth, 

Simon. 
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