February 18, 2010

Jamy Ian Swiss Talks About Empathy

Great presentation by magician Jamy Ian Swiss, who explains concepts like mental models and storytelling by equating software to magic.

Jamy Ian Swiss at Gel 2009 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Jamy Ian Swiss calls himself an «honest liar», because as a magician, he promises to deceive his audience, and then promptly does. User interface designers are somewhat similar, though probably a bit less honest. We constantly lie to our users about what they actually see. A button on a screen isn’t really a button, it’s a bunch of colored dots. The better we lie to users, to more easily we can convince them that it actually is a button.

So while we may not be as honest as magicians, our lies nevertheless are in the user’s best interest.

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designed_for_use_small

If you liked this, you'll love my book. It's called Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web. In it, I cover the whole design process, from user research and sketching to usability tests and A/B testing. But I don't just explain techniques, I also talk about concepts like discoverability, when and how to use animations, what we can learn from video games, and much more.

You can find out more about it (and order it directly, printed or as a DRM-free ebook) on the Pragmatic Programmers website.