Write the manual first
azarask.in
azarask.in
When examining an object design or a user interface, usually a tech object, I use to think like this : if my little sister (15, lives in a new tech world), my father (53, hardly knows how to use Google) and me (student in IT engineering) are capable of understanding how to use it mostly without the manual, then it's a very good user interface.
For example, the iPhone : easy to use, my little sister knows how it works, my father had to read the light manual but everything here is well explained, and I didn't need the manual, but I found plenty of useful power-commands on specialized geek sites.
It's the same thing for the Wii, from a primar use to a power use.
Unfortunately, we gave my father a HD videocamera : my little sister knows how to record a scene, I needed to look into the manual to find how to watch a recorded movie and my father just can't do anything without reading continuously this manual. User interface FAIL.
Two years ago, when I was teaching people how to use a computer, I realized that Windows XP is the perfectly wrong UI : there isn't any bit of this software that is easy to understand. The desktop-icons-directory is easy for someone who already used a computer, but not for someone who is new to this. I realized that my students who were using Mac OS understood about five times faster than people with XP (who needed books and asked me continuously what that dialogue box meant). And last year, I showed an 80 years old engineer and doctor, who was stucked with Windows XP, my brand new iPhone, he immediately knew how to use it, how to scroll between pictures, how to magnify text or web pages, how to start an application...
I could go on, but I think I made myself clear : WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO READ THE FUCKIN MANUAL.