A Brief User Interface Manifesto

Friday, December 22, 2000 by Dave Winer.

Joel's book 

I had the honor to write the foreword for Joel Spolsky's upcoming book on user interface design for programmers. I am happy to help spread the word that user-centered software design is an important but largely lost artform. Excerpts from Joel's book are here:

http://joel.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$51

Highly recommended reading, great stuff to think about between movies, football games and big turkey dinners.

Now here's my manifesto..

A brief manifesto 

I remember, as if it were yesterday, my first experience with a user. I had been developing a software product for three years, all the while thinking it was easy to use. A friend who had been listening to me gush about how great it was asked if he could try it. Hesitantly I said yes. I launched the program and we switched seats. I tried to say nothing as he wondered what to do. The software didn't have anything to say. "What should I do?" he asked. I thought to myself "I have some work to do."

This is the moment of truth for any software developer, and one we avoid. In The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder tells about the first problem report from "the field" about a computer system developed at Data General in the late 1970s. The lead developer was surprised. In his mind the computer was a development project; that real people would try to use it attacked his perception of his own product.

We all go through this, at a superficial level we think we're designing for users, but no matter how hard we try, we're designing for who we think the user is, and that means, sadly, that we're designing for ourselves. Until you prove that it's usable by other people, your software is certainly not designed for them.

Until you make the shift and let the users tell you how your software works, it simply can't be usable. Every successful software product is proof of this, as is every failure. How many times have you installed some software or visited a Web site and wondered "What does this do?" Now, understand that other people are asking the same question about your software. It's a puzzle, to solve it you must figure out how to get your software into a user's mind, and to learn how to do that, you must learn how that mind works.

Joel's book is a milestone built on a strong foundation of practical experience. He's absolutely right that user testing is easy. You don't need a lab to do it, although many people think you do. You just need a computer and a person who doesn't know your software. It's an iterative process. Do it once, it'll change your whole perspective. Do some engineering. Do it again with a new person. Repeat the process until the first-time user knows what to do, and actually can use the software to do what it was designed to do.

Joel's book is about more than software design and user-centricity. Once you learn how to communicate with users through software, it's inevitable that all your communication will improve. The central aha is to realize that other people use your software, and they don't know what you know, and they don't think like you think they do.

There are some very simple truths in this book, and sometimes the simplest truths can be most difficult. But Joel makes it so easy! His stories are clear and human and fun. And that may be the biggest lesson, if you haven't been designing for users, you're not having as much fun doing software as you could.

I can tell you, from personal experience, that there's nothing more satisfying as a professional software developer than to have a product resonate with the market, to have thousands of people tell you that they couldn't work without your software. To get there, you have to learn from them as you teach. Yes, your software is great, I believe you, but if no one uses it, it can't make the world a better place.

Dave Winer