Brighten up your office and help spread the word with one of our World Usability Day quotation posters. Or print a couple on postcard-sized photo paper and send them to manufacturers of hard-to-use products with your own witty aphorism on the back.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. don't make me think. A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. A bad web site is like a grumpy salesperson. I have a lot of trouble with your remote controls. Too many arrows. A mobile phone needs a manual in the way that a teacup doesn't. Bad web navigation is like a roach motel... Users go in but they can't get out.

About the author

David Travis

Dr. David Travis (@userfocus) has been carrying out ethnographic field research and running product usability tests since 1989. He has published three books on user experience including Think Like a UX Researcher. If you like his articles, you might enjoy his free online user experience course.



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These crosswords feature words and concepts in usability. Use them in your training courses or to raise awareness of usability in your team. Usability crosswords.


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