November 13, 2004

Step one in designing an interface

From a New York Times story on how San Jose police are struggling with the bad UI on their new touch-screen-based mobile-dispatch system:

Perhaps the biggest misstep of all, Mr. Marcus said, was that the officers themselves were not consulted beforehand, especially when it came to the design of the interface.

Yup, that'd do it...

Posted by bug to at November 13, 2004 8:07 AM | TrackBack
Comments

If people have a chance to look at the photo with the article, they should. The "Emergency emergency somebody's shooting at me" is the F1 key (with a big red label on it). Of course, they had to change it once they had too many false alarms (to alt-shift-Fwhatever or something). This complexity also led to complaints ("They're shooting at me, and you're asking me to find the ALT key?!?!"). But it's pretty cool that you hit F1/Help, and people with guns show up.

Posted by: Bats at November 13, 2004 8:32 AM
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