| Reviewed: |
Oct 08, 2007 by Psychology |
| Overview: |
This site presents examples of everyday things that cause people to become confused, make a mistake, or have difficulty when using them. The author is a usability engineer with a PhD in cognitive psychology. He has collected a large number of examples of designs that cause unnecessary confusion and difficulty. The material is organized in broad categories of things, displays, control, and signs/names/labels. The site allows users to automatically receive email notification when new examples are added and to submit their own examples of bad designs. There are also "common questions and answers" and "recommended books" sections. |
| Learning Goals: |
This site provides the user with examples that illustrate what not to do when designing, with ideas for how to make objects more user-friendly. |
| Target Student Population: |
Middle school, high school, and college students should find this site useful and interesting. |
| Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills: |
In order to fully understand the material, a knowledge of human factors and design principles would be useful. |
| Type of Material: |
This is a collection of examples (web pages with images) that illustrate bad human factors designs. The author also provides brief (2-3 minute) podcasts describing some examples. |
| Recommended Uses: |
This site would be useful for courses in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Human Factors, Consumer Behavior, and applied cognitive psychology. Instructors in these courses could direct students to the site to supplement and illustrate covered material. This site does not discuss the principles that underly sound design practices. In a course that covers such practices, this site could be used to identify examples that demonstrate the importance of specific design principles. |
| Technical Requirements: |
None, although auditory capabilities would be required to listen to the podcasts. |
