2a Legalese vs. Usability

12 July 8th, 2005 by 4 Tom d Chi :: 7 9 37 21 Comments

1e4

Legalese is a strange thing to have in a piece of software. Strange because it fits neither the language of the user nor the language of the developer. Strange because it forces us to agree to baffling clauses for pages at a time before we can start to do the simplest of operations. There is a reason for all this, of course. No company wants to get sued, but a clumsy presentation of legal text can kill the mood faster than nearly any other usability mistake.

8 9 6b

29 The Best Software Writing I : 277 Joel Spolsky or "Joel on Software" has published a collection of essays into a convenient (and affordable) little book ... and we're in it! Most people who are linking the essays fail to realize of course, it's not the essay he included, it's one of our first comics forever immortalized. - ~~9 e 2 Comments 2b~~

15 8 9 6b

12 Eets : 17d While we're on the subject of things Tom and I have been up to, check out Eets, a puzzle game that both Tom and I contributed to. It's just a demo version right now but great fun, especially for those that remember The Incredible Machine or Lemmings ... and yes, there are some usability issues that are being worked on. - 9 39 4 Comments

15 42

Advertise With Us

Active Threads: » We're Not Dead Yet! (6); » Melissa (6); » Who ARE you? (2); » The scariest interface part II... (15); » Creating Conceptual Comics (1); » Google Answers HCI PhD Program (15); » Kicking the Llama (22)

412

OK/Cancel is a comic strip collaboration co-written and co-illustrated by Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi. Our subject matter focuses on interfaces, good and bad and the people behind the industry of building interfaces - usability specialists, interaction designers, human-computer interaction (HCI) experts, industrial designers, etc. (Who Links Here) ?