User Interfaces should be clear on how people can do stuff.
But first of all, they should know where they are and what they can do with it.

I don’t use my mum for my usability testing! It’s just an observation that products that are meant for everyone may not necessarily take people like my mum (relatively uninitiated) into consideration. Even if they do, it results in a longer learning curve.

It’s down to how much the company cares about usability; fortunately I’m in a company that focusses heavily on it; and we certainly don’t use our mums, cause they don’t use our products.

It’s not always a case of making it ‘as easy as possible’ to use, but intuitive. Intuitive to you or I might be different to your mum; however if that product is for you and me, then introducing you mum into the equation isn’t always helpful.

As I say, not a bad mantra, however it should remain as that; I think actually using your mum as a test study is taking the mantra a little too far.

The other major issue here is that you’re limiting your testing to ONE user; which is shockingly bad practice in any case. A lot of what we do is based around affordance; and if one person hasn’t been exposed to a particular metaphore then it could flag your design as a failure, even if it’s a success.

‘The greatest usability test’ is the one that is most appropriate for your designated user personas; this is where the expertise of an IA comes in; if it were as simple as showing it to your mum then anyone could perform professional grade usability studies; which they most certainly can’t.

Sending programs to Neo on The Matrix UI?! Dude, I mean the first website of The Matrix movie on the internet, which had hidden links and messages and stories talking about an alternate reality, which in turn formed the first ever largest Alternate Reality Gaming community. That’s utilising a concept in cyberspace. Something similar to the viral websites for The Dark Knight, but a hell lot more. What I’m saying is that UI needs to be faithful to the concept the target audience identifies, more than it needs to be to a more (or less) skilled audience.

The problem with keeping it true to the concept is that people who came up with the concept may not know jack about usability.

Did you understand anything about the matrix UI? It would have been so much different if you could understand what Tank was controlling and how he was sending those programs to Neo! The matrix is probably the worst UI ever!

The last sentence is Confucius-like in it’s wisdom, though… it goes for almost all aspects of design.

What I find a negative force propagating in the design world these days, particularly web design, is exactly that point: making the user’s life simple. Users are becoming more and more sophisticated these days, if you’re making your UIs simple, you are presuming to penetrate the largest audience possible… is that really a good thing in a culture that ridicules mass-produced, samey-looking, samey-doing products?

In other words, make your UI as true to the concept as possible. The concept is God. It’s the interpretation of the concept the audience needs to understand in order to navigate a UI. Like the interpretation of ‘Pinching’ for zoom in Touch interfaces. Or the concept of Conversations in GMail interpreted as a stack of emails. Interpretation can be done by anyone, though, whether simple or hard to understand. In this way, you will make sure your UI is interpreted well by the main people, which is the target audience, which is the only audience that understands the concept in the best possible way and hence is most equipped with how to navigate it. An example would be The Matrix website’s UI.

The ad industry uses focus groups to get feedback, is that the kind of surveying you’re talking about for UIs, Kartikay? I don’t think UI designers have that privilege. Game designers do, though, and still most design utterly shit UIs, so I don’t think it helps. I mean, how many times do I need to scare the shit out of my pants in the middle of the night at that unexpected LOUD EA SPORTS Intro Sound EFFECTS on my earphones huh?

Moms might be a good place to start…though not my mom The thing about moms is that they love everything you do. GMail is not your product, so moms can shit-talk about it all they want (initially) but when it comes to your big break, you’re mom’s gonna call it the best darn UI in the UIverse (pardon the pun).

cheers