We’ve been working on a little toy app for Sal and he’s been part of the process. I like hearing his opinion on UI and he’s got a decent eye for things. There’s a lot of subtle changes that need to be made to transition from a mouse UI to touch UI. He’s made the transition much faster than I have, though it probably helps that he doesn’t really remember computers pre-iPad too.
Sal: Why does it say ‘click to start’?
Me: Because you need to click it when you’re ready to play.
Sal: But why does it say ‘click to start’?
Me: Huh?
Sal: It should say ‘touch to start’ or ‘tap to start’.
Uh huh. And later, we were putting on extra images here and there. Off the cuff I ask him if the stickers should be the same as on another page, or different, or it doesn’t matter. He thinks for a second, then says they should be different, and we talk about the algorithm for insuring things are different when you’ve got a shuffled deck.
Next day, he’s playing with it and says “This is wrong. The goat was on both screens.” Ask him to clarify and reminds us that the stickers should be different. We shouldn’t see the goat on both screens. But it’s not consistently reproducible. Turns out, the deck was being shuffled in between screens, so there was a chance of the sticker being repeated. But it was random enough not to be too obvious.
Unless it is your requirement. Then I guess it is more obvious.
Me: Good bug, man!
Sal: How can bugs be good? [Then laughs at me.]
So its been good to see that he’s still getting more observant. It makes things a little tougher when I’m trying to slide a fast one by him, but in the end, I think it’s better that he sees things for what they are. Including us.
Bugs and all.