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ArchivesRe: There is a clear instruction about searching first on the posting screen. . .
in reply to a message by Chrisell
I don't want to tell anybody what to do and what not, but let me throw a little of my experiences as an application programmer designing user interfaces and as a webmaster into the discussion:
If, like on this board, a large number of people over long periods of time do not heed a "clear instruction", for me there is only one probable conclusion: The instruction is not "clear" after all.
How can that be? After all it really is written there, right on the posting screen, in simple English, easy to understand. Well, many factors can contribute to the problem: Maybe it is written too small, too easy to overlook. Maybe many people do not understand immediately that this is not a forum-only site but a name information site with added forums. And so on.
The world is full of such surprising user-interface design failures, where you look at the case and cannot help but think "How can anybody in his or her right mind do this and this, not understand that and that ..."
A good strategy for such cases is not to start thinking that the world is full of stupid people or people who just wish to annoy you, but to sit back and calmly analyze the situation, and then modify the user interface.
An example: Why not try the following. If you click the link "Post a Message" first a rather simple page opens with a question written "Did you use 'Search' already to check whether your question was answered before?". The page has to buttons or links, "Yes" and "No", to answer the question. Clicking "No" leads to the search page, and only clicking "Yes" leads to the posting page.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
If, like on this board, a large number of people over long periods of time do not heed a "clear instruction", for me there is only one probable conclusion: The instruction is not "clear" after all.
How can that be? After all it really is written there, right on the posting screen, in simple English, easy to understand. Well, many factors can contribute to the problem: Maybe it is written too small, too easy to overlook. Maybe many people do not understand immediately that this is not a forum-only site but a name information site with added forums. And so on.
The world is full of such surprising user-interface design failures, where you look at the case and cannot help but think "How can anybody in his or her right mind do this and this, not understand that and that ..."
A good strategy for such cases is not to start thinking that the world is full of stupid people or people who just wish to annoy you, but to sit back and calmly analyze the situation, and then modify the user interface.
An example: Why not try the following. If you click the link "Post a Message" first a rather simple page opens with a question written "Did you use 'Search' already to check whether your question was answered before?". The page has to buttons or links, "Yes" and "No", to answer the question. Clicking "No" leads to the search page, and only clicking "Yes" leads to the posting page.
Rene www.AboutNames.ch
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