Scott Berkun

I’ve been asked by the boss to do a usability review of all of websites, and to report the results directly to him. Happy as I was that he’s interested, as I’m working I get that “you’re going to bust us” look from all of the programmers and designers I’ve been working with, as I’m now a kind of UI enforcer.  How do I do the job of reviewing the work for head honcho, without being someone people are afraid or resentful of?

- Signed, the rookie on the force

We’re a start-up of veteran designers and software developers, building a cutting edge – home music system (think wireless). One big debate we’re having is how to approach the problem of satisfying both user populations: novice consumers and expert audiophiles. Both user groups are important to us, but their needs, and the assumptions we can make in designing for them, are so divergent, we’re struggling with how best to approach the problem.

Should we:

• A) Figure out now who is more important, and design for them
• B) Focus on the happy middle of design problems / features that both groups want done as simply as possible
• C) Deal with this one feature / decision at a time
• D) Something we haven’t thought of
  

I’d love to hear how other folks have dealt with this problem, even if just “we made it up as we went”

- Signed, SPD, split-personality design

We’re supposed to be designing a short tutorial for an on-line banking web-app. One of our designers made a kick-ass prototype that centers on humor (excellent cartoons of dropped ATM cards, customers crying after early withdrawls, etc.) – but the rest of the team is afraid to use it. Everyone from marketing to management has no experience using humor in design, and I need some help.

I think it’s totally appropriate, but I can’t for the life of me think of other examples where humor has been used in mainstream designs.

Can humor be appropriate in design? How do you decide when? Do you know of any examples of mainstream designs that use humor, even in documentation or support? Or are there good reasons why 99% of all design work everywhere is humorless?