I watched this movie the other night with my wife and as the movie ended we briefly discussed our thoughts like two budding movie critics. We both felt is was a good movie, but not a great movie. No awards would be given but it was entertaining. Ascetically the movie was awesome and in the special features portion of the dvd there was a behind the scenes look at how the movie was modified by a team of graphic designers. There are many extra images laid onto the screen at various times in the movie. At first I thought it was an attempt to just have something cool in the opening scene, but it continued throughout the entire movie. What I realized as the movie was coming to an end is the extra graphics were non verbally relaying an inner story that helped you feel more like the character. Some of the scenes were actually distorted as well to create specific angles.

Being the geek that I am, I thought “Wow, this is what software should do”. Isn’t this what software does? I don’t think so. The movie was able to make me feel comfortable and relay information to me without me having to learn how to receive the information. From interfaces to error messages, it is the rule and not the exception that software sucks at conforming to humans. That’s why there is an entire training industry. Microsoft (and other large software corporations) make a lot of money in training and or certification in getting humans to adapt and learn how to use software. Apple and a few other smaller companies have made great strides, however.

I was listening to the RoR podcast the other day and DHH was talking about html for building interfaces, the poor impact flash has really made in the software world and the grim outlook for what Silverlight will change. (nothing really). Previous to this interview I thought DHH was somewhat arrogant, although now I think I misunderstood him. A lot of what he had to say about what software “should be” really hit home with me. I’m starting to think that this guy knows what he is talking about and maybe I should tune in a little more. It’s funny how these things worked; I heard the podcast on Friday and saw the movie on Monday that totally illustrated a lot of his points, even using a different medium.

So in my own development from now on, I’m going to add in a step to my iterations: Ascetics and Usability. I’m sure we all try to make our software usable, but I want to take it a step further. I want to iteratively refactor the experience that my users will have with my software to make it easier to understand and use. In the past I have always made an assumption that any features that are not entirely clear could be acceptable as long as they were documented so the user could effectively learn to use my software. I know think it’s the other way around.

How do you design for the user experience?