Comments on: How A Simple Quiz Can Make You Feel Unsafe

By: Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.

Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:52:15 +0000

This reminds me of how difficult it can be to write simple instructions. I’ve found it very helpful to have someone else read them before I publish because what’s clear to me is just not always clear to others.

Sometimes we unintentionally trip people up. It should, of course, be our goal to avoid this.

By: Sean D'Souza

Sean D'Souza — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:15:46 +0000

I agree.
I trip over myself all the time.

Having a structure to follow helps keep the trickiness out. We recently had to change an entire page on our site because we didn’t follow a structure, and then the page became kinda ‘tricky’ and confusing.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:00:51 +0000

Thanks for the post, Sean,

Yeah, the quiz came off as tricky. Initially, we didn’t have the ability to use multiple answer questions, so we rewrote them all to be single answer. Then when we were given this newfound ability, we went back to our old questions and didn’t follow-up with new directions to the user. A clear case of technology getting in the way of usability; just because you CAN do something doesn’t always mean that you SHOULD.

As you might guess, this applies to Websites, too, both in the obvious way in which wiz-bang technology gets in the way of ease-of-use, and in the less thought about idea of user directions. A lot of Website developers expect that design cues will make things intuitively obvious and then (for fear of being redundant) fail to spell it out with simple directions. Don’t be afraid to give directions. In the case of the quiz, a simple, “make sure to check 2 items” or “Feel free to check all that apply” would have saved a lot of quiz takes some grief.