[IxDA Discuss] Phone numbers should be numbers

[Robert Barlow-Busch]

On 20-Nov-06, at 11:26 PM, Robin Jeffries wrote:
> It always amazes me when people who design interactions themselves  
> can't figure out when something is a case of a usability tradeoff.

Hmm, apparently struck a nerve here... /grin

> This is actually a great usability solution -- you plan many years  
> ahead, you educate people in a situation where you can give them  
> unambiguous feedback about the (future) error condition, and when  
> the actual changeover happens, it goes pretty smoothly.

A nice principle, but it's broken here. We're being given unambiguous  
feedback about a CURRENT error condition, when it doesn't yet need to  
be an error. When the changeover that's refererred to above happens  
sometime in the future, well, THAT'S the time to introduce the  
behavior that's being required now.

This behavior makes people pay *now* for a situation that might arise  
in the future. So it's not promoting education, it's merely enforcing  
compliance.

-- 
Robert Barlow-Busch
Practice Director, Interaction Design
Quarry Integrated Communications Inc.
rbarlowbusch at quarry.com
(519) 570-2020

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