Ask, “What Would the User Do?” (You Are Not the User) 站在用户角度思考

By Giles Colborne

WE ALL TEND TO ASSUME THAT OTHER PEOPLE THiNK LiKE US. But they don’t. Psychologists call this the false consensus bias. When people think or act differently from us, we’re quite likely to label them (subconsciously) as defec- tive in some way.

我们总是容易假定别人和我们想的一样。非也。心理学家称之为“虚假同感偏差”。当别人想的或做的和我们不同时，我们常常会（下意识地）界定他们在某些方面有问题。

This bias explains why programmers have such a hard time putting themselves in the users’ position. Users don’t think like programmers. For a start, they spend much less time using computers. They neither know nor care how a computer works. This means they can’t draw on any of the battery of problem-solving techniques so familiar to programmers. They don’t recognize the patterns and cues programmers use to work with, through, and around an interface.

这种偏差解释了为什么程序员很难设身处地在站在用户的角度。用户不会像程序员那样思考。首先，他们很少用电脑。他们不知道也不关心电脑是怎样工作的。这意味着他们不会对程序员熟悉的任何电池问题解决方法感兴趣。她们不认识程序员工作于接口之上的模式和惯例。

The best way to find out how a user thinks is to watch one. Ask a user to complete a task using a similar piece of software to what you’re developing. Make sure the task is a real one: “Add up a column of numbers” is OK; “Cal- culate your expenses for the last month” is better. Avoid tasks that are too spe- cific, such as “Can you select these spreadsheet cells and enter a SUM formula below?”—there’s a big clue in that question. Get the user to talk through his or her progress. Don’t interrupt. Don’t try to help. Keep asking yourself, “Why is he doing that?” and “Why is she not doing that?”

找出用户如何思考的最好方式是去观察他们。让用户用与你在用的类似的软件完成一项任务。确保这个任务是真实的：可以是“求一列数字的和”，“计算你上月的开销”更好些。避免任务太具体，如“你能选择这些表格单元并输入一个求和公式吗？”—–这已经给了一个很大的提示。让用户谈他的过程。不要打断他，不要给帮助。一直问自己，“为什么他那样做？”，“为什么他不那样做？”

The first thing you’ll notice is that users do a core of things similarly. They try to complete tasks in the same order—and they make the same mistakes in the same places. You should design around that core behavior. This is different from design meetings, where people tend to listen when someone says, “What if the user wants to…?” This leads to elaborate features and confusion over what users want. Watching users eliminates this confusion.

你会注意到的第一件事是用户在一些关键问题上用相似的方法。他们试图以相同的次序完成任务-并且在同样的地方犯同样的错误。你应该围绕关键行为设计。这与设计会议不同，在那人们往往听到某人说“如果用户向要….？”。这会导致许多复杂的功能，却根本不清楚用户想要什么。观察用户会减少这种困惑。

You’ll see users getting stuck. When you get stuck, you look around. When users get stuck, they narrow their focus. It becomes harder for them to see solutions elsewhere on the screen. It’s one reason why help text is a poor solu- tion to poor user interface design. If you must have instructions or help text, make sure to locate it right next to your problem areas. A user’s narrow focus of attention is why tool tips are more useful than help menus.

你会看到用户卡住了。当你卡住时，你会左顾右盼。当用户卡住时，他们会缩小关注的范围。这就使她们很难看到在屏幕其他地方的解决办法。这就是为什么帮助文档对于差劲的用户界面设计不是一个好的解决办法。如果你必须要说明或帮助文本，确保它恰好出现在问题发生的区域。这就是为什么工具提示比帮助菜单对与狭小的用户焦点更有帮助的原因。

Users tend to muddle through. They’ll find a way that works and stick with it, no matter how convoluted. It’s better to provide one really obvious way of doing things than two or three shortcuts.

用户往往会蒙混过关。她们找到一个可行的方法并坚持使用它，不管有多么的复杂。最好是提供一个真正显而易见的方式，而不是那两三个捷径。

You’ll also find that there’s a gap between what users say they want and what they actually do. That’s worrying, as the normal way of gathering user require- ments is to ask them. It’s why the best way to capture requirements is to watch users. Spending an hour watching users is more informative than spending a day guessing what they want.

你也会发现用户说的，想的以及实际上做的有很大差距。这是很恼人的，因为收集用户需求的常规方式是问他们。这就是为何捕捉需求的最好方式是观察他们。花上一个小时观察用户比一整天猜测他们想要什么更有收获。