While setting up my newest install of Flock (the Mozilla-based social web browser), I ran across a blog posting that brought it all back home for me. A guy named Darren Barefoot wrote about the trouble his stepmother had posting pictures to Flickr.
His stepmother had some family pics she wanted to post and share with friends and family. No one could see the pictures. Turns out his stepmom had quite naturally selected “Visible to friends and family” when uploading the pics. Of course, none of the friends and family had been tagged as such in her account.
What a great example of the gulf between design and user intent and mental model.
A Parable About User Experience
Blogged with Flock
