Jef Raskin, usability guru and Macintosh pioneer, died yesterday.
Talking of the Mac, I read an excerpt from Andy Hertzfeld’s new book at the weekend that reminded me why most dialog boxes have an OK button in them. Apparently, when usability testing the original Apple Lisa GUI, the designers had chosen the more formal Do It as the confirmation button label, but noticed that people were sometimes inexplicably clicking Cancel instead. When quizzed, one frustrated tester eventually confessed that they thought the button said Dolt, so he wouldn’t click it because he wasn’t a dolt…