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Funny UI Decisions

I've been reading KC almost since I started using an RSS (when I grabbed a bunch of the earliest MS bloggers and aggregated them) - and many of her posts are enlightening, some very informational (this is someone who has moved around MS quite a bit in different areas) and some just funny - like this one - KC on Exchange and Outlook : The power of words

I guess we don't call it user interface anymore but rather User eXperience but it's still the same - how do people interact with your product.

And as more resources get outsourced, this is an area where every developer/manager/user needs to be vigilant.

Just as Jay Leno has his 99 cent store where recently they were wishing people Merry Hristmas and Happy Biryday, the quality bar on what words you use in your application needs to be raised. Where else did I hear this?

Oh yeah, Jason Fried from 37 Signals in his SXSW session "What we've learned at 37 signals" - paraphrased: "before you do re-design, think about re-wording...words are cheap, you can make an entire interface simpler by changing or removing a few words...much easier than re-designing your application from scratch". (I swear I don't get royalties from plugging his session although I've done it here, in the FoxShow and just talking to people).

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