London-based Flow Interactive is running a project for World Usability Day (November 14th) called Making Life Easy. They invite you to submit examples of things that make life easy and things that don’t. If you’re really motivated, get out and put a red balloon on the best and worst examples of usability you can find, take a picture, and submit it to the project’s Flickr group.
I’m thinking of tying red balloons on my children’s arms, as examples of what makes life difficult. Fortunately, they also make it delightful, like these slides at the Tate Modern. I wish there were a way to improve my kids’ usability, perhaps a disable switch on three-year-old Laura’s vocal cords or a fast-forward to age 16 for Henry so he can start driving himself to tae kwon do and band practice. For six-year-old Anna, I’d love to have an intensity dial so I can turn her down when she fights with her sister over the Barbies then turn her back up when we go to an Avalanche game.
