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The User is Drunk

squareweave · talk · Watch on YouTube

UX & UI design

What it is

A short talk by Will Dayble of Squareweave arguing that you should design software as if the user were drunk: distracted, impaired in attention and vision, and prone to misreading. It is a user experience talk built around that framing.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN users recommend it as a memorable, short way to build empathy for users' confusing mistakes and to design for distraction.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2014, last 2021

What HN commenters said

  1. “I highly recommend the video.”

    Explains designing for users with a drunk person's attention and vision.

    mrtksn, 2014-07 · Strong recommendation · in “Show HN: DrunkUserTesting – How does your site perform in the wild?”

  2. “This might be helpful”

    Helpful for designing for distracted users.

    ignostic, 2014-07 · Recommendation · in “ Need feedback on Kickstarter landing page”

  3. “The User is Drunk" is explained better in video by Will Dayble of Squareweave”

    Explains The User is Drunk better than the article.

    fireworks10, 2015-03 · Recommendation · in “The User Is Drunk”

  4. “There's a great short talk called "the user is drunk”

    Builds sympathy for users' seemingly inexplicable comprehension failures.

    Geeflow, 2021-02 · Recommendation · in “Always Use “Buttons” for Size Selection”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: ux, user interfaces, usability, design empathy, web apps

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