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Butterfly Ballot Causes Performance Problems


In a Boston Globe article, Norman said, "The hallmark of a good design is that it makes people look smart, not stupid. Yet when something goes wrong, we like to blame the people, to scold or fire them."

Back on the job

Now let's see how this relates to designing online courses and performance support tools.

Consider the ballot as a performance support tool designed to aid voters in an election. The performance support tools you design may not be used to elect the president of the United States, but they are used to guide on-the-job performance. If not designed properly, these tools can cause employees to make mistakes affecting customer service, production, and safety.

An online course that doesn't take information design into consideration can negatively affect learning, and in turn lead to poor performance. In addition, failure to properly design and test online courses may be one of the reasons that learners fail to complete them.

Usability tips for designers

So what can designers of online courses and performance support tools learn from the butterfly ballot problem?

  • Test the materials. Use a representative sampling of the users or learners identified in your audience analysis.

  • Test the materials in context. Remember the mistake that the election commissioners made in Florida? They showed the ballot to others who said it was okay and didn't test in the voting booth. A subject matter expert review of the materials is not enough. You need to test them on-the-job or in the classroom.

  • Look at how a person uses the materials. As Norman mentioned, the butterfly ballot was designed like a menu, but the voters used it like a checklist. When designing a job aid, determine how it will be used - as a decision table, menu, flowchart or checklist.

    • Now you know about the importance of information design and the potential consequences of ignoring it.

    References

    "The Butterfly Effect" Stephen Johnson, Feed Magazine, 11/17/2000 http://www.feedmag.com/dialog/di423lofi....

    "Vote glitches highlight the need for simplicity" Gareth Cook, Boston Globe, 11/19/2000 http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/324/na...

    "The Usability of Punched Ballots" Bob Bailey, UI Design Update Newsletter, November, 2000 http://www.humanfactors.com/library/nov0...

    The copyright of the article Butterfly Ballot Causes Performance Problems in Training & Development is owned by Audrey Choden. Permission to republish Butterfly Ballot Causes Performance Problems in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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