Key Idea! A wise designer lets users do his work for him rather than attempt to
figure out what they want. After designing a complex of buildings, an architect
was supposed to design the walkways between the buildings. He did not
assume that he knew how users would really use the walkways between
buildings. So he didn’t design the walkways or build them at the same time as
the buildings. Rather, he had fields of grass planted between the buildings. It is
rumored that he even posted signs saying, “Please walk on the grass.” A few
months after the buildings were completed; he came back and saw where the
most worn paths were where people walked across the grass between
buildings. Then he knew where he should put the walkways.
Say you’ve just finished watching a rented videotape. You want to rewind the tape so you won’t be
charged a rewinding fee when you return the tape to the video store. You press the rewind button while
you’re watching the film credits on the screen and turn off the television. You won’t even know that the
VCR is really searching backward in the play mode. This could take a very long time and since the
television is turned off, you can’t even see that the VCR is still in the play mode. What you probably
wanted to do was to press the stop button first and then press rewind. This would rewind the tape
quickly, taking much less time and placing less strain on your VCR.