“I have seen one of the finest instances of user interface design ever, and I saw it in the men’s room at Schipol airport in Amsterdam. In each of the urinals, there is a little printed blue fly…If they had put big circular targets, and arrows with a little printed message “pee here!” (like it would probably be if anybody ever tried such a thing in America), it would backfire. A certain percentage of men would deliberately try to disobey this instruction. But this innocuous little fly just invites being peed upon…” Maddog

Fly UIMaddog)

We at the Literacy Weblog are not too highbrow to snicker at a user interface article featuring an innovation designed to improve the cleanliness of public bathrooms by subtly influencing men to improve their aim. We are also not above making cheap jokes, like how Microsoft ought to start making these things since there are already so many bugs in everything else they make.

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Dennis G. Jerz

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