Michael Gaigg: Über UI/UX Design

Is the Glass half-full or half-empty?

Is the glass half-full or half-empty? Picture by Gjon Mili, 1953, Dublin, Ireland - (c) Time Inc.

Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

I want you to think about this age-old question for a sec (yes, once more).

The point

Ok, here is the point: the answer does NOT show YOU who you are, it shows ME (the person who asks the question) who you are. And I'm not talking about personality, optimist or pessimist, mental state or whatever else. No, in simple terms, it shows me whether you are the bartender or the beer drinker, the producer or the consumer, it depends on the perspective, your answer depends on the role you are in and therefore how I need to interpret it.

It's too easy to interpret interview results or client observations by the pure nature of the answer. What really needs to be looked at is what the role of the person was that answered the question which in many cases might be the real purpose of the question in the first place.

Alternative answers

If you answered that the glass cannot be half-empty because half (1/2) of empty (0) is impossible and doesn't make sense, then you are as much of a freaky scientist as if your answer were full because I didn't specify the type of filling, water (beer) plus oxygen.

Your answer

What was YOUR response? Don't worry, I'm not going to analyze you... not.
I will tell you MY answer later...

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About Michael Gaigg

Michael Gaigg is a User Interface Expert at Esri. He is the team lead of the UI Engineering group in Professional Services and has been designing map applications for over 8 years.