

Newsflash: Geeks now good at usability, everyone else crap - frabcus
http://www.flourish.org/blog/?p=470

======
JonnieCache
_Partly I think it is in cliques wanting to keep people out as they don’t have
room in their venues. At least, that is how I feel as an outsider. Just like
normal people felt about computers in the 1990s._

I can confirm that this is often the case :) If there are more people in the
area that enjoy the artist and are likely to come to the event than you have
space in the venue, why would you want much else on the poster? Also, event
posters are most often glimpsed from several metres away, in the dark, while
drunk, so it's important that the key information is very visible.

But you're right, that poster sucks. What do you think of this?

[http://erisian.tk/wp-
content/gallery/flyers/20090515-erisian...](http://erisian.tk/wp-
content/gallery/flyers/20090515-erisian-flyer_bk-760w.png)

(They were 15cm wide by about 10cm high)

Done by a friend of mine for his night Erisian, he's likely reading this. Hi.
Notice the name isn't actually on the flyer anywhere, by this point in the
event's history it was known throughout the town simply by the striking
typography and the eight pointed star logo. So there's the elitist cool, but
also I think it tells you a lot more about what to expect than that other
flyer.

~~~
v21
Yeah, the process for band posters is : recognise a band (or in this case,
maybe a genre). If so, then check the details. That's all the poster needs to
convey, and the most important way for it to do it is by being cool and by
appealing to fans of that band/genre/club night/promoter/whatever.

------
andrewflnr
There are a lot of unsubstantiated generalizations in this piece. So because
capitalism has done its work on Internet startups, forcing them to make clear
value statements, this means all geeks are good at usability. And because
music posters, real estate, and government forms suck in the UK, "everyone
else [is] crap"?

------
mkramlich
The flip side to all the clear examples of poor user experience out there
(government, banks, universities, BigDumbCompanies, hidebound industries,
etc.) is that there seems to be plenty of opportunities available for the
smart entrepreneur to develop a friendlier alternative and make a profit. Just
takes time and execution.

