Does Your Software Need A Personality Test?

from the how-extroverted-is-your-spam-software? dept

There are all different theories in designing software, but I've never heard of trying to give an application the famous Myers-Briggs personality test to design its user interface. However, that's what an anti-spam software company has done. They looked over the various Myers-Briggs personality profiles to find the personality that most matched "spam stopping" and chose "ESTJ" or the "Guardian Supervisor", and then made user interface choices based on what sort of person that was likely to portray. It's certainly a different approach, and it will be interesting to see how effective (if at all) it is. It sounds like some of the design choices they made (e.g., no help menu) may sound good on paper, but will confuse users (no matter what their personality type) who are just used to applications working in a specific way. Users expect a certain comfort level, even in new applications, so that the learning curve isn't too much of a hurdle for them to deal with.

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