Personally, I like Stephen Krug’s book, but I believe having T-shirts printed with the frontpage graphics is going a little over board. I would rather hand them a cheap white t-shirt and spend the money saved on a number of copies of the book to give to the team. Let’s face it, however meaningful the title seems after reading the book and however well chosen it is, the title made little sense before, and I’m sure that you entire development team will feel the same way.

Your upcoming project sounds very interesting. From a usability standpoint you have the advantage of knowing your users better than any website does. Thus, you can design your system to fulfil their very needs. Compared to website usability you have the advantage of allowing a more complex functionality that make use of the system more efficient, since your users are more inclined to become expert users. Having said that, Jacob Nielsen as early as 1994 set up a number of usability guidelines that are still very applicable to any computer based system, including websites. Stick to those and do serious user testing and you are home dry.

Regards,

Lars Christensen
christensen@buyingexperience.com