To be exact, I would like to share two pictures with you and offer up an observation, hoping to hear your feedback. As you can tell, the two pictures below have nothing to do with usability of any kind that may directly come to your mind.  I won’t argue with that. One picture was taken at the “rainbow cascade” place in Yellow Stone national park, the other was taken at Lewis Lake in Grand Teton. I just like the magnificent marble-like color and texture in the first one, and the tranquility of sunset in the other. I hope you enjoy them too. You can have a better view by clicking on the photo.

Two minor incidents during my recent trip to China triggered this observation. First, one day I almost stumbled over a set of stairs in an expensive restaurant because the pitch suddenly changes for some steps. Later on, I saw a few other places with similar issues in the stairs. Second, I found myself having to stretch and twist to reach for toilet papers in several 4-star hotels (don’t try to picture it :-). Being a technology geek I am, I think this may reflect a poor level of usability design in these buildings. Usability is in my mind lately because I happen to be dealing with software usability issues. I certainly hope what I experienced were just exceptions; Otherwise, we should all look forward to better design and better construction with good usability in mind!