Advanced Common Sense

From my do-it-yourself usability testing forum:

“I've designed and facilitated a dozen or so tests on startup sites over the past couple of years but the last round I did was for a large publishing company and boy was I nervous.

The results were outstanding.

One forgets how bloody fantastic it is when that behemoth of an issue shows it's face for the first time... Priceless.”

pete_blatchford in Testing Success Stories

One of my all-time favorite advertisements was for baseball gloves.

I remember seeing it in the back of comic books, alongside ads for things like sea monkeys, X-ray glasses, ant farms, and Charles Atlas. (Yes, I'm really that old.)

It asked you six questions about yourself, and if you answered four or more of them “YES” then you needed to get a Wilson pro model major league glove.

I started searching for the ad on the Internet in 1999 when I wanted to use it to make a point in Don’t Make Me Think, but I couldn’t find a copy until just a few months ago.

The problem turned out to be defective memory. It actually wasn’t in comic books at all, but in Boys’ Life, the Boy Scout magazine. (I was never a scout, but my brother was, and I loved reading Boys’ Life.)

The ad has stuck in my mind all these years because of the last question: Would a big league glove give you confidence? Somehow, this always struck me as advertising at its very best. I don't think a month ever goes by without me thinking of that phrase in one context or another. (Seriously.)