Doors that are obviously meant to be pushed not pulled, footprints painted on the floor telling you where to stand at the airport—these are examples of good design and usability. You don’t have to think too hard about what to do because someone else put a lot of thought into how to get across the right way to open the door or where to form a line.

As a usability expert, I spend a lot of time making sure that an object, system, or interface can be used effectively and efficiently without frustrating the user. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how the cloud—that network of servers that lets you access all sorts of services without having to install them on your own computer—can help make technology more usable for a broader population of people.

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