There are a lot of unsolved issues on usability. (Here's a picture of our usability team in action) I have been talking to a lot of world class practitioners last couple of days and it has been interesting to hear their thoughts. I love usability folks just because of how their minds work. Two biggest unsolved issues are:
- Analytics kills usability
- Usability Kills Creativity
Design is basically problem-solving under different constraints: you must design a system that can actually be built within certain technical constrains, within budget and timeline, and that perform on what they supposed to help users to do. Usability adds another constraint: the system must be easy to use, or at least not too difficult to learn if learning is required. Learning is always a tricky concept, the same thing that is easily learnable could also be impossible for others to learn. Our short-term memory only holds only so many chunks of information. If you require users to remember too much, the design will be error-prone and difficult to use because people will be overloaded.
In most instances, usability in the product development cycle was the responsibility of a Human Factors or Ergonomics specialist. Today, due to explosive demand for usable products, many product engineers, developers, designers and technical communicators have had to assume primary responsibility for usability engineering in their organizations. There are many principles that govern the usability. The design methodologies may differ, but at heart, all user-centered processes have the product’s usability as their main criterion. My experience has shown that products developed iteratively, leveraging proactive user design and feedback mechanisms, can significantly outperform their standard counterparts. Some call it Pervasive Usability model. As suggested by the term, it advocates the application of methods to evaluate a design’s usability at every stage of the design process, keeping in mind the goals of the project and the users' needs. Here I share with you the four common myths on usability. I was trying to think of five but couldn’t come up with the fifth one. May be some of you can add a few more to the list.
Myth One: Usability is to focus on problems
Usability is about identifying problems but that’s not all of it. Their job is identify not only what's wrong, but also what's right, what to simplify and to reduce complexity. Working with designers, they can improve the desirability of the products.
Myth Two: Usability is all about rules
Certain basic guidelines and rules were often seen as part of usability. With emerging technology and fast changing user behavior, these rules continue to be made and to be broken at a faster pace. Some guidelines are based on good scientific research; but most are not. Many are not administered within the scope of their relevance. Usability guidelines are in fact part of a larger design culture. It should be considered a branch of design and does not dominant design.
Myth Three: Usability limits innovation
I have heard this more than a few times that usability limits innovation. I can understand under certain situations that cause that tension. Particularly in environment when there’s a lot of pressure to reduce project risks. Good usability strategists often approach their work with open mind on new ideas. There are plenty of opportunities for user-centred design application.
Myth Four: Usability is just common sense
This is a dangerous one. While 'basic usability' may have been folksy and common sense, the interaction of people and system cannot be. Advanced usability moves beyond common sense with a level of sophistication.
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