> [snip]
>
>> It seems kind of obvious to me that usability can be at odds with
>> other values in a design situation. In a sense, that summarizes the
>> disaster story of HCI in the 1990s when instrumental values were
>> carried over from 1980s work-oriented design ("usable! useful!
>> efficient!") only to clash with new users and new use situations in
>> entertainment, leisure, the public spheres, and so on.
>>
> [snip]
>
> Isn't that just bad usability work - rather than a problem with
> usability per se?No. There are inherent conflicts between usability and other design qualities (playfulness, aesthetic pleasure, symbolic status value, ... to mention a few). When digital products spread from instrumental use in workplaces to discretionary, ludic use in homes and in public, these "other" design qualities became more obvious than before. Quite a few practitioners and methodologists tried to address the changing demands by incrementally extending the usability concept and updating the familiar HCI tools and concepts. The results were generally not very successful (task analysis for game design; laboratory experiments on visual interface aesthetics; paper prototypes of dynamic-tactile experiences; the list goes on). A more promising strategy is to accept the multidisciplinary nature of interaction design, the need for equal collaboration with more mature design disciplines, and the importance of continuously trading instrumental qualities off against social, aesthetic and ethical qualites. /Jonas Löwgren ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
