I can't decide whether to be amused by the irony or deeply depressed by the presence of the usability/design dichotomy that's playing out in this question -- certainly elsewhere in this thread if not in this particular piece of it.
I came to usability precisely because it was not about metrics -- it was about a holistic view of whether users could effectively and happily perform their required tasks with your product. Some of the most inefficient ways of getting to that information are statistically valid tests (aka "measurements") for performance against set parameters. As I worked in that field, I came more and more to believe that usability was a far more pervasive element than I had previously considered it. * You design and define the overall product because it will be useful and therefore, the greater its usability the more financially remunerative * You define the personae because they are tools in creating a functional and usable product * You design the process so that it will be as nearly self-evident as possible and therefore usable * You design the taxonomy and information architecture to support the user's needs and ease their path * You define the visual elements so that they support certain goals which make the product usable (This must be obvious; this needs to be present but we don't want it to distract attention; we need to make sure they notice this...) * You design tests on an ongoing basis -- where "test" usually means sitting in a room with a series of individual users who conform to the personae and having them use the product *You design the interactions so that the response methods and progress through the product are apparent and usable None of that is metric. Almost none of it is a "last thing". The only two places where I don't consider usability practitioners as essential are in the actual coding of the product and in the actual creation of the visual presence -- although they play editorial roles in both. Usability is not a science. It has scientific elements to it. But anyone who's been practicing in the field for any length of time can tell you stories of the times when the scientifically perfect response failed utterly. I realize that there are a million different definitions of usability professional -- that's what mine has grown to be after 15 years of practice. To me, usability in the sense of "delightful" as well as coldly "efficient" is the start point and the end point of the development cycle and informs all the phases in between. Katie At 4:56 AM +0000 12/19/07, Jeff Seager wrote: > > *Good* designers are, in fact, more enlightened about >> good design than *good* usability practitioners and it is that indefinable >> something that separates art from science that makes it so. > >Hmmmm. Not all of us live in that dichotomous world that divides >art from science. We may have to agree to disagree, if our >perceptions about that are so different. > >It seems you assume that a designer can't be a usability >practitioner, and I think he or she must be both to be good at >either one. I perceive usability and design as complementary >considerations that combine to yield varying degrees of satisfaction >in user experience. It sounds like your definition of a usability >practitioner is one who, like Jakob Nielsen, only assesses the work >of others and designs nothing himself. Or one engaged in the >metrics of usability. Am I interpreting you correctly, Joseph? I >don't meant to be contentious at all, only to understand your >perspective. > >Evaluating the usability of design -- we're talking interaction >design, right? not something painted on afterward or applied as a >skin? -- is a rightful part of the design process, and many factors >argue for its integration long before a prototype is presented for >testing. Similarly, it makes no sense to ignore accessibility >considerations from the start. Accessibility and usability are hard >to separate anyway. Good design doesn't need to be retrofitted with >anything, because it's designed with all essential criteria in mind >from the beginning. Of course, these are ideals and our real-world >experience has to make allowances for all kinds of circumstances. >But given the opportunity to do it right, my own life experience >with everything from fixing cars to fixing websites tells me that >it's very hard to go back in and retrofit usability when it was not >considered important at the outset or at other points in the design >process. > >Regards, >Jeff Seager -- ------------------ Katie Albers User Experience Consulting & Project Management [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
