On Mar 4, 2008, at 10:59 AM, Elizabeth Buie wrote: > Well, there you have it. They're marketing folks. IMNERHO they > aren't usability > professionals; they're just calling themselves that.
They call themselves that and they are doing usability research. Companies are hiring them. I've seen the tapes. I've read the reports. Whether we like it or not, and personally I don't really like it, the reality is that these people are doing usability work and it's rather common. > Then would you mind explaining what you had in mind when you said > that a design was less usable but more satisfying? Help me out here. Can't. Satisfaction is included in my definition of usability. But as I've said before, not everyone shares my definition of usability (remember those marketing agencies doing usability work?). > I have clients in the government, nonprofit, and commercial sectors. > Which industry did you have in mind? :-) Based on your site, it looks like your focus is on government and non- profit. While we've done work for both, that's not our focus—we focus more on commercial businesses. However, whenever we deal with government/non-profit, we do have different "standards" we have to abide by. For example, right now, we're doing work for a very large bank. Actually, the company was acquired last year by a large bank. So, small startup that's now part of one of the world's largest banks. Last year, they weren't bound by 508 compliance and a few other "standards" that this bank is. Now they are. So, now part of our work is upgrading their systems for them. And btw, it wasn't that they didn't care before, they weren't aware and didn't have the budget for this type of work before. Now they are aware and required so they have to create a budget for it. > I am not talking about being "bound" by ISO standards. I am talking > about knowing the definition of usability, which happens to be best > captured in ISO 9241/11. This definition comes up rather frequently > among people who actually *are* usability professionals. Last year at UPA, I taught an entire day long tutorial on creating data-driven design research persons. Part of that was how to use them in the usability process. During our discussion of usability, not one single person in the room of 50+ ever once referenced the ISO 9241 definition of usability. Now, while this isn't conclusive, I'd think that a crowd at UPA is a pretty good representation of usability professionals. Additionally, I've spoken at a number of UPA groups and have not once heard any reference to ISO 9241. I'm aware there's a standard, but I'll bet you that most people I encounter in the field aren't as well versed on it as you are and couldn't give me the ISO definition. I'm not claiming that my experience is the entire total truth, clearly it's not. But clearly, there's an entire universe out there doing usability work who are totally and completely unaware of the ISO standard definition. Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. ---------------------------------- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://toddwarfel.com ---------------------------------- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. ________________________________________________________________ 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
