On Mar 6, 2008, at 7:32 AM, Elizabeth Buie wrote: > I agree. But that doesn't make them usability professionals.
Semantics. Call them usability practitioners, call them "people practicing usability," but they're getting paid for doing usability work, which is one of the definitions of a professional. > Let me repeat. YOU said that a design was more satisfying but less > usable. How do you reconcile that discrepancy? > > I am perfectly willing to agree that a design can be both more > satisfying and less usable, if the efficiency and/or effectiveness > measures counter the satisfaction measure strongly enough so that > they bring down the overall rating. But in your description of the > "usability" of the design, the only thing you mentioned in calling > it "less usable" was its efficiency. Therein lies my confusion. First, satisfaction is only one factor in determining usability. Second, participants were stalled a bit at the screen and took significantly longer to fill out these three questions than what we've seen in the past. Now, that's not rocket science since there were close to 4x as many questions and they were each in random order. Third, as I've already said and I'll say it again, many people doing usability work focus on efficiency and think efficiency=usability. My point is that it doesn't. Might be obvious to you, but speaking from experience having watched and spoken to others doing usability work, as well as having read usability reports from others doing usability work, I can tell you, like it or not, that often the focus is mostly on efficiency. > I would like to have taken that. Well, if you're at the IA summit, you'll be able to hear a talk about it. It's not the workshop, but it will be a talk. 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
