RE: An honest usability engineer

[Sean MacRae <sean -at- rcp -dot- co -dot- uk>]

Sorry about the late response.

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: An honest usability engineer
> From: Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com
> Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 07:50:14 -0500
[...]
> "Usability is not usable!  It doesn't work.  It doesn't 
> produce the results we promise it will.  And we get angry when people stop
paying 
> attention to us."

An interesting article. I think there's a difference between "usability" as
a desirable quality and the usability profession. I don't think Spool is
arguing against the need to consider usability; just that there's a certain
amount of snake-oil out there.

[...] 
> "As far as I can see, the things that were done right in 
> making web sites more usable didn't happen in the usability community.  
> It's  interesting to note that the most usable sites in our studies, 
> such as Dell, eBay, Amazon, and Edmunds have no real usability efforts 
> to speak of."

I advocate usability. I don't think you *need* to set up usability labs, or
bring in professionals; usability arises when someone really knows what the
end-users actually do, can articulate that in a design, and has the
authority to make it so. Even better, ensure that you listen to feedback and
act on it.

Developers *can* do this; any of the other team members (sales, support,
technical writers) can do this, but may lack the authority. "Usability"
should be built into the thinking of the team, not tested into the end
product.

I don't know of a developer who wants to make an unusable product. I do know
of developers who cannot *begin* to understand that a user has a different
mind-set to them, and cannot project themselves into the user's thought
processes. This is where a translator is sometimes helpful, and where a
usability professional can justify their cost.

> "You don't need to have a usability group to make a usable 
> site.  In fact,
> there is no evidence to suggest you even need a single usability
> professional on site to make a difference."

Is there evidence that adding a usability professional normally fails to
deliver any difference? You may not need one, but could you use one? If
Spool is using the population of current Web sites to back up his argument,
then we're seeing the result of Darwinian selection -- the most unusable
sites went to the wall, and we're left with those that are usable, whether
or not that is the result of a dedicated team or not.

> "And what's worse is that the sites that have come closest 
> didn't use what
> we've been preaching.  What does that say about what we know?"

I suspect that analysis would show that somewhat less than 100 per cent of
end-users of a typical application actually read the documentation. In that
case, do we argue that the documentation profession, or documentation
itself, is a waste of time? That it adds no value?


> 
> http://www.webword.com/interviews/spool2.html
> 

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