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> "Practical experience" is anecdotal by definition. Usability ought to be
> determined by reproducible research with statistically significant results.
Where to start?
First of all, I'm not talking about one individual's experience over a few
months. I'm talking about hundreds, if not thousands of people working at their
profession for long periods of time, and arriving at roughly similar
conclusions, at times with only limited consultation back and forth. To say the
least, I consider rejecting this body of knowledge as "anecdotal" as rash. It
represents a number of tests far beyond the scope of a typical usability study.
Second of all, if you're going to insist on the standards you proclaim, then I
suspect that you will have to reject almost every usability study ever made.
Like most scientific study outside of the hard science, much usability research
not only fails to be reproducible or statistically significant, but biased by
preconception and a lack of understanding of what is being studied. For
example, I recall any number of studies about serifs vs. sans serifs that
negate themselves by failing to account for difference in leading, font size
and other variables. In fact, I strongly suspect that usability frequently
undertakes studies in which a high number of variables create a complexity that
means that almost no meaningful results are possible.
Under these circumstances, I'll take practical experience over usability any
day.
--
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604-421.7177
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