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carlos_p · #16 (**permalink**) 08-03-2007, 10:17 PM

So much concepts flying around in this thread...

Being an old-school-hardcore-designer and design teacher for almost two decades now, I just can't sit still while reading this.
Here's my 10(!) cents (keep them: with the interests it may amount to a lot in the future):

1—Usability is a buzzword some computer engineers with no design education or background found out some time ago. When they found out the miserable experience they were providing their users with, lo and behold! They came up with "USABILITY".
This, in reality, stems from a small part of a Design discipline called "ERGONOMICS"; a discipline REAL DESIGNERS have been studying for ages.

2—By "REAL DESIGNERS" I mean people who have some formal education in the field and who work full time providing REAL solutions to their client's problems. I'm not talking about would-be designers, nor smart skater-boys tottin' fresh copies of Flash+Photoshop, nor frustrated artists who have to sell design services for a living 'cause they're still waiting for their debut exhibition on the shoddy art-gallery at the mall, nor cubicle-bred sweatshop proletarians on a moonlighting escapade... (the list goes on and on...)

3—USABILITY stems from a very specific kind of what is called "COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS". This is a discipline which deals with the cognitive processes involved in communication. The corner-stone to this discipline is what is known as the "THEORY OF COGNITIVE LOAD". You have to start there if you want to take this matter seriously.

4—Admittedly, usability is more than that, as it gained much from another discipline called HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION, which was already around when Nielsen pulled that rabbit out of his hat.

5—I myself find Nielsen's partner, Don Norman, much more interesting. His work is required reading for anyone interested in any discipline of design (check below). My perception is that Nielsen has always been too radical, maybe trying to get too much attention. Still, I think anyone interested in these matters should read his work too.

6—Usability hinges on TASK ANALYSIS. How many sites have been designed taking the users' tasks as the starting point to the project? DISREGARDING TASK ANALYSIS IS A PATH TO FAILURE.

7—But wait! Do you call it "WEB DESIGN" or do you called it "USABILITY DESIGN"? Or do you call it "PAINT BY NUMBERS"? A web design project is a DESIGN project. A lot of people think the "Designer" is just that guy/gall you call on to provide a "pretty picture" (or whatever). The designer has to be the person who lays out the blueprint for the project, she has to see the "big picture". A designer is someone who must be fit to work with a multidisciplinary team, someone who has to conceive a solution to a problem.
Usability or ergonomics or any other discipline involved in the design process is just a part of the solution. Stating that "USABILITY IS A PATH TO FAILURE" is a misleading statement. What I find to be really true is that ANY SHORT-SIGHTED APPROACH TO A DESIGN PROBLEM IS A PATH TO FAILURE.

8—Furthermore, usability is being sold short here: usability must be regarded as the SATISFACTION LEVEL the WHOLE EXPERIENCE provides to the USER. In the light of this more "holistic" concept, a site which provides a good INTERFACE but in which the internal processing performs poorly is in fact a site with poor usability. For instance: what USE is it to you if you go to an online store, find the item you want, enter that bus-load of shipping and payment information and then the final checkout page churns out an error?

9—Physical stores and their design, their layout, etc., can't be compared (in the same terms) to web design. Sure, the most needed items are at the back and the kids cravings are positioned at kid-line-of-sigh-height, etc. But how much time does it take you to get to the back of the store? And how much time does it get you to get back in your car and drive to another physical store?
On the web there are trillions of competing stores only 1-second away from one another. That's where usability (in the sense you people are thinking about) comes into play.
Some important concepts have already been mentioned. You can't drown your visitors in chocolates and bubble gum when they are looking for milk. You can't force-feed them pages full of stuff they don't want: they will simply leave to another site in a click.
(And btw, clicking through hundreds of sites a day for a living is an experience which isn't in any way comparable to the experience of a real user)

10—Yes, Amazon is the king when it comes to online store design. But make no mistake: it is extremely difficult and expensive to do what these guys do. And they do it by the book.
And what the "book" tells us? It tells us much more than what has been written on this thread so far... but one extremely important factor to successful usability is USABILITY TESTING. It is simply impossible to come up with something like Amazon without it.

PS: To whom it may concern, Google the words in caps and also check these out:
—Jef Raskin, "The Humane Interface, New directions for designing interactive systems";
—Preece, Rogers and Sharp, "Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction";
—Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano, "Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication oriented techniques";
—Donald A. Norman, "Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine";
—Donald A. Norman, "The Design of Everyday Things";
—Donald A. Norman, "Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things";

Cheers,