Fact vs. Fiction: What Usability is Not. A close friend asked me a few days ago – “You’ve covered decent ground on the science, dimensions, characteristics, design aspects, process and pervasiveness of usability considerations.
How about doing a reverse bit? What usability is not about? Or the myths of usability?” I jumped at the chance. In choosing to write this, I am simply reinforcing the simple concept that it is also necessary to talk about the “NOT” part in a subject as complex as usability. Usability is expensive It is known that Stanford University, Microsoft, IBM, and many others spend tons of resources (money and human) on usability research, which is quite expensive.
I agree that it’s not a commodity – that there’s a price to pay. Usability is free At the opposite end of the first misconception, a large number of people believe that usability can be free. Usability is minimalism The concept of minimalism is usually a nice and welcome change in today’s noisy world. Going minimal is not alone going to get you usability. The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed. Designing With Metaphors & Skeuomorphs. Metaphors are often used in interface designs as a shortcut to tell a story, mimic something tangible and in general make otherwise puzzling digital products more relatable.
Digital metaphors date back to when Xerox PARC first invented the GUI (that Apple and then Microsoft subsequently commercialized). Here we got metaphors for “desktop”, “documents”, “trash bin” and “folders”, that all visually looked and conceptually functioned much like their real-world siblings. These concepts have since evolved beyond the simple visual metaphor to a point where the digital use often supersedes the original physical object. In this article we’ll look into some of the benefits and pitfalls of designing with metaphors in digital products (be it a website or a piece of software). Instant Recognition The main benefit of using a metaphor for you digital product is that you can tap into the user’s conceptual understanding of the physical object. Skeuomorphs and the Pitfalls of Metaphors. Stop Redesigning And Start Tuning Your Site Instead. Advertisement In my nearly two decades as an information architect, I’ve seen my clients flush away millions upon millions of dollars on worthless, pointless, “fix it once and for all” website redesigns.
All types of organizations are guilty: large government agencies, Fortune 500s, not-for-profits and (especially) institutions of higher education. Worst of all, these offending organizations are prone to repeating the redesign process every few years like spendthrift amnesiacs. Remember what Einstein said about insanity? (It’s this, if you don’t know.) I’m frustrated because it really doesn’t have to be this way. The Diagnostic Void Your users complain about your website’s confounding navigation, stale content, poor usability and other user experience failures.
Most website owners don’t know how to diagnose the problems of a large complex website. Sadly, many website owners fill this diagnostic void — or, more typically, allow it to be filled — with whatever solution sounds best. (al) Critical Thinking from Nathan C. Ford · ART=WORK. WorldSkills London showcasing Design, Development WorldSkills is basically the Olympics for job skills, and in 2011 it was hosted by London… along with an international crowd of 200,000 young professionals, students, and job seekers.
This was the first project I lead at Mark Boulton Design, and the demands were challenging from the start. They needed a site to match very specific branding and environmental design – which was already underway – and the site would need to be optimized for a variety of experiences, whether it be on a desktop or on a mobile at the event. The end result turned out to be a success all around. Bibliodisco showcasing Identity, Design, Development Yes, @bibliodisco is my wife, but that doesn’t mean I can’t objectively say that her book reviews kick ass. The Institute of Finance and Management is a great online resource for accountants, business managers, and most types of corporate leadership. Woot! John DeGroote Just Made My Day.
Usability danger. Nielsen fact. Personna. Search. Readibility.