Laziness

Why is usability important? Why don't people just use the "Command line" to do a task? It's just laziness I tell you.

I hear this argument all the time. One thing I do agree with is that laziness is the problem. But it is not of the user, it is from a developer making the interaction of a app. Yes.....making a complicated process simple is not easy. Look at the computer you are using to read this article. Windows, Mac OS, Linux..... these are all operating systems that are big, bulky, and to some unnecessary to use a computer. Obviously the sheer numbers of GUI users reveal the necessity. But many developers hate, shun, and try to avoid them.

I'm sorry, I'm guilty.

I do not want to translate what I want into another language when I want something. You know they call it a language for a reason. How do you say, "Where is the bathroom?" in Italian.

What "User Experience" means to me

"User experience" encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products. The first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother. Next comes simplicity and elegance that produce products that are a joy to own, a joy to use. True user experience goes far beyond giving customers what they say they want, or providing checklist features. In order to achieve high-quality user experience in a company's offerings there must be a seamless merging of the services of multiple disciplines, including engineering, marketing, graphical and industrial design, and interface design.

Eggs and Heat

I was cooking eggs this morning, but I was having problems as usual. Every time I try to make eggs I end up burning a lot of it. I even tried cooking it at a low temp. But I get impatient, turn-up the heat, and end up with 1/3 of my eggs sticking to the bottom on a non-stick pan. For years I was wondering what I was doing wrong. I even gave up and just let my wife cook the eggs. But today I realized the level of heat dictates my user experience.

When I had the heat too high, I believe I had to watch it all the time and stir it. I ended up with a result of being stressed, frustrated, and much of my eggs sticking to a bottom of a non-stick pan.

But if I cooked it too low, I got an equally worst result. Inpatients takes over, my stomach ask, "why is it taking so long?" I then turn-up the heat. I feel better for a moment, but it gets a bad result fast and adds a unwanted instability. The amount of Heat in cooking the eggs dictates my usability of eating eggs, and my user experience in making them.

Just as heat can affect a cooking experience. The level of stress around a technology enhancement can have a drastic affect on its use.

Heat:

• No tracking of progress of work. (Too little heat.)
  
• "Too many cooks in the kitchen." (Too much heat.)
  
• Not lead by business processes. (Changing heat.)
  
• Not communicating the impact of one's feedback. (Not knowing when to take it off the stove.)
  

Many times having too much heat cannot be controlled. That is an option when cooking, but many times it isn't a solution with technology. One way to help control this heat is by usability.

Two main development usability areas to help control heat:

The default setting:

1. Simplistic and clear on how one will quickly reach a result.
2. No apparent need for customization, but options are clear and simple to make the app your own.
   
3. Focus placed on the "path most taken" to success.
   

The burn-in stage:

1. Every adoption of an enhancement must be vetted, and knowledge gained added to lessons learned(history).
   
2. One enhancement will always generate request for others. This is the time to start a transparent list of request. Maintenance of this will be the version control of the app.

Paradigm Shift: Usability vs. User Experience

I have to say, reading and taking in the last post has been tremendous on how one looks at usability. It makes this whole process appear a lot more clear. To facilitate and understand the difference between Usability vs. User experience, I started this comparison.

Cross over:

• Timing
  
• value
• Simplicity
• Consistency
• Marketing
• Communication
• Excellence, Access, Impact
  
• Prune Concentrate
• amazon.com-ification
• Accessibility
• Feedback
  
• Expectations
• user centered design
• Raving Fans
  

Usability: sparked by Customer Care

• Ubiquitous computing
• Routine
• Stability
• Sustainability
• Invisibility
• Function to form
  
• Core vs. Context
• The digital divide
  
• Adoption
  
• Statistics of use
• History and revisions
  
• Change control
• Effort Reporting
  
• Navigation, Tagging, and Taxonomy
• Annual events
  
• Enterprise development

User-Experience: sparked by Development

• Complexity control
• Beta Testing and focus groups
• Fighting against assumptions
• Form to function
  
• Design
• Trends
• Flair
• CSS
• Annoucements
  
• 1:1 development

I will come back to this blog often to add more to the list.What would you add?

Article: The Battle Between Usability vs. User Experience

I found this article today. It really adds focus to usability. It highlights the difference and why they need to be different, and the strength of both:

http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Usability/usabilty-vs-user-experience-battle/

The Battle Between Usability and User-Experience

The main reasons why it is so hard to create usable products is that there is a conflict between a high-usability level and great user-experience. You might think this as strange, but there is a important difference between the two.

Usability

Usability is about the "ability to use" something. The aim for a usable product is to make it easy to use.

A product has a high level of usability when:

• It requires less mental effort to use
• the frequency of mistakes using it is less, or when the mistakes are less disastrous
• it is more powerful, where "more powerful" means that it can be used to do more or do it faster
• it is more learnable, that is, when a person can figure it out quicker

(source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Making usable products is thus fairly simple. You have clear metrics you need to achieve, and you can analyze how to get a good result.

User-Experience

User-experience is not like usability - it is about feelings. The aim here is to create happiness. You want people to feel happy before, during and after they have used your product. To do that you need to take all kinds of things into consideration. Things like:

• Environment
• Colors moods
• Smell
• Touch
• Audio feedback
• Visual feedback
• Trust
• Branding
• Show-off effect
• Usefulness
• Practicality
• Coexistence
• Emotional effect
• Etc...

This is much much much harder to achieve. None of these things can be accurately analyzed. It is a touchy feeling kind of thing.

Why, for instance, does a Audi S6 give you a much better user-experience than a Ford Focus? I mean, in terms of usability they are pretty much the same.

The difference illustrated

Take roads. A Usable road is one that is wide and straight (less mental effort), with no oncoming traffic (less mistakes, less mental effort). One that enables you to get from A too B as fast as possible (more powerful) and one that has a consistent and clear use of signs (high learnability).

In short the most usable road is a freeway. But, a freeway is also directly boring in terms of user-experience.

A road with a high level of user-experience is completely different. It is a twisting mountain road (visual). Now you got great scenery (visual, emotional), the smell of nature (smell), the excitement from the climb (and the sheer cliff only feet away). You got little friendly signs put out by the local, who sells fruits along your way (show-off effect). Every city is slightly different (branding, emotional, environment). You feel happy when you see the locals wave when you pass by, and you stop let a sheep pass (emotional, trust, coexistence).

But a mountain road is far from a usable road. It is much harder to drive on, it is difficult to learn, you can't go as fast and the risk of making a mistake (taking a wrong turn or cashing into a sheep) is much greater. But, a mountain road will give you a much better user-experience than any freeway could ever do.

Creating synergy

The reason why we have so few great products is because of this difference. Most developers try to find the right balance between high usability and high user-experience. A bit like trying to turn a mountain road into a freeway. It simply does not work. You end up with mediocrity.

Instead you need to create a synergy. A Synergy is when 2 + 2 = 37.

This is not easy. It requires a bit of luck, a great deal of intuition (female intuition is helpful), a great sense of humble pride, and something called "usable happiness (*)".

Flickr, The Sims, Apple iPod, Ta-Da list, MySpace, Google Picasa, Virtual Earth, Audi S6, Mac Mini, any Pixar movie, and iRobot Roomba are all great examples.

* Usable happiness: is a product that is simple to use, and makes you smile every time you use it.

Make it easy to be happy

It is far from easy to create a great product on demand, but it is possible.

First of all, do not focus on usability or user-experience. Do not directly try to achieve to create synergies. Do not try to create a great product. None of these things will get you any closer.

Focus on making it easy to be happy, and usability, user-experience and greatness will come all by itself.

Instead of making a product management web application, make it easy to finish great projects. Instead of making usable instant messaging, make it easy to have interesting conversations. Instead of making a powerful web writer, make it easy to write exciting stories.

The result is that you use usability to take away all the things that distracts you from happiness, and you use the elements of user-experience to empower what people can do.

... and now you got a great product.

See Also

• Usability Analyzer (Baekdal.com, June 2006)
• Definition of User Experience Revisited, (justaddwater.dk, June 2006)

One more quote....

"Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple." -- C.W. Ceram

Researcher terms mobile usability an "oxymoron"

Checkout this article on mobile phones. Usability is finally starting to get noticed:

• http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/43309/145/
  

Versioning

These days you cannot open a computer app without seeing signs like this for an upgrade. What is this all about.
The frequently you see this upgrade notices is a sign of usability. It is a good thing. The cause is usally by one of these reasons:

• A problem was found in a current feature.
• A new feature has been added to improve functionality.
• A security problem was needed to be fixed.

All these reasons are about the the usability of the app. The security problem is addressing a "usability" loophole found by use of the app. Hakers may have found a way to take advantage of new or found usable capability.

Seeing through the eyes of a child

"But Daddy, I don't want to park here for 3 hours." - my 4 year old son.

We have signs everywhere to help on usability. But many times we make assumptions within those signs. This was a very legitimate question from my son. Because the sign is based on the assumption that you are aware that you do not have to park for 3 hours, it is up to 3 hours. We make assumptions everyday. This is a major part of us taking in the information we get day to day.

But to assume people can figure it out, or to throw stuff out their as a "right to passage" is unnecessary. To increase communication, simplicity, and adoption we need to remove assumptions from what we do. The worst of all is correlating your assumptions to the intelligence of a user. Doing this in technology is sadly seen way to much.

Why Design Cannot Lead Usability

Web design has been the leading profession that has implemented usability. Its quick results to adjust to a wide user base is one of the major reasons. But just like sustainability, usability can be applied to many things. It is more about being part of things like ubiquitous computing than boxed in by one approach. Limiting it to one profession will limit its potential for success, and can be misused and cause delay as the comic demonstrates.

Price vs. Value

One of my favorite quotes was from a Mercedes commercial:

In the background of it you hear a womans voice saying, "My father told me that there are people who know the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

We have all seen these price signs under products in store's across the United States. The price of course is clearly seen, but on many of them you can also see the "Unit price." By comparing the unit price of a products, one can see the value of a product.

It would be really nice if we all could compare technology products this way. But since all technology can't have a "posted sign," we display value by creating products that are easy to buy, easy to use(install), and easy to maintain. To make this possible to your target audience, is by usability. The more usable a product, the greater the value is placed on a product.

When a person first uses a product, they are actually looking for value. Not to respect this significant moment will cause:

• Low or slow adoption
• complaints generated by not meeting the end users expectations
• a high request for documentation and training
• a high product demand and push for completion, but only hearing "crickets" when released

The way to eliminate these things is by value. To increase value, is by succeeding in usability.

simplicity

"If you can't describe it simply, you can't use it simply." — Anon

"Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means." — Koichi Kawana, architect of botanical gardens

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." — Antoine de Saint Exupéry

"Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." — Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

"You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity." — Richard Feynman (1918–1988)

"Our lives are frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify." — Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." — Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

joy of use

To reach "joy of use" is all about expectations, perceived efficiency or elegance.

A product becomes a "joy of use" if it meets or exceeds a users expectations.

User centered

To be user centered, is based on three assumptions.

1. That the user knows what they are looking for. (Google search, content tagging, labels)
   
2. That the user generally knows what the want, but need assistance to find the specifics. (This is where a set taxonomy comes in. (http://delicious.com/ and social bookmarking sites, menus on a website, RSS, folders)
   
3. To be allowed to be part of a "in-group." This removes the feeling of ignorance, allows people to be aware of a path and influences, and to offering a way to communicate feedback that will make a difference. (Email, DLs, Blogs, Wiki's)
   

Web 2.0 and Usability

Guess what? Yes, Usability is a large part of the overused phrase, Web 2.0. This is another reason why it has perked my interest. Again from Wikipedia.org:

"Web 2.0" refers to a second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashup and folksonomies.

As the Web 2.0 Wikipedia.org photo shows, the emphasis of usability can be summed up in these three words:

• Joy of use
• Simplicity
• User centered