Indexing cannot be reduced to a set of steps that can be followed! It is not a mechanical process. Indexing books is a form of writing. Like other types of writing, it is a mixture of art and craft, judgment and selection. With practice and experience, indexers develop their own style as do other writers. The best we can do as teachers of indexing is to present the rules and offer guidance. Nancy C. Mulvany, Indexing Books

"art and craft, judgment and selection" - Some usability practioners can lose track of these aspects of design by attempting to reduce everthing to a simple metric.

Posted by: Mac on July 19, 2002 03:40 AM

 

Mac, it amazes me how so many practitioners abandon "judgement" and "experience" and instead look at some guru's research to support their position.

On many a CHI-related list, I've seen questions like "I want to convince my boss that [insert evil practice] is bad and reduces usability. Does anyone know of any research proving this?"

Don't these people have faith in themselves?

Posted by: MadMan on July 19, 2002 08:21 AM

 

MadMan, you make a good point. However, most usability professionals tend to favor empirical evidence. The question of getting good research therefore is not surprising. Since most of us like to see facts and figures, and it convinces us of something being appropriate or not, we think that others are influenced the same way. We think that others reason the way we reason, following logical arguments and heaps of data. Many people ride the left brain train!

We should consider that usability professionals tend to do a very bad job at selling their experience, knowledge, and skills. Selling is not a strong point with many people people. Note also that a person might have faith in their skills but that person might also lack the ability to convey that confidence to another person.

This is why there is an entire book on the subject: Cost-Justifying Usability. While the book is quite good and useful, it indicates a lack of skill in many usability professionals. I also have to laugh. What other people have to "justify" their work in this way? If you are curious, I have made similar types of comments before.

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on July 19, 2002 09:27 AM

 

I never try to 'sell usability' to my management when developing apps for our intranet. Instead I make sure that we aim to produce a system that make the users 'weep with joy'. Given the very poor standard of our exisitng Intranet apps that isn't too difficult. When managers ask us how we managed to do such a good job (yes it does happen), we say that we took responsibility for all aspects of the job, and never 'threw it over the wall' to another area. We 'do usability' within the team, but it never appears as a task on a project plan, and I wouldn't know a Usability Professional it one bit me, although I do know a lot of people who actually care about doing the best possible job the users.

Posted by: Mac on July 19, 2002 10:24 AM

 

MadMan

The problem in many cases is that the boss thinks that he or she is to some degree a web expert. Thus you need some sort of empirical evidence to back up your position.

You may know it is right, but it is amazing how outside sources are seen as more credible than internal knowledge and skill.

I always have empirical evidence to back me up as it makes my position stronger and the eventual argument much shorter.

I guess you could call it contingency planning :)

Posted by: JB on July 19, 2002 12:31 PM

 

Chris, you make a good point about "usability professional" and what that means. I use the term because I can't think of a better way of saying "people that care about usability a lot and do it as a primary part of their jobs".

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on July 19, 2002 12:58 PM

 

Check the comments on that article John linked to. He got his arse royally flamed. ;)

Posted by: MadMan on July 19, 2002 01:39 PM

 

MadMan, thanks for the reminder. Fortunately I had my asbestos suit on so I did not burn to a crisp. This is my favorite quote: "Rhodes has a few points that are true, but mostly this is the babble of someone who has not learned the how to build strong relationships. By the tone of his diatribe, I can understand why." Ha!

Posted by: John S. Rhodes on July 19, 2002 02:51 PM

 

MadMan comment: Remember that mail I sent you about building community, John? Unfortunately, it's no longer in my outbox or I would have reproduced it here. Nevertheless, an idea I just had is this: since you actively monitor the comments posted on this site (I know you get an email notification), why not link to comments you find particularly insightful? Joel Spolsky sometimes does this (though not often enough). So if Jack, for example, writes an interesting observation about, say, pop-up ads, link to it with an excerpt. That way, you will further enhance the community interaction from being about just articles to being about reader views as well. Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. ;)

Posted by: MadMan on July 19, 2002 04:05 PM

 

Pop-up ads involve the creation of a second browser window, opened on top of your original browser window.

Posted by: Jack on July 20, 2002 05:22 PM

 

John, I spoke too soon regarding Usability Professionals. I now know that there are about 5 Professionals around at the moment, but there will be another half a million joining them in the not too distant future.

Posted by: Mac on July 22, 2002 11:46 AM