The argument on how to convince people to pay for usability is pretty much mute as long as usability is so vacuous.

Posted by: Ron Zeno on May 21, 2003 11:09 PM

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Mute?

Or Moot?

Posted by: Alan Parsons on May 21, 2003 11:44 PM

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Vacuous???

vac·u·ous adj.
Devoid of matter; empty.

- Lacking intelligence; stupid.
- Devoid of substance or meaning; inane: a vacuous comment.
- Devoid of expression; vacant:
- Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.

I totally disagree. Usability has a lot of substance to it - it's far from empty. Ron, can you back up your assertion, or at least explain why you THINK usability is without meaning?

I haven't read the whole Nielsen article yet, but I personally convince various clients and peers (on a daily basis) to invest time, money and effort in usability and UCD. I know lots of good folks who do the same. The challenge isn't in DOING the selling, it can be done frequently with most clients (if you know your stuff and have half-decent sales skills). The challenge is in doing it easily, quickly and in such a way that the client can get the most benefit from it. Getting usability across "the chasm" is the big challenge. How do we get the masses to understand it and want it?

Usability's a lot like quality, reliability and scalability - many clients don't know they need to ask specifically for these things, let alone know how to assess them. I've seen many charlatans positioning their non-usability work as "usability," "information architecture" or "user experience" - sometimes I think they even believe they are selling usability or UCD, and maybe they don't even know the difference themselves. These people just confuse clients even more. Once bitten, twice shy.

Vacuous??? From someone who constantly posts on webword and blogs about usability, that seems inconsistent...

Posted by: Lyle, Lyle - Croc O' Lyle on May 23, 2003 02:11 AM

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Some usability is better than none.

Evaluating a site against principles or with *some* users is better than none.

Would we feel safer in a building constructed with some building standards and codes in place rather than one without? Which building would you enter and feel better about working in?

Posted by: daniel szuc on May 23, 2003 03:21 AM

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(Of course I'm exaggerating a tiny bit, but...)

"why you THINK usability is without meaning"

Usability as practiced is a meaningless term. There is no meaningful commonality in people's approaches, knowledge, experience, etc. to usability work. Nielsen (or almost anyone else for that matter) isn't promoting usability, but their own (and usually unique) approach to what they like to call usability.

"Would we feel safer in a building constructed with some building standards and codes"

But that's exactly the point. There are no common, meaningful usability standards as practiced. Standards make distinctions between what meets the standards and what does not. Usability practitioners have few if any such standards. Hence they claim such things as "Some usability is better than none" which implies there is no way to do usability wrong.

Usability practice is a granfalloon. Everyone's eligible, there are no standards or criteria for acceptance, of professional conduct, or for quality of results. It's somehow all good.

Posted by: Ron Zeno on May 23, 2003 09:33 AM

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For discussion: What about repeatability of issues?

When you, for example, observe users repeating the same problems or not understanding a 'term' in a product. Does that count as a usability problem? Doesnt addressing that problem help a product and ulitmately help the person using it?

Or perhaps help the business sell more of a product that is easier to use? Does usability help this along any?

Posted by: daniel szuc on May 23, 2003 09:58 AM

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"Does that count as a usability problem?"

Even if we ignore the difficulties of determining whether or not a real problem has been detected, knowing that a problem exists is not enough. One still needs to identify the seriousness of the problem (which is far more difficult than identifying it) as well as the cost of fixing the problem (which is far, far more difficult).

Personally, I'm beginning to think that solving all three issues (problem identification, problem severity, and costs of problem resolution) are beyond the abilities of most usablity practitioners and researchers... It's so much simpler to delude people into thinking that what they are doing today is good, or at least close to it...

Posted by: Ron Zeno on May 23, 2003 12:52 PM

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When looking at the "seriousness of the problem" some of the elements may include:

1. Importance to the business 2. Frequency 3. Is it a critical function in terms of the success of the product?

Cost is harder to evaluate. Would be nice of we could bind a usability design goal with a business goal and use a formula to identify the dollar value. What do you think Ron?

John, when can we get some video conferencing happening :) Video blogs! It seems that impact and cost are harder to define.

Posted by: daniel szuc on May 23, 2003 08:34 PM

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I was thinking of severity in a more limited sense - just how it impacts use. Frequence is certainly part of this.

Importance to business and product success are beyond what I'd expect a usability professional to be required to know. Those are benefits to the business. Perhaps though I should have included benefits in a narrower sense - benefits of a fix to overall usability (since major fixes usually address many usability problems.

Posted by: Ron Zeno on May 24, 2003 01:12 PM

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I think if we could introduce some basic formulas to understand the financial impact based on improving usability it would be very helpful. I have always included some measures of success in a project but the problem I have had is that perhaps the measures are not specific enough in terms of dollars.

Posted by: daniel szuc on May 24, 2003 10:01 PM

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"if we could introduce some basic formulas"

Without the standards I mentioned, any such formulae will be (are) meaningless - they're totally dependent on an individuals' own standards.

Posted by: Ron Zeno on May 25, 2003 09:51 PM

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