Usable usability

A workshop by Eric Reiss

If people cannot use something you make, then you have a serious problem. Usability is the science of ensuring that websites, applications, physical products and even offline services, do what they are supposed to do and that people can succeed with whatever tasks your “stuff” has been designed to help them with.

For me, usability builds on three E’s – Ease, Elegance, Empathy.

This half-day workshop introduces you to an alternative way to cut the usability cake – a method for evaluating and improving products and services that has proven successful with clients, business students, and seasoned usability professionals. And it includes a hands-on way for individuals within a large organization to carry out guerilla-style usability hacks that can be used to show the value of usability to the people in charge of the budgets.

Here’s a quick rundown of the topics we’ll be covering.

Ease of use – the product does what I want it to do. This deals with physical properties. Hence, the interactive elements should be:

• Functional (the buttons work, the speed is acceptable)
• Responsive (the application reacts to your input, the application provides cognitive feedback)
• Ergonomic (Fitt’s Law, keyboard shortcuts, field tabbing, etc.)
• Convenient (content and interactive objects are there where I need them and elements that are needed simultaneously are visible simultaneously)
• Foolproof (less risk of error through RAF – Remind, Alert, Force. Less reliance on instructions)

Elegance and clarity – the product does what I expect it to do. This deals with psychological properties. Hence, interactive elements should be:

• Visible (controls that can’t be seen don’t exist. Cut down the visual noise. Think feng shui)
• Understandable (clear and concise, no unexplained icons, colors and physical groupings for related functions and to improve scent)
• Logical (don’t make me think, build sensible flows)
• Consistent (always the same name for the same function, no reuse of icons for different functions, no behavioral changes as objects open or close)
• Predictable (functions and navigation always in same place, elements don’t suddenly change behavior)

Empathy – understanding and addressing the needs of the users. After all, you can’t practice user-centered or user-driven design if you don’t care about these folks.