As a practitioner, one of the things that drives me bonkers is how behind the times much of the usability field is. It seems that so many of the usability practitioners I speak to today are stuck in the 70s in their lab coats running lab tests. And I’m not alone. In the past few months, I’ve had a number of conversations with companies who are looking for usability firms and are frustrated with their inability to “get it.” Here’s a quote from a recent conversation I had from a fellow UPA member:
“They don’t understand the business side of things.”
Yes, we have our usability methods and measurements. But what good is something that’s technically usable if it negatively impacts the business bottom line? That’s like saying technically Apache is working even if it isn’t displaying web pages. It might be technically running on the server, but I want to see the pages. Technically and theoretically doesn’t cut it.
We need to get out in the field. We need to do more ethnographic-based testing and research. We need to get out of the labs and into the streets.
3 Comments
Having a look to business objective is absolutely mandatory into implementing a usable solution.
I always say we have to find a user centered solution matching business objective.
Usbaility is a part of the solution but not all the solution
Totally agree.
I often find that I have to “filter” or work with “usability purists” to find the best compromise solution for a business need as well as users. Improving site conversion versus information availability on landing pages is a big one.
I think we also need to learn a bit about pure business too.
Charlie
Usability professionals too often don’t use the common sense approach they are trying to communicatie to the world on their own work.
Common sense says working towards the goal of the client and not frantically trying to protect rules thought of by other people 10 years ago.