While I agree with the points you make, how do you suggest we go about the guerilla usability approach? We have had success in our efforts when we get the other team members to buy into the results of the different UCD stages, especially when they are part of the decision making efforts, but I would like to know how others succeed.
First, you need to identify the barriers. If the barrier is a person or group of people, you need to make your case in their language...use arguments that resonate with how they perceive problems and opportunities.
Jakob's take on Guerrilla HCI is a classic:
http://www.useit.com/papers/guerrilla_hci.html
And Lou just tackled this topic on Bloug:
http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000131.html
Ultimately, you need to find creative and compelling ways to argue on behalf of both the business and the customer (user).
The biggest problems come about *after* the Usability Folk are accepted into the organisation.
In my experience, they then rush into the arms of the marketing department and the senior managers as they quickly build their 'ivory usability labs' and become ineffective.
I'll limit myself to echoing Merholz's comment as to why more usable products aren't offered: that they're commercially untenable precisely by dint of the fact that they *do* give the customer what they need.
Here's an analogous situation: I'm consulting for a cellular service provider at the moment. They mentioned that one of their problems is customer confusion and resentment over service plans, regarding the fact that most people pay for more minutes than they actually use.
Full of naive sincerity, I propose to them that they offer plans under which folks only pay for the time they actually use, or at least plans that are more tightly tuned to actual observed patterns of use.
They look at me like I've grown an additional head. "But then how are we supposed to turn a profit?"
Ahh, there's the rub: offering options that are too tightly coupled to actual user needs sometimes comes into direct conflict with the insitutional prerogative to make a buck. Is that *NYT* article *really* eight HTML pages long, or am I being pushed through those links because every time I click it counts as an ad impression?
Mind you, I believe that usability is good (for) business. But as we've seen, this way of thinking has its limits.
Of course usability is important. Sometimes ...
Could one of y'all please explain to me why texting (sending/receiving SMS) has gone berzerk in Europe and the UK? I'm in Reykjavik (Iceland) right now. I work next to a guy who frequently taps away on his handset at an absolutley blazing speed. Sounds like lental beans slowly raining down on a stone surface. Rather plesant actually. He tells me he is no match compared to his girlfriend.
Now, Saint Jacob and The Don clearly state that handsets are vile text entry devices. So what gives?
Hah, I would pay good money to watch Don Norman standing in a mall in any city from Helsinki to Madrid, lecturing pre-teens about the impoverishment of their handset UIs. The kids looking up at Don Norman. Blinking. Looking down at their handsets: tap-tap-tap. Looking up at Don. Blink. Blink. Looking down at their handsets: tap-tap-tap. Absolutely hilarious!
Sorry. People are not rational. Sometimes other stuff matters more. Life is weird
Cheers,
Douglass Turner
My observation from Singapore:
Usability is important, BUT what is more important is the need for the service/product.
3/4 of people who use SMS are youngsters, to them its a matter of trial and error and learning on how to use it. They don't really care if it is easy to use, what they really care about is that they can now communicate with their friends CHEAPER and ANYWHERE with SMS and even talk to multiple people at a time.They were not able to do that previously.
NOW, if you can bring a product/service that makes it easier to communicate then the present tapping method and with the same cost. You should be able to get the youngster market as well as the rest of market that avoids using SMS.
Just my observation and opinion.
Book Recommendation: I'm in the middle of reading a brilliant new book by Shoshana Zuboff (and her husband, James Maxmin) called:
The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and The Next Episode of Capitalism
It's the best articulation of the barriers to customer-centered design (of businesses, products, services, and web sites) I've read.
Check it out!
Regarding the "teen SMS explosion" . . . the tolerance for "impoverished handset UIs" reminds me of the early web experience - people put up with poor design, lack of standards/conventions, slow download speeds etc. etc. because the technology/medium was new (and cool?) and . . . because they really really wanted to see what was at the other end of that URL. Flash (hehe) forward to 2002 . . . what are people's expectations now?
Hi, I am a IT student in Brisbane, Australia learning both HCI and software development.
I have a feeling I should direct this someplace else, however I couldn't be bothered looking for the latest discussion on this *hint*.
Regarding the SMS topic - I use online web2mobile SMS (an IM that I use offers free/semi-free web2mobile SMS) with a keyboard when I can, especially since my mobile has a weird dictionary and word recognition that is hard to use. The mobile device I bought was mainly for the usability and "feature" of creating ringtones with a treble cleff and music notes, rather than "dodgy" pitch/length codes. Ahhh, finally someone(the interface designers) understands me.
Yes, teens will put up with alot to use new and cool stuff, Yes, they will base later choices on what they didn't like or couldn't use. That is until the next new thing comes along...
please feel free to email me if anyone reads this or this is not the right place for my little rant.
-Peter
In a business, there are costs you see and costs you don't see. This is the central problem for usability and anyone else in the invisible value chain.
Using is free. Well, no, not according to the total cost of ownership paradigm. But, yes, actual use is free. Still, how much actual use do we get from a thing? How much of that use is dealing with keeping it working ourselves, reading the manual, talking on the phone with a support person.
For some things there are professional sys admins, but we still end up doing self support. And, we do it for free. The time we spend reading the manual is free. The time we spend talking to the support people is free. Oh, but we pay for the call, maybe even pay by the minute. Sure we pay them, but our time is free.
Sure, all the time we spend using is free. NEVER! Not a minute of my time is free. It's just off the books. Accountants don't differentiate between time I use for productive purposes and time I use trying to get the thing to work, so I can be productive.
This is the root of the usability vs. business case.
All to often we push costs off on customers. When I send you a pdf, instead of a printed and bound manual, and you print it on your printer, it costs you a lot more than it would cost me, because your printer is inefficent, and my printing costs could be driven to zero if my customer base was large enough. I'm managing a zero by pushing costs off on my customers.
When I use single sourcing to reduce content variety, usually an inadvertant effect of considering translation costs over reach, I'm reducing the number of people I can effectively explain the thing to.
It's like the article on wayfinding saying that wayfinding is more than signs. It struck me that there is a coralary in a software interface. The need to document is a crutch for bad design. And, in wayfinding, a sign is a crutch. But, a sign also has bandwidth or reach problem. They asymetrically allocate use costs.
Use costs are the cost of productive use as in positive use costs, and the cost of non-productive use as in negative use costs. Negative use costs are felt both in the customer and in the vendor.
Use costs were deliberately omitted from the Total Cost of Ownership, because they were off the books costs. We need to get use costs on the books. Any ideas?
Designed for life
Interview with Don Norman.
Understanding UCD
Interview with Peter Merholz and Nathan Shedroff.
Crossing the Chasm
Promoting usability in the software development community.
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Glad to know we're winning the war and that those "Clueless Decision Makers" are to blame! ;)