Why Usability Is A Path To Failure Options

[bwelford]

Why usability is a path to failure.

This is a bit of a straw-man argument. However surprisingly Todd Wilkens seems to feel it's important to say what he's saying. Jared Spool gets into the comments quite heavily.

Does this article serve any useful purpose?

[Adrian]

If he thinks all graphics designers out there are magically able to create great web layouts that work really well, he's living in pixie land.

If usability is such a base level thing that everyone knows, how come so any people get it wrong? How come so many people have trouble using a site?

It does smack a bit of designer 'artists' not wanting you to intrude on their design methods a bit.

[A.N.Onym]

Well, consider me stuck in the usability land. I don't want to read the article

Then again, I will have to, to learn excuses not to learn usability. Might help in the future.

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Jul 31 2007, 08:27 AM

[cre8pc]

Recently, I’m even coming to believe that focusing on usability is actually a path to failure. Usability is too low level, too focused on minutia. It can’t compel people to be interested in interacting with your product or service. It can’t make you compelling or really differentiate you from other organizations. Or put another way, there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website.

Obviously he has no concept of all that usability involves. This is wide spread, which is why I wrote about it in more detail the other day.

I find this often in my travels on and offline. There's a belief that usability is all about the visuals and that's the end of the discussion. Visuals are one tiny part of the bigger picture, and usually near the bottom of the pile. A great deal of planning, requirements, code, performance issues and IA come before the pretty colors and pictures are chosen.

[joedolson]

Good lord. That article completely misses the point of what usability IS. He's trying to compare usability to creative graphic design; rather than functionality.

Some of his examples are ludicrous:

When talking of a great writer, how often do people talk about how amazingly legible they are?

No. But people might talk about a specific EDITION of his book and how horrible the typography was and that they couldn't possibly read it. The artistry of the writing is completely unrelated to the usability of the physical object: similarly, the artistry of a website or creativity/uniqueness of the online service has nothing to do with whether people will be able to use it.

The example of his pants was humorous - but still missed the point. The design of pants is made to be usable: you have two legs, you have two places to put them. The problem would be if pants were NOT designed to be usable - if you had a pair of pants with three legs, but only two of them were appropriate for legs, you'd have a problem, however beautiful those pants might be.

As the first commenter notes, the analogies that Todd Wilkens is trying to apply simply fail. They don't apply to the appropriate object relationships.

[AbleReach]

The problem would be if pants were NOT designed to be usable - if you had a pair of pants with three legs, but only two of them were appropriate for legs, you'd have a problem, however beautiful those pants might be.

This is exactly how I feel about women's dress shoes...

[DCrx]

I have made a similar argument, mostly there is a limit to usability. The real motive force of usability is the huge number of sites that do horrible interface design.

But yes, usability is "hygenic." While tremendously important you have to look at usability as giving you no "bonus points." Customers expect to be able to find stuff in a physical store, and they expect web sites to be usable. Lack of usability can hurt a site, but having a "usable" site only gets you to zero.

That's exactly the reason behind desirability design on my own site. Usability is about "de-motivators" or task completion "frictions." Reducing friction is exactly half the equation, because people have to be motivated to complete some task in order for usability to work.

A well motivated user will put up with poor usability. That doesn't mean you can "get away" with poor usability -- you're still losing money. It's just the desirability factor creates more motivation than poor usability can counteract. It's called succeeding in spite of yourself, and it happens all the time.

My criticism for this article and others is they don't explain the desirability design side. All they do is create linkbait articles attacking usability without putting forth anything constructive. To be fair, that's the same thing Nielsen has been accused of doing.

This post has been edited by DCrx: Jul 31 2007, 03:39 PM

[cre8pc]

Usability is about "de-motivators" or task completion "frictions." Reducing friction is exactly half the equation, because people have to be motivated to complete some task in order for usability to work.

YES!

[kulpreet_singh]

Second only to Grey-Wolf's post telling lesser-known SEO bloggers to "step away from the keyboard," this is probably the most ridiculous blog post relating to web development / internet communications that I have EVER read.

This post has been edited by kulpreet_singh: Jul 31 2007, 05:19 PM

[customerneeds]

This article seems to have missed the point completely. The goal of usability starts with the user, asking them what their needs are and how these needs should be fulfilled. Whether the needs are little details or not, it doesn't matter, as long as the user is satisfied!

[EGOL]

I am probably going to get shot for this post... but that's OK.

I think that there are two issues here... 1) usability for the site visitor and 2) the goals of the site owner.

We might have an extremely usable site but if that site does not accomplish the goals of the site's owner then the site will not be successful - at least for the owner... and that is who pays the bills and does the work. If the site fails to make a profit it will be abandoned by most people - but not all because some build websites as gifts to the web.

I will honestly say that I have situations on my sites where I had choices of multiple different page formats... some would make the site more usable and some would kick up the income. All of these format choices were tested very carefully. Which one do you think I kept? Not the most usable and not the highest income. One that achieved what I felt was the best balance considering my goals.

I am not going so far as to make "rat trap" pages where the only way out is to click an ad... but just saying that accomplishing the goals of the website owner can trump the decision of ultimate usability - although it must be balanced because usability is part of what earns links and those in my opinion can often be more valuable than income.

That decision to go for income is a sin to some people but not to others... and maybe it depends upon how much money we are talking about... or how much it stinks up the site... or why you built the site in the first place.

Some would argue that the site needs more work so that it would be ultimately usable... but that can cost a lot of money.

Webmasters have a choice of Gods to worship... Income, Usability, Message, Design, etc... I think that it's a mistake to worship only one. Instead you must achieve balance.... and that balance is determined by the webmaster.

I have to be careful when I look at a site and point to something and say.... "Man, they are really messing up."... because I might not understand what the webmaster is trying to achieve.

[Respree]

Not the most usable and not the highest income. One that achieved what I felt was the best balance considering my goals.

No bullets flying from my direction. :-)

Just curious, EGOL, if neither usability nor income wasn't the primary goal, I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing what you believed was more important.

[bwelford]

Just going out on a limb I don't often climb, I guess you could construct the Unbeatable Maze website. It's akin to some gaming sites I've seen where it seems to take for ever to explore every option so that you eventually figure out the possible paths and the possible weapons you can take with you.

I guess that wouldn't work for most visitors but for those who like the challenge, you might give them the user experience they want. Who knows, if it was very buzz-worthy you might get a large number of intrepid visitors.

[iamlost]

EGOL: No shooting from me, either. Not at you.

The original linked-to article is either rampant ignorance on display or apparent strawman as linkbait. Re-reading it re-boiled my irritation levels, thanks Barry

I do appreciate EGOL's take on the varience of visitor and owner perspectives. It is an interesting point of view. How does a site business plan affect visitor usability? Not just site wide but page by page?

The SE bots are not unimportant 'users', yet optimising for G-Bot can affect Slurp, and vice versa.

Optimising for one demographic, i.e. teenage male gamers, can decrease the usability for retirees.

Language level, browser/plug-in/application requirements, colours, bandwidth, etc. all are usability filters (not just accessibility).

Of course many webmasters neither understand usability nor have a business plan beyond 'build it and get AdSense'.

What is important is knowing why you are doing whatever it is.

I certainly give up some usability on certain pages (perhaps it would be more accurate to say: qualify a basic usability) in exchange for better targeting and ROI while retaining it generally to maintain high traffic and acquire broad linkage. Just hadn't thought it through as in EGOL's 'usability and goals'.

Thanks. Always nice to add a little something to the business plan documentation.

[EGOL]

Garrick: Just curious, EGOL, if neither usability nor income wasn't the primary goal, I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing what you believed was more important.

On some of my pages that get a lot of traffic but are not at the heart of my site's theme.... Income >> Linkability >> Usability

On pages that are the heart of my site's theme.... Linkability >> Usability >> Income

Now, income is easily quantified, I have my own "guess" at the message part, usability is not easy to quantify (at least not by me) and linkability is really squishy. Just going from my gut of how these things work.

[BrainDoc]

“Usability is not a strategy for design success.”
This is amusing when you think of the ubiquitous iPod and its success. I’d go further and say that pretty designs mean nothing to many. Google is partially successful because of its simplicity.

And within both the examples above, you have certain layers of complexity and tools for those that want to discover and use them.

[Jozian]

I was leafing through a design magazine yesterday (sponsored by AFGA and the Creative Group) that had awards for great designs over the past year.

Of the great online designs I saw there several had what I would see as major usability problems.

Great Usability doesn't equal Great Design doesn't equal Great SEM.

They may be related, and they may compliment each other in most situations, but they are not always on good speaking terms with each other

It takes a great team to do well in all three at once.

Funny that some people still think they can just hire a cheap 'web developer' and end up with an effective site.

-Jeff

[DCrx]

It takes a great team to do well in all three at once.

That's more insightful than the article we're talking about. The path to failure is where one dimension crowds out others. Usability can be good or bad, depending on the motives behind the people writing the checks and making the decisions. We're probably all familiar with Ronco Spray-on Usability.

Apple success isn't about usability, it's about a high-level of competence in doing many things right. The integration where design and usability and technology aren't bickering silos, using the project as a scoring mechanism for political power, is tough. And it just doesn't happen very often.

[projectphp]

I agree with the article actually.

I think the point is that usability is like salt and pepper in food. It isn't a plus, it is a minimum. You don't say "wow, that was great. What was the herb?" and get the response "Salt and pepper". The brilliance is in the other elements: herbs, ingredients, quality.

That people get it wrong is sad, not a negtive for the article.

I would extend it to SEO, SEM and a few other areas. SEO friendly isn't a plus, it is a minimum. Ditto Usability, SEM and grammar.

[A.N.Onym]

I think the point of the article was that concentrating only on usability is a path to failure. But any extremity is a path to failure, so I don't think the author is wrong.

However, the post title didn't match the idea of the author, which is what prompted the discussion. I suspect that the author could be hitting at sensationalism, since he could have easily understood where his title was going, but I'll write it off to me being spoiled by linkbait titles and examples.