[IxDA Discuss] interesting article : Why Usability is a path to Failure

[Dmitry Nekrasovski]

On 8/4/07, Steven Pautz <spautz at gmail.com> wrote:
> I doubt many people would consider the classic, academic view of usability
> -- which seems to be the usage being considered by the article -- to be
> "fundamental" to the field of Interaction Design (or related fields). This
> field is a balanced union of many different fields and disciplines; its
> foundation is that balance, I believe, not any specific concept/term from
> the ingredients of that balance.

Perhaps I should expand on my original one-sentence summary dismissal. :)

In my opinion, the referenced post suffers from a lack of originality
(as a quick search for "usability is dead" or recent arguments against
the term "user" will readily prove), but more importantly, a lack of
sublety.

I couldn't agree more with the idea that "usability is not a strategy
for design success", or that it is becoming table stakes in certain
(not all) domains where interaction designers work. Unfortunately, the
author chose to title the post with a far more shrill version of that
statement - "usability is a path to failure".

Arguably this choice was made for no other reason than to increase the
shock value of, and hence the traffic to, the post. And that's fine -
as we all know, it's usually far easier to attract attention
(especially in the blogosphere) with a controversial statement than
with a detailed, balanced argument.

But, I am not sure such controversial statements do much to advance a
field that purports to be, in Steven's words, a "balanced union of
many different fields and disciplines". I would argue that they hurt
it instead by pitting practitioners from different backgrounds against
each other in endless, pointless holy wars.

In case that's not a strong enough argument, consider a hypothetical
interaction designer who really does believe that "usability is a path
to failure" (for any given definition of "usability"). Would you want
such a person on your next project team? Would you want them to design
the next system you use?

Dmitry