[IxDA Discuss] Usability is more than...

[Andrei Herasimchuk]

On Mar 5, 2008, at 1:35 PM, Jeff Howard wrote:

> I dug back into the archives to find the original quotes that inspired
> my question. I'm particularly interested in understanding of the role
> of usability beyond evaluation. Any readings or insights along those
> lines would be much appreciated.

The biggest problem you're going to run into is one of the usability  
field's own making to a certain degree. That is, usability is as much  
if not more about research as it is about evaluation, which most  
translate as "testing" unfortunately.

Research is the real heart of the matter for good design. Evaluation  
is often merely a means to satisfy one's own desire to get validation  
on what they've done, or somehow prove that what they've created was  
worth the money. But it's almost always an afterthought in that it  
comes in the point of the process where it has the least influence on  
what can be altered since it's already been designed in order to be  
tested.

Once you treat evaluation as only one portion of the equation, and a  
somewhat smaller one at that, imho, and bring research back into the  
forefront of your corporate culture for your design process, then  
everything changes. For the better. It also allows you to drop  
thinking about "usability" as only an evaluation tool, and allows the  
"useful, usable, desirable" triumvirate to have far depeer meaning.

-- 
Andrei Herasimchuk

Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. andrei at involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422