Developing Usable Experiences

“Convenient and practicable for use.”

February 26th, 2008 7:32 am —  132 views

cross_walk.JPG

The definition of usability is “convenient and practical for use.”1 In the domain of information systems, this is of particular importance and should be the measure of all things designed, developed, and released to the Internet.2

Consider the opposite of this; inconvenient and impractical for use. In another word: useless. Break it down to “use less” and we are closer to the point I’m trying to make.

Anything that is inconvenient and impractical to use does not get used.

Developing information systems that are practical is certainly a goal of information architects, developers, designers, and programmers. But this doesn’t always happen. When it doesn’t, it is usually by accident and more times than not the inconvenience is not that significant compared to usefulness. In a time where online experience and awareness is growing fast, the little things, the inconveniences, are becoming more noticeable and annoying.

As an experienced web developer3 and graduate student studying information systems and principles of information architecture, it is my (somewhat) informed opinion that overall, the quality of online applications I have encountered is a 5.7/10.0. If the same people using applications are building them, there is opportunity to improve quality. Humans are inclined to pursue quality as are developers and architects.

The Internet population as whole is in a perpetual process of training itself and as a result is becoming more adept at noticing subtle usability issues. In a general way, those patterns that accomplish tasks in a quick and efficient way become favored by the majority.4 As a result, certain interface and interaction standards emerge.5

Does this all seem obvious? It should. It is natural to favor what is convenient and practical. So natural that we invest a considerable amount of time and money in our pursuit of convenience and practicality. As a developer and emerging information architect, I’m realizing how important it is to understand and study these patterns. By doing so, that unexpected but significant discovery can be teased from truth. From such discoveries comes innovation and new ideas.

Image: I took this on Sunday in Ann Arbor while walking to the library to meet with one of my groups. It was sunny out and my camera loves sunny days. I put it with this post because it made me wonder if people, over a large sample of time and street crossing within say, 100 feet, actually use this location to cross the street. Probably I would say. Does the sign help?

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  1. As defined at Merriam-Webster. [↩]
  2. The exceptions are those systems meant to be intentionally inconvenient and impractical for use. [↩]
  3. Worth mentioning: I am sort of ‘specialized’ as far as web developers go. I work on a specific web-based system whose existence depends on desktop applications that serve an accessible, defined audience and are used to accomplish very specific tasks. [↩]
  4. Examples include the shopping cart pattern, the wish list pattern, the search interface pattern, error handling patterns, navigation patterns, wizard patterns…etc. I may have started to make some up at the end, but only because I see them myself. [↩]
  5. The research of countless university professors, ph.d and graduate students focuses on understanding emergence of behavior, patterns, and trends. [↩]

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