Rethinking Usability - how usable is usability?
Usability gurus like Jakob Neilson are ongoing proponents of the idea that websites are about getting information - a website is only as good as how effectively it transfers information to the user.
In the early 2000’s Neilson wrote:
Ultimately users visit your website for its content. Everything else is just the backdrop. The old analogy is somebody who goes to see a theatre performance: When they leave the theatre, you want them to be discussing how great the play was and not how great the costumes were.
Please...Don't make me think!
Neilson’s approach comes from a user centered design model, more commonly called “usability”. Usability is concerned with how easy it is for users to complete the tasks a website is designed for. A website works when users get to where they want to go without hindrance or as Steven Krug has popularized: websites work when they “don’t make [you] think”. Thinking is obviously not the desired effect for good websites.
If we take this approach to its logical end, we might expect the internet to be intravenously injected straight into our minds – no unnecessary design or artistic fluff to get in the way of good content and certainly no thinking required!
To be fair though, Neilson and followers have done their bit to lead the mass exodus away from glossy brochure style sites (nice for billboards / magazines but almost useless for websites), and non-human designed sites like those attempting to fit a whole encyclopedia into one never ending long scrolling web page.
What is often left out of the usability debate is that the internet is not just a deliverer of external content, but has become more a medium in itself - with its own content and set of rules. The whole Web 2.0 phenomena makes use of and makes money out of this very fact.
Usability and the rise of Web 2.0 sites
It’s difficult to pin-point an exact definition of Web 2.0 but broadly speaking it describes sites that leverage the dynamic and collaborative nature of the internet. Sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are populated with a constant flow of user-generated content. Static Web 1.0 sites have a 1 directional flow of information similar to traditional publishing models like newspapers and television. Web 2.0 is different by being able to offer information (and advertising) apparently more relevant to the user, based on how he / she interacts with and contributes to these sites.
So, how do we apply Neilson’s premise to Web 2.0 websites?
Most people just want to get in, get it and get out… the web is not a goal in itself. It is a tool
Neilson, 2007
The problem here is that a growing number of people are using the internet (especially social Web 2.0 sites) with vague intentions - not always looking for something specific. For instance we might be online to make conversation, browse with no particular goal in mind or just passing time when we’re meant to be working.
If we need to determine a goal, we might just as well ask why is it we do anything social? A lot of people are just looking for a way to feel a part of something bigger - perhaps looking for a community of like-minded people to relate to in a safe and non-intrusive environment.
It’s here where the a task-based usability model falls short (when specific tasks can’t be so clearly defined). What is needed is a way of determining social engagement - how engaged are your users when online on your particular site? How well did the experience imitate real social interactions? etc. etc.
References
Steven Krug
Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/dp/0789723107
Jakob Nielsen
Designing Web Usability
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Usability-VOICES-Jakob-Nielsen/dp/156205810X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242705058&sr=1-1
Jakob Nielsen
Web 2.0 ‘neglecting good design’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6653119.stm
Get creative with stock photos, stock footage & production music from photolibrary.com
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment
May 20th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
It’s true that usability (and usability methods) grew out of a task-oriented view of interaction, where tasks tended to be easily identifiable “get the computer to do this” type of activities, usually oriented around things management wanted workers to do on their jobs.
Note, however, that user-centered design methods quickly moved beyond this to encompass techniques providing a broader view, including social and environmental factors. Ethnographic methods and diary studies, for instance, can help uncover some of the identify construction and social engagement qualities of online interaction.
The term “user experience” is often used instead of “usability” because people have a broader set of concerns in view. So the question is not just “can I get done what I need to do” but also “am I enjoying this enough to keep doing it.” There are methods and practitioners out there that do this well. But it tends not to be called usability.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:37 am
Thanks for you comment Mark. User experience practitioners have a lot to do with gaming and interactive digital media, with the complexity of websites today the same methods are just as relevant - especially in terms of social engagement.
Interestingly, Marketing guru Martin Lindstrom talks about the limits of most testing methodologies, opting for fMRI scans (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) as the most conclusive means of understanding why people are engaged in just about anything. Perhaps this is the future of usability testing?
May 21st, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Hmm…more likely the future of advertising research and other high-stakes manipulation. I like to think of user experience work as happening in the service of the user’s needs. Naively altruistic?