Hurdles to Usability

One interesting piece of news: Last week, Usability/User Experience Specialist was named one of U.S. News and World Report's Best Careers. And it had a nice little write-up. Pretty nifty.

I've actually had quite a bit of fun talking about what I do over the last couple of week with my job. I've been fortunate to basically fall into a profession that I really enjoy and feel like I have some kind of aptitude for (besides teaching). However, as with any job, there are hurdles to what you do.

Now, before I elucidate some of these, let me say that I realize that everyone feels like what they do is very important, if not the most important part of the process, particularly a software/application project. I'm under no such illusions; my feeling is that requirements and usability and mockups and prototypes and architecture and development and QA are all equally important. I'm just not sure everyone feels the same way.

OK, the first hurdle to usability that I see is one of perception. Because usability is a growing field and one that doesn't have the same amount of roots that disciplines like QA and coding do, it is very easy for usability to be marginalized in the software cycle. Part of this is a lack of understanding about what usability is. In some ways, I think it's very easy for people to look at us as simply web designers. We get requirements and we implement them in a visually pleasing manner. Is that an aspect of what we do? Yes, it is. However, it's only a part of what we do. We also have to consider navigation: how people will get to the different areas of the application/site. Links? Tabs? Both? And why make the choice that we do? Why use certain colors? In using those colors, have we considered color-blind users? Have we considered the audience and their age and familiarity with the web and "understood" web-conventions?

People and groups that do usability are not simply mock-up factories. The mock ups that we deliver are the easiest piece to judge, but they are merely a reflection of the background work that has to go into making them and the considerations that have to take place.

And I think that's the other issue with the perception of usability. Because people don't fully understand it yet, they reduce it to the lowest common denominator, and honestly, people don't think web/application design is really that hard. Much like people don't think running sound is really that hard. "Just turn it up. What's the big deal?" "Just put a button there. What's the big deal?" And because people think it's easy, they don't always understand the complexity of the situations. It just doesn't seem as difficult as coding, for instance.

Which leads us to the other hurdle: time. In the business environment I'm in, time is money. Especially since we don't bill hours to external clients. As a result, everything must be done in as rapid a timeframe as possible. With a huge focus on deadlines, sometimes ones that seem arbitrary, and sometimes externally driven, there's a lot of pressure to get the mock ups done and on to architecture and development. Which is understandable, of course. The goal is to produce products as quickly as possible to produce more products as quickly as possible. However, the difficulty in that is simply that if you rush a design process, you can marginalize the quality of it. And that doesn't do anyone any good: users, product owners, designers, developers, anyone. While I understand we're in a fast-paced world, some consideration the other way has to be taken as well.

So those are the two biggest hurdles I see to good implementation of usability. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm complaining. I think those hurdles are starting to be overcome in general and I hope that usability continues to grow in prominence and acceptance as a valuable part of the software development cycle.

Why Do They Call It the Terrible Twos?

Because they last for two years.

Connor has started to become a lot more willful. He's started to fight us when we try to make him do things that he doesn't like to do, such as sit in a high chair or share a toy. He's started throwing tantrums, which are not fun at all. It's one of those things that I really, really don't like and frustrate me, but I also know that he's still a lot of fun for the most part. I just don't look forward to these next two years, which is how long it lasted for Kinsey.

Gen X vs. Millenials/Gen Y

Over the last few days, a couple of links have come to my attention about attitudes of GenXers particularly in relation to Gen Y/Millenials.

This one from Radar Online called "Generation Slap:They're naive, self-important, and perpetually plugged in. This is a call to arms against Millennials"(ht: Scott Freeman) is much more of a screed against Millenials, containing lines such as: "If you look at the sheer number of Millennials, the outlook is grim. While Gen X boasts only around 30 million members, there are an estimated 80 million Millennials out there. They're like pod people with Facebook accounts. We're outnumbered." It's a very interesting read, but it does contain a lot of adult language/cussin'.

The other one was from Businessweek entitled "10 Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work." I thought this one, while mainly anecdotal, was pretty well thought out and reflected some of my feelings about being in the corporate world, although I also feel very fortunate to be doing work that I really like.

Interesting reads for a Monday morning.

GAH!!!

Zero time to do a serious blog today. GAH!!!!

So a question and advance apologies to you preachers (and soon-to-be) preachers out there: How much value do people find in sermons? What is your definition of a good sermon? A bad one?

I'm just curious about people's thoughts on it.

Caption This Picture!

Caption this picture! Be funny!


For more humor, read this letter denying tenure to Dr. Henry Jones, Junior.

How We Do Usability

Last week, I discussed a little bit about what usability is (which is what I do for a living). Hopefully that gave some conceptual framework to this week.

Ok, so what exactly do I do? Well, a few things. One thing we do is look at existing applications or sites and help make suggestions to make them better, often by doing redesigns. The other thing we typically do is to start with a project at the beginning, trying to design it as usable from the beginning. Do I have a preference between those two? Well, due to my critical nature, I kind of like looking at existing sites and finding the problems, but honestly, it's much better for the users if we are involved from the start.

To do our work, we have 2 tools: 1) experience (ours and others) and 2) usability testing. To be perfectly honest, a lot of usability work is common sense and experience. By doing the work and the reading, we get a lot of knowledge about how users do things. For instance, it's simply common sense that you DON'T put a ton of text at the beginning of a website or an application. Why? Because people don't read it. All of that marketing speak and junk that CEOs and marketing people love to have to extol the virtues of their brand or company or whatever. Users have learned to scan through websites and applications to find what they want. Very rarely to people on the web browse anymore. Ten years ago when the web was pretty new, sure. But now, people have a purpose when they come. They're wanting to do something or find something; they don't want a brochure. So common sense says, don't have a ton of text at the beginning of a website or application. And yet, how many places do you still see this? Way too many.

The other tool in the bag is Usability testing. What's that? It's very easy. You design your site or application, or you take an existing one that you suspect has problems. Then you get a typical user, sit them in front of it and basically say, "How would you use this?" or "How would accomplish this task?" And then you get another one, and another, and so on and so on to make it statistically significant. If the large majority of people can accomplish what you ask, you know that you've got a pretty good system. If they can't, you need to redesign. Usability testing is the absolute best way to determine how usable a system is.

Because here's the thing: even with all the years of experience that our group has, we still get things wrong. It's very easy to get caught up in getting things done and meeting deadlines that you forget to take certain things into account, like how a user will get to a particular area that you've designed. That happened to me on a project a few weeks back. The other thing is that, especially on a redesign of an existing system, users will have a certain mindset about how to accomplish a certain task and you have to take that into account. Otherwise, they're not going to be able to use what you're creating.

So, those are the tools. Next week, some hurdles to usability. Some ways that people ignore or don't take it into account or marginalize it. Hopefully, those of you out there are finding this slightly interesting and eye-opening. Usability is a growing field and one that people don't really notice until they come across a site or application that just doesn't work.

Kinsey's Dance Recital 2008

Sunday was Kinsey's Spring dance recital. She was wonderful, of course and here's the proof.

Getting dolled up.

Right there in the middle.

With all her beautiful flowers.

With my mom.

With Sheryl's mom

Iron Man

Sheryl and I got out to see Iron Man Friday night and let me give the non-spoiler review first and then I'll get detailed and spoiler-filled.

It was great. Absolutely terrific. I'm a comics fan just in general, and really enjoyed Spider-Man 1 & 2 (not so much with 3) and Batman Begins. I've also seen the comics done fairly poorly in movies like The Hulk and the Fantastic Four. Thankfully, Iron Man didn't fall into the latter category. Beyond the visual effects, what really, really made this movie was the acting. All four of the major characters in this movie were portrayed by Oscar-nominated or -winning actors: Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and most notably, Robert Downey Jr. Beyond all the effects and CGI, it was the acting that really, really made this movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it. If you have seen it, scroll down for my more spoiler-filled review.

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Ok, first of all the effects were great. There are moments the movie like when Downey/Stark is being put into the suit by his robots where you know there's green screen work going on, but it looked so seamless that it's difficult to tell where it is.

But here's the great thing about the movie. It's really Robert Downey Jr's movie. Director Jon Favreau realized this and I think made a concerted effort to NOT make Iron Man the main character. He made Stark the main character. Iron Man never became a persona of Stark the way that Batman is a persona of Bruce Wayne, almost another personality. Iron Man is simply Tony Stark in a suit. And I credit both Downey and Favreau with this. Downey for being a great actor, especially vocally when his face isn't on screen, and Favreau for shots like Downey's face inside the Iron Man mask with all of the displays reflecting on him. It's a great directorial trick to help us maintain a connection with the Stark character. It's very effective.

The other part that really works is the story. Having Stark kidnapped in Afghanistan brings a real immediacy to the story. Even the idea that we've got a guy here that's a genius that can do all of the things that he does works in a similar way to how Batman Begins works. It's naturalistic, at least as naturalistic as a story about a guy in a suit can be. You find it reasonable that a normal guy with enough motivation could pull off the stuff that Stark does.

I really, really liked this movie a whole lot and so did Sheryl. She didn't like me keeping her afterwards as much to watch the scene after the credits, but hey. Sometimes you got to sit through the credits...

Wright Ehrman debate

I got asked in a comment last week what were my reactions to the Wright-Ehrman debate on pain/suffering that I linked to last week. So here's my reaction.

There is a level on which I find Ehrman's arguments very compelling, and it's hard not to. There can definitely be a cognitive disconnect between the idea of a loving God that cares so much for each of us that He sent His Son to die as a sacrifice and be resurrected as the first fruit of the new creation who also "lets" children die of starvation and crippling diseases. But it's also not a new problem. It's not something that people have only recently been dealing with.

I think my basic reaction is that I sincerely hope that what NT Wright talks about is true. I have faith that it is true, but also doubts that it could be. Perhaps I don't have the faith of a child anymore. It's like the old Caedmon's Call song says, "My faith is like shifting sand..." and so on the days that I find it difficult to stand on faith, I find myself standing on hope and grace. That's where I am on this.

What I really liked the best was the end of Ehrman's last statement, that being that even if we don't know the reasons for suffering we can still have the proper response to it. And that, to me, is a very Christ-like thing to say.

YouTube Thursday: Marvel/DC

I think tomorrow night, Sheryl and I are going to be able to get out and see Iron Man, which I'm particularly looking forward to and was before it got all the good buzz it's been getting.

In my online browsing, I came across a guy on YouTube who has done something kind of interesting. He's taken the Mac/PC meme and moved it over to the comic book world, using action figures. He did a bunch a couple of years ago with Spider-man and Superman and this year, he's done Batman and Iron Man and it's a riot.



Now, as I was looking through this guy's other work, I discovered that he actually did a series called "Marvel/DC: After Hours." It's a seven-part series, and this is the highest compliment that I can give something: at the end, I had to remind myself that it was just a guy manipulating action figures. The story is that good. If you're not a comic fan, you might not enjoy it like I did, but I'm also not as big a comic fan as some other people are, so you might give it a shot.


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6 #1


Part 6 #2


Part 7 #1


Part 7 #2