October/November 2006

Volume 47, Number 2

What Is This Thing Called Usability?

by Stephen Wertzbaugher

During the frenzied days before the start of the school year I found myself frantically searching for a hotel and restaurant management college text my daughter needed for her class. Exhausted by my fruitless searching, I happened on an “official” Web site for the hotel and restaurant management industry that claimed to sell the text. Elated, I clicked links like a man possessed to find out if the text was the correct edition and how much it cost. But after ten minutes of increasing frustration, I could not find any relevant information. Disgusted, I fired an angry email to the organization asking for “useful” information about the text and casting aspersions upon the parentage of the Web site designers and telling them that their site was useless even for brain-dead chimpanzees. And I ignored their clueless calls and emails and eventually found the text on eBay.

That sad experience got me thinking: if usability is such a hot-button issue, why do so few organizations pay heed to usability when creating user documentation and company Web sites? If you don’t believe me, read setup instructions that come with a common household electronic appliance or search the Web for something, anything, and then try to find the information you want on the returned sites. Give up? I thought so. The problem is a complex one that will require patience and perseverance to overcome. Strides are slowly being made. But in the meantime, our users continue to be bombarded with documentation and Web sites that even Stephen Hawking couldn’t use—and he’s a pretty bright guy!

What’s the solution? Awareness, followed by implementation.

The dictionary defines the term usable as “available or convenient to use” and “capable of being used.” Simple, right? Yes, but try to write usable documentation or design a usable Web site, and that simplicity seems to vanish. Why? Because what is usable for you or me may not be usable for someone else who does not share our knowledge and expectations. So is there no hope? Are we to be forever mired in unusable documentation and Web sites? I hope not! As I said, the first part of the solution is awareness. As with anything that needs to be fixed, the first step is acknowledging that the problem exists.

That’s where Technicalities comes in: we’ve dedicated this issue to usability and the user experience. Heady stuff—and although we won’t be able to tackle implementation in the few pages we have, we can at least wave the banner for awareness. Along with some excellent articles on usability and user experience, this issue tells you about World Usability Day, scheduled for November 14, 2006, and STC’s involvement in this landmark usability event. And if after reading the newsletter you want to know more about usability and user experience, visit the Web site of the Usability Professionals’ Association at www.usabilityprofessionals.org. Together maybe we can tackle This Thing Called Usability.