The Usability Culture - Part 1

Introduction

By putting so much of our business on computers, we have given a problem to the people who want to do business with us and for us — the users of these systems. They have to grapple with complex and poorly designed software that will make them jump through bizarre and arbitrary hoops and dismiss them with mechanical indifference if they put a foot wrong. We all know that computers are stupid. We all know that software is difficult to use, fragile and unforgiving. Well guess what is out there every day dealing with your customers, your business partners and your staff.
This is an article about recognising the importance of managing the experience that people have when they use your organisation's software. It is also about ways to make that experience better without spending a fortune. The central tenet of this article is that an organisation can change its attitudes and processes to give the appropriate focus on usability and deliver first class user experiences without feeling the pain.

Firstly, though, I need to justify to the reader the need to focus on user experience at all. After that, I will try to explain why, despite the importance of good user experience, organisations still do not value usability as a service feature. Finally, I will show that good user experience can be achieved with little extra cost or investment, giving organisations the benefits while minimising the costs.

User Experience is Important

User experience has always been important. In the good old days (ten years ago!) when computer systems were largely used by an organisation’s own staff and nobody else, a poor reception by users was manifested in lowered productivity, higher error rates, lowered morale and so on. In some cases, new software was rejected entirely by the intended users. Fixes for this kind of problem included additional training, software fixes (contributing much of the so-called ‘maintenance’ costs of new systems) and procedural work-arounds. Yet, since it was all happening within the organisation, management could take steps, blame the obstinacy or stupidity of its staff and, generally, keep the organisation going despite the problems.

These days, your computer software is increasingly out there, interacting directly with suppliers, distributors and, worst of all, your customers. Surveys repeatedly show that the quality of the user experience is typically among the top three reasons why customers would go back to a website (up there with the brand and the products). It is also worth noting that ‘word of mouth’ is also normally ranked very highly among the reasons why people go to a particular website in the first place. And what about the brand damage you can suffer? ‘Brand equity’ is not just an airy-fairy notion, it translates to real dollars and cents on your share price.

This is a serious problem for organisations attempting to do business in our networked world. Organisations can educate, incentivise or bully their own staff into using poorly-designed computer software but they can rarely force a business partner or a customer. We’ve had a brief honeymoon period where simply having an online service has been a market differentiator but this is no longer the case. By the end of another five years, not having an online service will be the exception. As this comes about, the quality of the online user experience itself becomes a major differentiator and organisations who treat their customers and business partners badly will suffer the inevitable consequences.

Why Usability has no Value (but you need it anyway!)

The user experience of a piece of software has three major aspects: usability, aesthetics and content. It may be a business tool, or a database, or a retail website. Whatever it is, it has the same three aspects.

Usability is the aspect which makes it more or less easy for someone to use the software to achieve some task. It therefore includes all the ergonomic features of the software such as the legibility of any text, the comprehensibility of any messages, the way the software is structured for navigation so that people know where they are and how to find what they need. It also encompasses more subtle properties to do with how the interaction with the user unfolds over time, whether the software seems coherent and consistent, and whether there is a good match to the user's expectations and preconceptions.

Aesthetics is about the way the software appears to the user. It is about Design with a capital 'D': the style, the layouts, the choices of fonts and colours, the use of visual, verbal and other stylistic elements to convey brand and image messages. Aesthetics is often confused with usability but the two are very different and sometimes the requirements of one are diametrically opposed to those of the other. I won’t dwell on aesthetics here but it has its place in the overall user experience and it too should not be neglected.

The third aspect of a piece of software is its content. Content is a broad term to include whatever the organisation is providing to the user. It may be products (as in a Web shop), or services (such as advice or news), or tools (such as business applications). Whatever it is, it is the supply of the content to the user that is the main purpose of the software.

And this is where people get so confused about their online service delivery because they believe it is all about the content — just because the content is where the user receives value and because it is the content for which the customer is paying. It is true that the value of content has to be maximised, especially (but not only) for customers. This is essential to the so-called ‘value proposition’ of the organisation. It is also true that, since usability and aesthetics are not what the customer came to buy, their addition to the software is often seen as an unnecessary expense which does not in itself add value and merely increases the cost of providing the content.

However, as I have already argued, the total user experience is of great importance to the user — and it should be of equal importance to the organisations that rely on it to promote their offerings. Content itself is of little value to anyone if it cannot be found, or understood, or easily used or purchased. The value of content should be maximised but usability and aesthetics should be optimised. That is, they should be developed to the levels appropriate to the efficient and effective use or acquisition of the content.

On to Part 2 >>