November 30th, 2006

Zeldman on Usability

by Joshua Porter  |   7 Comments  |  shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/520

Update: Changed some wording…some folks thought I was arguing with Zeldman. Actually, I was agreeing with him, and finding that his post echoed what I’ve found to be true.

Jeffrey Zeldman on how he softened up to usability:

“Like many design professionals, I rejected usability when I first encountered it. That’s mainly because I first encountered it as a series of rules, put forward by business-oriented, lab-coat-wearing experts who were hostile to the aesthetic component of user experience. Later, the rules would soften. “Only use blue, underlined links” would give way to gentler and more flexible guidelines.

And even before this softening, there was much in the early, fire-and-brimstone approach to usability that was actually of value to web designers. I should have been open-minded enough to benefit from the helpful bits and wink at the rest. But I was too busy defending my creative turf (not to mention reliving old battles with badly run focus groups and cocky account execs) to look closer and see that usability mainly means designing for the people who use my site.”

Zeldman talks frankly about a tension I’ve come to think will always exist, at some level, in the hearts and minds of every designer. As creative beings, we want a little bit (or a lot) of ourselves in our designs. On the usability front, however, we realize the person on the other end is focused resolutely on their own goals. The challenge is to find a common middle ground.

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Comments

1.  David Malouf 12:54pm, Thu 30th, 2006

Dost thou minimize the importance of aesthetics a touch too much?

There is a lot of room for presentation design skills that communicate emotion beyond utilitarian purposes still needed and valuable before we get to “art”.

The problem with the “graphic” or “interactive” designer come to application design is that they are not used to the new modes of aesthetics that need to be worked on, so they are a fish out of water. But that does not mean there isn’t real value in contributing substantial effort towards evoking and controlling the emotional response of the humans who use our solutions.

“Emotional Design” by Don Norman is a good read in this regard. “Beautiful things work better” is a great phrase to remember.

– dave

2.  Josh 1:27pm, Thu 30th, 2006

To use an overly-blunt example. A designer should choose colors that are right for the design, not the ones they like best.

One might make the designer more happy, but the other would serve the user’s needs better. Getting over issues like this is critical for designers, and is always a tension. Aligning the two is where the magic happens.

So your point is right on, Dave. There’s wiggle room, but the tension exists.

However, I’m still not convinced that beautiful things work better. There are many, many beautiful things that are hard to use. Norman’s coffeepot, for example… :)

3.  Ian Stalvies 8:05pm, Thu 30th, 2006

Hopefully as web professionals in 2006 we’re past the extremes (usability-istas in one corner, graphic designers in the other) of the argument. As a rule of thumb, having a “pretty” design DOES add value in itself, provided it doesn’t compromise functionality … if not, we’d probably just populate wireframes with content and whack ‘em up online!

I think this is where the likes of Zeldman, Dan Cederholm etc come into their own – principles leading to sites that are pretty AND easy to get around, as opposed to say, useit.com (no offence to Mr Neilsen, but I’m sure he’d agree design isn’t really his main consideration ;o).

How bout some examples of where functionality and design come together?

4.  Josh 8:33pm, Thu 30th, 2006

Ian, you’re definitely right, we shouldn’t have to sacrifice good looking design for usability.

However, I think Zeldman’s point, which I’ve seen too, is that it isn’t always an easy thing to do, especially if you come from one of the extremes.

5.  Szymon BÅ‚aszczyk 9:28pm, Thu 30th, 2006

Wars of the Past.
With appropriate knowledge we can see usability as:
1. one of the elements of User Experience (http://jjg.net/elements/)
2. a level in Emotional Design (http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/emotional_desig.html)

6.  asd 3:37pm, Tue 12th, 2006

http://laamer.com/index.php?id=44