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💡 I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. But I’d like to clarify a few things.
— JOE FERRARA
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To review an already built product:
- Try using the product, do the things users will do with it.
- Note the place where users are likely to get stuck or things that will confuse them.
- Sometimes watch other people trying to use the product.
- Help the team decide which ones are most important to fix and how best to fix them.
- Having a presentation is much better than preparing a “big honking report” detailing the findings, as it allows QnA and team can voice their concerns.
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💡 Almost always. Even when people know about usability problem, they can’t always fix them completely.
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- Knowing some usability principles will help you see the problems yourself — and help keep you from creating them in the first place.
- Much of what you do as a Usability Consultant is just a common sense. Also called Advanced Common Sense. though, it’s not necessarily obvious untill after someone’s pointed it out to you.
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💡 Usability principle: If something requires a large investment of time — or looks like it will — it’s less likely to be used.
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- You don’t need to know everything. As with any field, there’s a lot you could learn about usability. But unless you’re a usability professional, there’s a limit to how much is useful for you to learn.
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💡 I’ve always liked the passage in A Study in Scarlet where Dr. Watson is shocked to learn that Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know that the earth travels around the sun. Given the finite capacity of the human brain, Holmes explains, he can’t afford to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones:
“What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
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Usability Attributes:
- Useful: Does it do something people need done?
- Learnable: Can people figure out how to use it?
- Memorable: Do they have to relearn it each time they use it?
- Effective: Does it get the job done?
- Efficient: Does it do it with a reasonable amount of time and effort?
- Desirable: Do people want it?