Why usability is a path to failure
by Todd WilkensWhen talking of a great writer, how often do people talk about how amazingly legible they are? When talking about a great photographer, does anyone ever talk about the fact that his prints actually developed and thus are visible? Obviously, the answer is no. Legibility and visibility are the bare minimum of requirements for a successful piece of writing or a photograph. Any person who focused most of their efforts on legibility or visibility would probably have almost no chance of being a successful artist. Something that is fundamental to great creative acts is aiming high. If your goals and strategies are not oriented toward excellence then it is highly unlikely that your tactics will get you there. No one tells their kids to aim for a C- and then expects them to get an A.
So, why oh why do people in this day age still hold up “usability” as something laudable in product and service design? Praising usability is like giving me a gold star for remembering that I have to put each leg in a *different* place in my pants to put them on. (Admittedly, I *do* give my 2 year old daughter a gold star for this but then she’s 2.) Usability is not a strategy for design success. The efficiency you create in your interface will be copied almost instantaneously by your competitors. Recently, I’m even coming to believe that focusing on usability is actually a path to failure. Usability is too low level, too focused on minutia. It can’t compel people to be interested in interacting with your product or service. It can’t make you compelling or really differentiate you from other organizations. Or put another way, there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website.
[NOTE: This was a short post on a big topic. The comments are where the really interesting things come out. Please read them.]
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July 17th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Why your analogy is a failure
The attribute of visibility in a photography, and the attribute of legibility in writing, are single measures of quality in relatively simple products (photographs and documents, in this case). Usability is the sum of at least 5 attributes in relatively complex products (websites, typically). Moreover, the mythical people you refer to should never suggest that usability, alone, is a viable strategy for success, but I doubt such people exist, or if they do, they won’t be practicing professional usability services for long.
Why: over-simplification and a straw man argument.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
i’ve been saying the same thing in a short ad/movie on my web site, its been there for several years now
transcript below
Usability:
What’s all this talk of usability
Is that even a real word
I hear about everybody doing usability testing
Reading the latest books on usability
Isn’t that what good design is
If something is well designed isn’t it by definition easy to use
So you have an engineer design your web interface
And then nobody can figure out how to use it
I mean you wouldn’t hire a plumber to compose a soundtrack
Or hire a musician if you need some copy
Graphic designers have always layed out information to make it easy for people to use
Use a graphic designer
Get a web site thats easy to use
And you don’t have to make up any new words like usability
July 17th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
“why do people in this day age still hold up “usability” as something laudable…”
Hopefully, because it’s measurable. If you can show specifically that more customers made fewer errors after a feature was changed, you can demonstrate actual value. If you can prove that more browsers registered after you made the sign-up process less complicated, you’re adding value.
The value of experience remains a very tricky thing to measure and sell to certain stakeholders. Many usability gains are fairly easy to measure and sell.
July 17th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
This reminds me of something Jared Spool stated, and I paraphrase - but he made the point that we are still using tool and techniques that are 20+ years old for new technology and new ways of interactions. He said that was a good starting point but we need to move on. He ends with saying we need to find new innovative ways to build these interactions (something along those lines) and I agree.
I agree with Andrew on measurability too - their can be quick wins. But I also agree that often the bar is set too low. As long as the “usability guy” takes a look at it, and makes some suggestions that improve it x percent then it can be considered usable. That’s a far cry from what actually differentiates the top players in the game.
So in the end the question back at you is okay, you’ve thrown down the gauntlet, so how in fact do we go beyond simple usability and do better?
July 17th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Sounds like someone read one too many Jakob Nielsen column. … Seriously, this post speaks to the tension between designers and usability that sometimes goes awry, the very same tension that can erupt into acrimony between artists and critics, writers and editors, reporters and copy editors, etc. I agree that usability sometimes overreaches. And it can stunt good design. However, I’ve seen far too many saves by usability in testing, ferreting out bad design, making sure the little things are taken care of and basically saving my bacon, to endorse such a blanket recommendation to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Most times, usability is “laudable”.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Todd, I agree that usability should be a bare minimum requirement of a design — to ensure that there aren’t any roadblocks (aka “show stoppers”) in the design that encourage users to abandon your site. However, as researcher, what do you recommend instead, or in addition to, usability as a measure of a design’s “success”?
July 17th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Very interesting angle. Kinda like how we shouldn’t be focusing on web standards so much as producing good content.
July 17th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
God, I hate when designers think they are artists, not facilitators.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
[...] is why I like the new title-grabbing article from Adaptive Path on Why usability is a path to failure. Not because he is bad-mouthing usability, but because he is saying that it’s not an end or [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I think Apple is a good example on how doing innovative design, together with great usability. Everyone likes how Mac OS X or iPhone is well designed and full of eye candy, yet easy to use. It’s not rocket science, so people can go, buy one, and use it right now. THAT is what makes their products more appealing, instead of other high-tech bleeding-edge ones. So I guess that aiming on innovation AND usability is the path to victory.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
[...] Normally, I have a healthy level of respect for the cats at Adaptive Path, but AP staffer Todd Wilkens chalked up a rather misguided post today on “Why usability is a path to failure”. [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I’m not sure your trackbacks are working, so I thought I’d post the link to my response, “Why narrow-mindedness is a path to failure”, here.
July 17th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
true - usability is measurable, when ixd is not. But usability has limited potential for improve the experience your product can bring to your customer.
Think the relation between designer and usability is like between writer and gramma. Not gramatic sentence is hard to read (take me :)), and full of not gramatic sentences book would not be probably bestseller, even if the story is great. But still the story, not gramma, is main value, and the story is the reason why people buy.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:39 am
[...] Tod Wilkens z Adaptive Path uważa, że może. Dał temu wyraz wczoraj, we wpisie „Why usability is a path to failure”. [...]
July 18th, 2007 at 1:40 am
You have a point about usability being low level, but when it comes to the interfaces and web apps we have out there, many of them are at that 2-year-old level where they need a gold star to motivate them.
Yes we should concentrate on compelling people to be interested in your service, but if people are then so frustrated they can’t use it, they will go to your competitor (and just as interface efficiency will be copied, so will your great idea or new functionality).
Usability is like cleaning - you only notice it when it’s been done badly. It would be great to be able to take it as given that the low-level stuff would be done and to concentrate on the high-level alone, but it’s just not the case at the moment that the base-level usability work is getting done.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Point well taken. Usability doesn’t often lead to compelling services.
However, you can’t compare books and screens so directly…the usability of one has been improved on for hundreds of years and we’re barely started with the other. Even a poorly published book is legible. But a poorly designed web site is useless.
At any given point, we must celebrate where we are in relation to history…at this point in time when a web app or site is usable, it’s better than 80% of what is out there. That’s something…
July 18th, 2007 at 3:23 am
I think, especially here in the Netherlands, that we’re only just moving out of the “how do we make that work?” era and are starting to see businesses mature in that they know ‘almost’ without thinking that each trouser leg only fits the one leg.
Web standards suffer from a similar situation in that they are also not a goal in of themselves, they serve to create durable and accessible cross browser web sites. Web standards don’t care if the product has any value or not. Stakeholders are starting to take quality construction for granted and thus the ones focus needs to be the overall product value. As Andrew states this is not easy to measure but excellence always has its price.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:50 am
You have absolutely no idea how wrong things could go if usability wasn’t introduced
Joke aside (which is half a truth to be honest), web sites have to be seen more like software development. The range of features can be tremendously variable and therefore the solutions more error-prone. Also, a photographer has a well known and tried-and-true camera (tool) which he uses to take pictures with (content). He’s also a single person. A web site utilises a range of tools and is developed by a great number of sometimes widely unconnected people, creating the skeleton on where the content is to be put. Now content and concept is a whole other area, and here is a lot to be learned (see for instance http://www.gapingvoid.com), and putting usability up on a pedestal is somewhat silly, but the two things have to go hand in hand in order to get the message through successfully. What if you took a great photo, but then ripped it apart and glued the pieces together blindfolded?
July 18th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Isn’t usability the ante that gets you into the game? Other things, especially creativity and innovation, might win the game and keep you ahead of the competition but you got to be in it to win it.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Interesting and provoking… just to comment on this: “It can’t compel people to be interested in interacting with your product or service. It can’t make you compelling or really differentiate you from other organizations.”
I disagree. Google leapfrogged Yahoo through usability. Apple leapfrogged Microsoft through usability. Amazon leapfrogged Barnes and Noble through usabillity.
And to say “there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website” is smallminded indeed. Have you ever worked at Amazon or Nordstrom or Walmart? That’s like saying cars can only go so fast or chips can only get so small…
July 18th, 2007 at 6:22 am
Todd, I think you have a very narrow notion of what “usability” is.
When talking of a poorly-written book, how often do people talk about how unapproachable or frustrating it is?
Usability, like all design when done well, becomes invisible. People don’t talk about the positive case. (Well, except for designers who constantly need to bring attention to their work.)
Nor is product quality, reliability, performance, or integrity, yet you need all these to succeed. How does that work?
Usability is foundational, such as having good content and providing reliable uptime. It’s only *not* a differentiator when everyone has equal amounts of it. If yours is better than everyone else’s, it become a differentiator.
Usability can be measured on a scale of extremely frustrating to extremely delightful. Since different designs competing for the same audience can occupy different locations on the scale, you can differentiate one design from another using it. That’s the broader definition of usability that most of us tend to use.
It takes no effort to do something poorly. I suggest you talk about things done well and ask how they achieved that. I bet, if you looked closely at the things you think are “design successes”, you’ll find that their usability was a key component to their success.
Tell that to our client who got a $300,000,000 increase in annual revenues because they “streamlined the shopping cart” on their site. Or is a 40% increase in revenues not part of “design success”
July 18th, 2007 at 6:51 am
I would be careful about making broad analogies and comparisons. A book and a photograph are quite different from a website. I would almost say that comparison borderlines a logical fallacy.
I don’t use a book or a photograph like I use a website. I read a book and I look at a photograph. Reading and looking are only part of how I interact with a website.
Now in this sense, history is on the side of the aforementioned media, and websites still have catching up to do. By that I mean every book you buy in Barnes and Noble is going to be readable, and every picture you get developed by a professional is going to be viewable. Not every website you go to is going to be easy to use.
No one questions if they’re going to be able to read the words on the page of a book when they bring it home, and no one worries about not being able to see the pictures once they get them back developed. However, this trust is still not established with the user and the website. I’m sure many people go to a website and think, “I sure hope I can find this…” (or something similar).
Bottom line, a website is interactive and complex. A book and a photograph are not. If you don’t pay attention to usability you will suffer. However, like Jared said: Usability, like all design when done well, becomes invisible. People don’t talk about the positive case. Don’t expect people to praise your usability, do it right and no one will be talking about it, just using it.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:17 am
A product needs to have *value* in the first place to succeed.
However, usability, if we define it as “User Research” (as one part of the larger UX process) paired with many, many other success elements can help inform the product direction and determine where the focus/value may be and how it may move from early adopters/geek land to mainstream e.g. Twitter.
Suggest that as technology becomes more mainstream, usability is being seen as more of a differentiator. Consumers may not know it as usability, but they certainly understand it as being something like: simple, user friendly, easy to use, dont have read the manual etc.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:18 am
I guess it depends what you mean by ‘usability’ when you say it is a path to failure.
I completely agree that usability poorly implemented can be incredibly damaging as I’ve seen it. I also think that saying ‘usability is a path to failure’ or ‘information architecture is dead’ are also damaging.
If it’s done poorly sometimes, does that mean the notion of evaluation and iteration do not have value? Usability is a attribute of a product but if we just throw the whole darn thing out the window then it won’t be part of the process at all.
And I agree that it’s true you can only get so far you can get by improving the shopping cart, but some places are still working on that. AP and Todd may not be interested in that work as you are trying to push out beyond that, but some of us are still living in a land where that kind of thing is a really big deal.
Our work in user experience is contextual. We have a tool box to use and methods of usability are in that tool box. Just because person ‘x’ chooses to use a hammer when they should have used a pliers doesn’t mean we don’t need hammers.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Bruce Sterling’s “Shaping Things” had some intersting ideas, but I was so completely turned off (or frustrated, or stymied, or aesthetically displeased) by the way it was presented to me that I left the overall book-reading experience feeling quite negative. I could separate the form and the content if I wanted to do, but I didn’t really want to.
Hmm - I just went and read what I wrote after finishing the book - http://www.portigal.com/blog/shaping-things/ - I said very little about the content and much more about the poor usability.
So, I dunno.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Great responses from everyone. For the most part, I agree with the points raised. But I think I should try to clarify myself a bit first.
My point in this post is much more about usability as a strategy or as the ultimate end goal of a company. It’s much more about my sense of idealism as regards good human-centered design. I’m not actually saying that usability is unimportant. As a number of folks said, usability is an important component of successful design. But it’s just one out of many. My point is that I am frustrated that with many companies (and I hear this talked about a lot at our conferences and trainings) usability is the extent of the effort toward user experience, human-centered design, or even “good design.” Focusing on only one of many important aspects seems like a recipe for mediocrity, if not, failure.
But I think there’s something a bit insidious about “usability” as a term as well. I hesitate to get into semantics here but I think that they are actually important to the point I’m raising. To Jared in particular, I think that you have an overly broad notion of what “usability” is especially when it comes to the world outside of the usability profession. And Dan, I also think your move to define “usability” as “user research” has some serious problems as well. I know for a fact that what I mean when I say “user research” is considerably different than what most people think when they say “usability”.
What I mean is not that the field of “usability” doesn’t or can’t address things like desirability or delight but the definition of “usable” and the accompanying interpretation from everyday life doesn’t really include those things at all. I’m not saying we need to rename a field or anything. I just worry that as “usability professionals” we have dropped the ball in making a strong case to companies, managers, and executives about the importance of all the components of successful, human-centered design. That’s not to discount all the amazing work that Jared and others have done to raise awareness and demonstrate the value of usability. I just wonder if we have let them off too easy by allowing them to focus on only one aspect? We don’t use the word usability very much around AP anymore even though research and evaluative testing is core to what we practice and preach. It was having the tendency to get in the way of doing the good work overall.
To reiterate, I don’t have anything against usability or usability professionals. I’m just frustrated by the number of organizations and practitioners who don’t understand the importance of the other things that make great product and service experiences. The question in my post was rhetorical. And even though many of you have attempted to answer it anyway, I don’t know that many of you have actually addressed the underlying point. How can we motivate and direct organizations to deliver hight quality product experiences that are usable but also useful, delightful, compelling, and engaging? Measurable results as Andrew and Jared point out are good for validating and demonstrating. But I’m talking about motivating. I’m talking about giving organizations a set of ideals that they can get excited and passionate about. “Let’s go out there and make some usable stuff!” Doesn’t seem like a particularly motivational slogan.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Todd, maybe you could help things along by sharing your data behind
as you put it.
It sounds to me what you think “most people think” is different than what I think.
Jared
July 18th, 2007 at 11:31 am
When I read this post yesterday I had trouble determining whether you were trying to be contrary just to gain attention or if you believed what you’re saying. Reading through the comments I can see that you’re sincere, but went over the top in order to try and prove a point.
I think that a case can be made for a much smaller point — that ignoring functionality in favor of usability — but it feels pretty sensationalistic to title the post ‘why usability is a path to failure’ when what you mean is ‘focusing on usability to the exclusion of functionality is a path to failure.’
I had many other problems with the analogies and opinions in this post, but rather than clutter the comments I wrote them up and posted them on my site. Thanks.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
[...] 18th, 2007 Todd Wilkens has an interesting post over at the Adaptive Path blog entitled Why usability is the path to failure. The ensuing discussion in the comments is just as [...]
July 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I agree with you, Todd. Thanks for the post.
It kinda reminds me of Michael Porter’s take on corporate strategy. He essentially says that operational effeciency is important, but not strategic. It’s operational. It’s something everyone strives for, even your competitors. So there is no differentiator there, and others can easily copy you. Same for usability.
July 18th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
People hold up usability as something laudable because most designs fail miserably at being usable. Take MS Word as an example, it’s been perfectly functional for years, but the usability has been lacking. The most exciting new feature in Office 2007 is usability. The new ribbon UI isn’t my idea of perfection, but it’s opened the functionality in a way that many people think that great new features have been added.
You say that usability doesn’t differentiate a product from competitors and that it will be instantly copied. The iPod was introduced 6 years ago, the big difference between the iPod and its competitors was its usability. 6 years, that should be enough time for Sony, Microsoft and many other huge companies to copy the successful attributes of the iPod, right? The iPod usability still hasn’t been copied. The usability of the iPod enabled Apple to completely dominate the music player market. Now Apple has introduced the iPhone, it’s raw functionality isn’t anything new. It’s usability is its main feature and it’s a huge sales success.
Usability is clearly a key element in product success, so I’m confused by your assertion. What product attributes do you think are being ignored because people are thinking about usability?
July 18th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Hey Todd
I applaud your idealism and feel your frustration… however
Over here in the UK, I’m personally pretty happy that the tide is turning in favour of “usability”.
Baby steps, remember. Only 5 years ago most execs hadn’t heard and weren’t bothered by this whole user experience thing.
Now I have my CEO talking to *me* about personas, not the other way around…
and I work in a relatively backward industry.
So, to me, that’s progress!
Now one mountain has been mostly scaled, we can see the next one more clearly…
Regards
DJ
July 18th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Of course usability alone isn’t going to be a recipe for success. That’s no reason to resort to a sensationalist headline like “Usability is a Path to Failure.”
Peter Morville’s user experience honeycomb is a very good way of illustrating the complete user experience offering - in it, usability is a facet of good user experience, but of course it’s not the whole story.
Leave usability out of the picture, however, and you are on a path to failure.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Me too. Proving that out is as simple as pointing to all the financially successful companies that create products and services with poor usability; there’s no shortage of them.
But usability can be the competitive advantage, and even a strategy. OXO comes to mind. Google’s home page is another example. Critics say that these approaches are easily copied and so are not a competitive advantage. But they’re not easily copied; other large companies don’t have the organizational discipline to have the most popular page on the web and keep it so simple and alter it so seldom over time. It takes a certain culture to do that, and cultures require a lot of investment and time to nurture. We could say that cultures of usability are a competitive advantage.
July 18th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Focusing on usability will help you get the design right, but it won’t help you get the right design. No matter how usable a product or site is, if it does not fulfill human needs or desires, it is useless.
(vocab courtesy of Bill Buxton)
July 19th, 2007 at 12:34 am
[...] the role of usability as the most important issue when designing online, Todd Wilkens of Adaptive Path saidbest: Praising usability is like giving me a gold star for remembering that I have to put each [...]
July 19th, 2007 at 2:44 am
“And Dan, I also think your move to define “usability” as “user research” has some serious problems as well.” - one definition of Todd; I see usability as done up front, understanding users to better define direction, part of an umbrella product development process. Some see it as “usability testing” only.
Definitions aside … how do you get companies thinking about making great product and service experiences? How do we get companies to better understand what we mean to help them? i.e. selling UX. What companies are more open to this way of thinking in the first place?
Expect there are many companies practicing no usability that are getting it right as well. What are they doing to make it work?
“We could say that cultures of usability are a competitive advantage.” - Yes!!
July 19th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
There was a bit of a mix-up with comment moderation and a lot of comments didn’t make it out until this morning. Sorry about that. We weren’t trying to silence anyone. Now, a few more responses to the responses:
As I hope was obvious, I made this post to air a concern I’ve had recently about the effectiveness of the field of usability generally. I know it was a bit overstated and inflammatory, especially the title. Yes it was a bit of a straw man. That was the intent. I don’t think the kind of conversation we’re having would have happened from a post entitled “i wonder if we could improve the way we practice usability?”. Title aside, I stand by the content of the post.
I’d like to address an example of usability success that has come up a number of times in this thread and in some emails to me personally, namely the ipod. To say that the success of the ipod/iTunes is solely or primarily due to “usability” is ridiculous. I would bet money that the important ideas and design work that led to both of them had little to do with anyone who would call themselves a “usability professional”. That is not to say that some usability professionals could not have done it but that focusing solely on usability would never have created those designs. They focused on overall experience which included usability but also delight, desire, service design; not to mention business models, marketing, etc. Most of those things are not represented in standard usability concepts and techniques. (Note: I still have no “data” to back that last point up.)
FWIW, Jim Kalbach got exactly to the point I was trying to make.
Porter’s work was a major influence on some of my thinking around this.
Victor’s point about “cultures of usability” is also much more what I’m talking about except I would argue that “cultures of good experience” would probably eat usability’s lunch in the long run. As I said before, why not strive for excellence?
July 19th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Not to go off on a tangent, but please, please, please, don’t use “cultures of usability are a competitive advantage.” As an ethnographer working in software development, it’s the LAST thing I’d use to describe an environment that nurtures usability. Usability is just one element of what makes that company successful, and using “culture of usability,” quite frankly, undermines their commitment to delivering meaningful products on all levels.
And, we must all be mindful of how we use the word “culture.” I hear people using it a lot and am constantly reminded of The Princess Bride when Vizzini says, “Inconceivable!” and Inigo says, “I do not think that means what you think it means.”
By the way, the definition of culture from American Heritage Dictionary:
cul·ture (kŭl’chər)
n.
1.
1. The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
2. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty.
3. These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture.
4. The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization.
5. Development of the intellect through training or education.
6. Enlightenment resulting from such training or education.
7. The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
8. Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.
2. Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it.
3.
1. Development of the intellect through training or education.
2. Enlightenment resulting from such training or education.
3. The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
4. Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.
4. A high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic and intellectual training.
5. Special training and development: voice culture for singers and actors.
6. The cultivation of soil; tillage.
7. The breeding of animals or growing of plants, especially to produce improved stock.
8. Biology
1. The growing of microorganisms, tissue cells, or other living matter in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
2. Such a growth or colony, as of bacteria.
tr.v. cul·tured, cul·tur·ing, cul·tures
1. To cultivate.
2.
1. To grow (microorganisms or other living matter) in a specially prepared nutrient medium.
2. To use (a substance) as a medium for culture: culture milk.
[Middle English, cultivation, from Old French, from Latin cultūra, from cultus, past participle of colere; see cultivate.]“
July 20th, 2007 at 11:32 am
[...] of “usability” both as a profession and a concept. Please take the time to look at the comments for much of the discussion. However, since I know not everyone will, here are a few [...]
July 21st, 2007 at 11:12 pm
[...] was speaking about Todd Wilkens’ recent post on why usability is a path to failure, which many usability professionals took issue with, and which not everyone within AP agreed with [...]
July 26th, 2007 at 4:38 am
Writing and composing photos are different contributions than are typography, printing, and developing prints. Other people have taken care of these technical issues so that writers/photographers don’t have to. (However, photographers used to spend a lot of effort learning how to make a good print, and some still do.)
In all cases, writers and photographers are dependant on decades or centuries of development in the crafts and technologies of the medium in which they work. As someone who studied typography, printmaking and photography at university, I can tell you that the people were quite excited by the issues of legibility/visibility as these crafts emerged. Usability is still such an emerging craft.
I think that the point being made in the original post is largely dismissible. I’ve certainly never heard anyone argue that usability is the same thing or more important than a good content, service, product or functional proposition.
July 31st, 2007 at 5:00 pm
[...] comments people have left regarding this post show that many of them took offence to what they thought Todd [...]
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:28 am
I wish I saw this when it was first published. I agree completely, but perhaps you simply need to understand that usability as a design objective is critically important to mediocre designers and mediocre organizations — by which I mean, of course, most designers and most organizations. A truly great interactive experience designer, like a great writer or a great artist, generally gets the technical stuff down pat just as you describe.
I’d venture to guess that Jared’s 40% increase in revenue from improving a shopping cart was the result of taking a shopping cart that was truly atrocious to begin with. I don’t mean to disparage Jared’s effectiveness, skill, and insight, but an increase of that much suggests to me that there was an awful, awful lot of things that needed fixing in that cart. What worries me is that success stories like that lead some companies/sites with perfectly fine usability to expect similar radical results from their UX design teams.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
[...] usability is a path to failure. Why usability is a path to failure is a topic I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Unfortunately, this article is more linkbait than [...]
August 6th, 2007 at 10:39 am
At Messagefirst, usability is part of user research. We do highlight it separately as a service offering, but only because clients Google for that term. When we’re discussing services with clients, we use the term research and make reference to usability as only one kind of research.
As much as I admire you vocalizing your frustration, I think the perspective is a bit off. But then again, I think most of the usability industry’s perspective is a bit off as well (as I think you’ll agree). Defining usability very narrowly is wrong. Defining usability as aiming for the lowest common denominator is wrong. Seeing usability as being ugly and poorly designed with no thought to visual aesthetics is wrong. These are all incorrect perspectives. Now, I’m not saying this is how you specifically are defining usability, but it does appear that some your view of usability is rather narrow.
If we consider usability as being research, broader perspective rather than the traditional and dated perspective of testing in a white “clean” room, then we can come to see that it is very much a part of a successful design strategy. Usability as a method of research should be a way to gather information on what works, what doesn’t work, where the failure points are, and WHY. The why is the most important part. Finding out why leads you to conceptual designs for how to fix it. And that is strategic.
August 7th, 2007 at 12:39 am
**When talking of a great writer, how often do people talk about how amazingly legible they are?**
Yes! Many books are awful to read, and not worth trying.
**Legibility and visibility are the bare minimum of requirements for a successful piece of writing or a photograph.**
That’s why it is important to have those minimum requirements.
**Praising usability is like giving me a gold star for remembering that I have to put each leg in a *different* place in my pants to put them on.**
Yes, but try not putting your trousers properly and see the reaction of people when you walk down the street.
I think this is what is called “hygienic requirements”. They wont make a crap project successful, but miss them and your “cool” project will be useless, therefore worthless.
August 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
[...] ausschließen. Mit der provokanten, allerdings nicht ganz so harsch gemeinten These: “Why usability is a path to failure” stieß Autor Todd Wilkens eine für Interaktionsblogs doch recht ansehnliche Kommentarwelle [...]
August 7th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I’ve started thinking of “usability” as being “ergonomics for interactive/information products”.
Any broader definition just confuses me (in particular equating “usability” with “product design”)
August 8th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Usability is such a loaded word. I see and hear people using it in such ways that it’s obviously risen to this buzz-word status. Some people seem to think that fixing the usability of a site or product boils down to tweaking a font or adjusting the vocabulary being used; they’ve come to associate usability with graphic design. Graphic design is VERY important, but is not what usability should refer to.
User-centered design is the philosophy and methods that should define the word usability. User-centered design at it’s simplest: competitive analysis, user needs analysis, task analysis, user testing (to both generate metrics baselines and inform new design), etc. All these activities are important process differentiators that, if done correctly, WILL help you develop a superior product than if you did not.
User-centered design is not a substitute for good visual or interactive design. It’s a containing concept that should be part of good visual or interactive design process. User-centered design is a set of methods for testing visual and interactive design through interaction with real users. It saves the user time and frustration, and saves the company maintenance and lost eyeball revenue after a product or website has been launched. Finally, it’s a process that allows you to continue evaluating your site moving forward vs. changing user needs and vs. changing competitor products.
As Apple knows, “it just works” helps the bottom line. It is a positive differentiator, because, as they’d be the first to tell you, not all of their ideas came out of one designer’s head.
Well executed metrics-based user-centered design is a differentiator. I agree that buzzword usability is not.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Bill Says: … And [usability] can stunt good design.
Joshua Porter Says: … Usability doesn’t often lead to compelling services.
I’m stunned at the contention that usability might stunt good design - flashy, ornate, over-complex design, perhaps, and certainly usability is not a necessary component of pure artistic expression. But then good design is not pure artistic expression.
And, no, compelling services are not a guaranteed direct result of usability. However usability is an essential component of “good design” and “compelling services”.
The sad fact is that there is a limited pool of first-rate designers, and a limited pool of clients prepared to pay for their services. The rest of us can only do the best we can with the talents we have and the clients we find, many of whom are barely interested in design at all, let alone “good design” and “compelling services”. It’s nice to dream of a Bauhaus world where every product, no matter how humble, is a perfect gem of design. Alas, it’s never going to happen. And the real world is full of products, and the web is full of sites, that fail to achieve design greatness, and that is unlikely to change. How much easier life would be if these products/sites could at least achieve some minimal standard of usability.
The important question is not so much “Why usability is a path to failure”, but “Why on earth is the absence of usability NOT a path to failure??”
August 11th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
[...] Un très bon billet pour rappeler l’importance de la créativité, se positionner par rapport à ses concurrents en misant sur l’innovation et la différence plutôt que sur des critères très/trop faciles à reproduire. [...]
August 16th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
“straw man” to promote a conversation? or poorly formed argument filled with logical and semantic holes, errors, non-parallelism, unjustified assumptions, and a total lack of corroborating evidence?
Given the weak position of the initial argument how can the conversation that follows it be of real benefit? It becomes necessary to address the problems of the argument before a truly positive dialog can commence. This post and the author’s intent then become irrelevant. (btw: I’m not going to buy the “forum for debate” excuse either). Badly reasoned poorly formed arguments are just that - no more or less.
The author calling this post a “straw man” is really just an example of back pedaling - truly self serving. Next time try to hold the content you post to a higher standard than “C-” - and don’t make excuses for it. There may be a good point or two to be ferreted out of this effort, but those points are pretty obvious to anyone who has some experience and maturity (ideologues excluded).
In short - I’m glad the author is not designing my websites or my software. Not because of what he believes or does not believe, but rather because this post is not demonstrative of any kind quality thought. To assume it is and post it in the first place leads me to questions the author’s ability to assess his own work accurately.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
[...] this episode, we discussed Adaptive Path’s Todd Wilkens recent blog posting, Usability is a path to failure. Not surprisingly, we had some interesting thoughts on Todd’s controversial [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:25 am
You are wrong. I hope the responses to the post help educate you on usability.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:51 pm
I think it would be more intelligent to compare the writing on a page to the writing in a book. You might even consider comparing the usability of a book to the usability of a website.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:43 am
There is a saying here, i think it was originally from an artist, i don’t remember the name: “Any artist who is not at first a craftsman is a nothing”. So usability is craftsmenship, while the great content is the artistic part. But without the unterlying craftsmanship the whole artistic part is nothing. Of course good craftsmanship without any artistic differentiators is just nice, but nothing special. It’s just what you expect basically, nothing what differentiates you from any competitor (except wannabes).
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:58 am
Imho, the problem is not primarily usabilty, it’s about which kind of learning curve we consider to be acceptable.
In the case of the iPhone (which I’ve actually haven’t used yet as I live in Germany): The basic principles to use the iPhone are pretty clear to first time users; however, you’ve got to learn the appropriate taps first in order to really use the device efficiently. Most users think that the results are worth the initial effort, so they try to learn.
On the other hand, the core functionality of a mainstream online store (product selection, shopping cart, checkout) should not require a steep learning curve; it has conform to established conventions and usability standards. You don’t want to lose sales, right?
If your store offers an exceptional product experience that people are willing to spend time with your interface, an alternate approach or violations of common usability conventions might be more suitable. But, let’s face it, that applies probably to only one in 100 stores.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:50 am
[...] Why usability is a path to failure [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
[...] must try to aim a lot higher than simply being “not unpleasant”. It’s like what Todd Wilkens wrote at the Adaptive Path blog: that merely aiming to “be usable” is a low target indeed, [...]
October 7th, 2007 at 6:04 am
[...] Aldus Todd Wilkens van Adaptive Path in het artikel: Why usability is a path to failure. [...]
October 31st, 2007 at 11:33 pm
[...] I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to make it feel like a place of comfort and respite. Usability isn’t enough…experience is the goal. The design has shifted my expectations and changed my behaviors to [...]
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
[...] usefulness is limited. Maybe Adaptive Path’s Todd Wilkens is right on with his post: “Why usability is a path to failure“? All in all, I think eyetracking and other “hardcore” usability methodologies [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:11 am
[...] Why usability is a path to failure (Read the comments) [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:09 am
[...] path » blog » Todd Wilkens » Why usability is a path to failure 3 12 2007 adaptive path » blog » Todd Wilkens » Why usability is a path to failure: Recently, I’m even coming to believe that focusing on usability is actually a path to failure. [...]
December 6th, 2007 at 9:25 am
[...] Shane points to an anti-usability blog entry from Todd Wilkens on Adaptive Path. Shane says, “He [Todd] likens the quest for better [...]
December 19th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
It’s because it’s very difficult to make thing usable. Most designers (especially developers forced into design) have trouble with it. Most “makers” are inherently more advanced than their users, so something that may be completely usable to them may not be usable to others. This is a non-topic.
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Talk about missing the point! (Or are you just kidding?) Attention to usability does not lead to great design: anyone who has visited Jakob Neilsen’s website knows that. However, beautiful design coupled with poor usability is of little value either. What good is a beautiful website that is difficult for its intended audience to use? The argument is akin to saying that making sure the lugnuts on the wheels are tight leads to ugly cars.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
What a blatant original post aimed to cause outrage. For sham(e).
Shocking that so many agreed like sheep. Praise indeed to Jared for cutting to the core…maybe I’ll get into brainsparks again…anyway…IMHO it’s all about the range of tools in your tool box…anything in isolation can be deadly but beautiful in combination (H2O?)
January 24th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
[...] Why usability is a path to failure by Todd Wilkens …So, why oh why do people in this day age still hold up “usability” as something laudable in product and service design? Praising usability is like giving me a gold star for remembering that I have to put each leg in a *different* place in my pants to put them on. (Admittedly, I *do* give my 2 year old daughter a gold star for this but then she’s 2.) Usability is not a strategy for design success. The efficiency you create in your interface will be copied almost instantaneously by your competitors. Recently, I’m even coming to believe that focusing on usability is actually a path to failure. Usability is too low level, too focused on minutia. It can’t compel people to be interested in interacting with your product or service. It can’t make you compelling or really differentiate you from other organizations. Or put another way, there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website… [read…] [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I appreciate your comments about usability. I think it’s important for people in the field hear and understand others’ points of view. It’s stimulating. However, I think this opinion of usability is off the mark and I’ll respond to a few of your questions and opinions.
You asked this question, “So, why oh why do people in this day age still hold up “usability” as something laudable in product and service design?” I have never experienced being in the limelight simply for being in this field. It’s amazingly hard work to consult with closed-minded people or to travel constantly to cover field studies to gather data while listening to first-hand complaints from users that the performance of the system is frustrating. It’s exhausting to work with developers who are on fire to put you in your place because you try to help them do their jobs. It takes years to prove your worth in this field as it did for my usability team. So, if you hear someone being lauded in this field, they most likely earned it. Recently I heard one of our project managers say, “If I don’t have usability on a project I’m putting it in as a project risk right away”, I sincerely hope any others in our department within earshot did not assume we have a cushy and well liked job.
You opined, “Usability is not a strategy for design success. The efficiency you create in your interface will be copied almost instantaneously by your competitors.” If a competitor copies what we’ve done, that would be their first mistake. You see, different products have different users with different needs (the challenge is determining those needs carefully). Most of the users in our company work remotely at client sites (could be a client warehouse, basement or storage closet). Their needs would be different than those sitting at the same desk each day. How do you optimize a design for specific users? What if our users don’t use a mouse because they may not have the desk space in a closet? Do you design for heavy keyboard usage, great! But what if our users are mature and do not have much experience with hot keys? How do we design the UI to accommodate this? The solution must come from using usability methods. User research from field studies, conceptual inquiry (usability methods) and task analysis get us the patterns (I think you may have been referring to patterns as minutia)? Anyway, here is a link to read about the value of patterns. http://humanfactors.com/downloads/whitepapers.asp#UIpatterns
Another thought of yours, “It can’t compel people to be interested in interacting with your product or service. It can’t make you compelling or really differentiate you from other organizations.” I agree with this thought if I understand this correctly. I recently experienced a vendor trying to sell their solution to integrate into our own. They continued to state they focused on usability… blah, blah, blah. But the proof was in the numbers. We had our stakeholders, representative users and our usability team fill out a scorecard to rate how well they achieved each task scenario (another usability method). It was proven that their tool in fact had additional steps and a hierarchical navigation that was difficult to remember. So, our usability team did not just choose a product because we get “gold stars” .
Your closing comment, “Or put another way, there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website.” How do you know that? I realize this is another opinion, but it sounds like you have a reason for this statement. But please read this HFI white paper about Staples.com. http://humanfactors.com/downloads/whitepapers.asp#keepingusers
Last is that I am a photographer too. I learned all of the “ancient” techniques when studying for my BFA. For instance, controlled temperatures and timing must be “dead on” for color prints. When loading your own film by hand in complete darkness it can be tricky. Don’t overdevelop your film as it will result in prints with a flat tone – not visually appealing. Artists using the photograph as a medium talk a lot about how well an image has been processed and developed. Artists are very good at recognizing the poorly executed techniques and will be the first to keep other artists in line (we hate laziness and sloppy work).
Again, thank you for the opinions!
Dawn Barber
March 26th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
[...] not sure if Todd Wilken’s blog post on Why usability is a path to failure at the adaptive path blog was just venting, or maybe even going for the “99% Something [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
[...] http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/07/17/why-usability-is-a-path-to-failure/ [...]