usability

Usability vs UI vs UX

Usability vs UX – Deciphering The Terms

November 20, 2015 Design

The web abounds with discussions on Usability or UX (user experience) design mostly revolving around the concepts of ‘delight’. Let us look at the definition of ‘user experience’ which I found on Google:

The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

The simplest interpretation of the word pleasing would be creating delight while using the system (or any other product). Some would define UX as the emotional aspect of a product while Usability tends to deal with the physical facets of software — the Look versus Feel scenario. Here’s how usability is defined on Wikipedia:

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with.

The ease of use and learnability aspects are striking in the context of UX because both are emotional connotations for delight. So what exactly separates UX from usability? While much has been written about UX the more you indulge in its multifarious definitions, the more confusing the interpretation becomes in the context of general design. Thus I have come to conclude that applying the principles of usability in product development consistently derives long-term benefits in user-experience design.

Usability Engineering in context with software design is defined as Human-Computer Interaction or HCI although its principles have been employed in several key areas such as the aviation industry much before the first computer screens flickered on the horizon. Usability is broadly a set of principles specifically laid out through continuous user research that aims to bring the human viewpoints of psychology and physiology into consideration while designing a user-friendly product. The principles of Usability as defined by ISO cover learnability, efficiency, memorability, error handling and satisfaction for software development. Satisfaction — isn’t satisfaction a subset of delight or user experience? So if a design process exploits these usability principles and creates a user-friendly environment for usage, the outcome should naturally provide for a good user-experience for its customers.

I believe that usability has an overarching effect on products — be it on an enterprise-level application or a mobility app, or even a ubiquitous product such a chair, the principles of usability are relevant and are bound to affect humans emotionally as they interact with the object frequently. So while summarizing how usability can provide delight or how UX is intrinsically linked with classical usability, let’s take the example of a coffee-maker in context with the usability principles we discussed earlier:

Learnability: The product that is designed must be easily comprehensible (affordance) so as to reduce the learning curve and meet the set expectations or user goals. For instance, a coffee-machine which can make a cup of coffee for the consumer quickly and with fewer button clicks, and without having to read the manual (actually why would anyone need a user manual for using a good product?).

Efficiency: If the product is learned easily and quickly on repeated use it naturally affects the efficiency of its users in a good way. Making that first cup of coffee on a new machine took some time then let’s say, preparing the tenth cup.

Memorability: Once a user has been educated it raises his/her awareness about using the product features and increases the level of memorability (designing for recognition over recall). This makes the user confident, bestowing a higher amount of self-esteem from each product interaction which eventually raises the product brand value as well. So now you are so confident in making coffee on the new coffee-maker that you no longer required to focus your mind and energy on the buttons or the flashy lights. It just works magically! (or so your brain starts to believe!)

Error Handling: Once a product has reached a high state of awareness within its user base and the brand worth has been attained, the effective rate of error recovery would normally be reduced. Or discovering newer ways for product upgrade through user testing and feedback, and design iteration during product development lifecycle. If the coffee-maker beeped previously to signify an error consistently, what can be done to reduce that occurrence by bringing a change in product ergonomics?

Satisfaction: having met the expectations of the user, and an increased brand worthiness through design rationale, the overall experience is thus deemed pleasurable for the user. In other words, the goal for good user-experience design has been achieved so far.

While we know that usability for software is quantifiable through an expert review or usability lab testing. At this point, I have mostly found testing metrics for user-experience design referring back to the usability engineering testing tools and methodology which is rather disheartening. So while we continue to build products focussed on UX I would also be keen on applying my knowledge and skills substantially to usability engineering studies and research papers. After all, a product which addresses the mental model of the audience succeeds in providing a delightful experience as well.

Further Reading: The Resource Centre contains a collection of thought-leadership articles on Usability and UX from the Internet.

Understanding Designers

November 11, 2015 Design Technology

I received yet another email today from a recruitment agency for a ‘UI Developer’ position, and lately I have begun to doubt the industry’s understanding of the difference between ‘designers’ and ‘developers’. It’s also discouraging when recruiters email you saying “Hey, I have this great position for you…”, only to be left disappointed when you go through the job description which clearly mentions programming skills as a prerequisite! Especially when my résumé or online job profile does not even mention the word ‘developer’ anyplace, I can’t figure out how those emails land in my inbox. Obviously there are some recruiters acting under professional compulsions and fulfilling a different criteria. But merely having an understanding or liking for a programming language doesn’t turn me into a developer. So I take this opportunity to explain about the Designers as I know them in some detail here. 

Designers imagine to create things, and developers engineer to make them work.

Designers apply visual talents in their methods to bring an idea to life while developers apply their mathematical acumen to make that idea work. Even if these roles appear to be similar for some individuals, it should now be clear from that simple description how their responsibilities and perspectives are poles apart. For instance, designers thrive on user insights, picking or rejecting ideas intuitively depending on what would and wouldn’t work for the product. Empathy comes naturally to them because without knowing who to design for they can’t begin to imagine and create visuals. Or even if they do create something just out of their imagination it may not work well with the intended audience in the market. This is quite different from the painters or fine artists who use their vivid imaginations, colours and forms on the canvas to express their inner feelings and thoughts. On the other hand when you empathize with your users you stand in their shoes to feel their physical and emotional needs and pains. Designers have an inbred mechanism which helps them translate those inert perceptions into tangible creations making use of design-thinking tools such as prototyping, iteration and design. When you remove these cherished elements from a designer’s inventory you risk losing the overall individuality of the product itself.

Why is a designer so important? Designers represent the uniqueness of the brand. They breathe, drink, sleep; basically exist emotionally with the brand while integrating it into their personality, and hence are able to imagine countless possibilities for the product. Having empathized with their product’s core value they are able to distill rationale through the quagmire of scrutiny. Good designers are an invaluable asset to the organization because they can transform a product’s narrative with their creativity and design leadership. So when designers are reduced to being just an ‘apparatus’ to fulfill short-term goals, it hurts the business objectives and sabotages the future growth of the brand conclusively. In fact, the best organizations in the world value the contribution that designers bring on the table. They are nurtured not just as employees but as the ultimate custodians of the brand’s ethos and sanctity.

Designers do not automatically become developers if they develop an understanding of how things work. In fact that signifies they are smart enough to cross over (empathy) and comprehend the challenges of the developers which is an advantage for organizations who are dealing with complex big-data and large IT transformational projects. It’s important to bear in mind that customers are no longer satisfied with systems that simply work, rather they are habituated to a continuous rush of apps offering delightful experiences. A user’s expectations to reach a certain level of gratification has already reached manic proportions which can only be delivered through a good design strategy. In a fiercely competitive industry riding on the theme of customer experience, designers are the only individuals who can technically connect the dots, unify the aspirations of product teams into a single sequence, and filter the undesirable perceptions to form a substantial product strategy. To expect them to do anything else but design is quite honestly, suicidal.

Designocracy – A Design Initiative

August 3, 2012 Design

The designer community depends on Internet resources for learning & research. Indeed many of us rely upon Google to lead us to that particular source of design elixir. Not very long ago a bunch of my passionate graphic designer friends ran an online community fondly called Surfunion. It’s a part of history now, but the experience of critiquing our artworks, sharing our thoughts and participating in debates still refreshes my mind to this day.

Let me come back to 2012. During the course of my daily work I scour the Internet stumbling upon one site to another, and in the process, finding dollops of useful design information. Such information could mean a lot to someone in need. Then Twitter afforded me the luxury of sharing those links quickly and reach out to the designer community without great effort. This concept persuaded me to invest in a personal program which I’m calling Designocracy. The intention is to collect & transmit design insights from around the Internet. You can follow Designocracy at twitter.com/Designocracy.

Designocracy will be a repository of interesting articles and insights on design ranging from graphics design to art/architecture and will feature all aspects of usability engineering. The scope will be limited to design only since it’s one area that I’m keenly passionate about. I hope you enjoy the tweets at @Designocracy and give it all your support and love.

Edit: since the publication of this article I’ve not been able to update the Designocracy feed. And I am not sure when the motivation would return since I’m involved in other priority matters. Let’s hope sooner than later.

Insights Into Web Content Writing

March 7, 2010 Design

I had the privilege of attending a workshop by Techved Design on writing content for the web. I wasn’t planning to leave the house in the killing humidity and heat but changed my mind thanks to my dearest friend Neha Modgil.

Writing immersible content for the web is always challenging. It’s a medium not known to sustain readership beyond a few seconds. Imagine having to sell a product in a limited amount of time and sustaining the attention span of an online user. This is what the workshop intended to address. Content speaks to a specific audience and good content only makes the actions on the website more compelling.

Continue reading…

UMO '07 – A Retrospective

December 4, 2007 Design

I had promised to keep you guys posted from Hyderabad but some things did not work out as I had planned. The data card didn’t work and I was left (fuming) without an internet connection. To make my matters worse, my camera stopped working and I could not take pictures from the event.

Back to the story. The conference was being held in the spacious environs of the Indian School of Business (ISB) in the Khemka Auditorium. The scheduled start was 8:30 am but it got delayed and finally kicked-off nearly 2 hours later. When we reached the place early morning, the banners were not yet displayed and we were completely lost. The chief guest for the event was Ravi Pooviah, my long time idol and a professor from IDC-IIT. This year UMO (Usability Matters.org) was exploring the theme of health innovation and therefore the guests from medical to software industry were offered an opportunity to showcase their work in that field. Amongst the presentations Parmeshwar Raju’s lecture on Designing through a grid layout and Anirudha Joshi’s slides on devising User-experience metrics were found to be most interesting. I also enjoyed Shruti Agarwal’s discussion on SMOKEDOTE, which is an interactive game for smokers. The design of her slides was very creative indeed. Shruti’s a senior Visual Communications student at IDC-IIT.

The action for the next 2 days shifted to the Abridge Solutions’ training center where the Track I and II workshops were to be held. I had opted for Track I and Ravi Pooviah’s class on Information Visualization. It was the most fabulous experience for me and we were given in depth information on the basics of design and evolving concepts through the mind mapping exercise. On the sidelines, I had a long discussions with Ravi on the future of design and the education system in India which prevents raw talent to be recognized and instead considers the marks system to be the final judging factor. It’s a topic for another article from me so I will stop here. Overall, the experience of attending this event was good and looking forward to applying the knowledge at my work place soon.