In the past few months I've heard rumblings on the list that usability is about more than evaluation (first from Jared and more recently from Elizabeth). I'm not a card-carrying member of UPA, but this is interesting to me and I'd like to learn more about the point of view.
I was taught that Design represents the intersection of three attributes: - the useful - the usable - the desirable My entire context for usability has been as an evaluation tool to identify design elements that are initially confusing or that involve a high error rate for some ergonomic reason. In that context, short term learnability almost always trumps everything else. That can be frustrating. I've viewed it as a failing of usability testing; something that seems to be baked in. Now it appears that's not the case. In a recent thread, Elizabeth mentioned satisfaction and effectiveness as components of usability. That seems to frame usability as an analog for design itself. I'm all for disciplinary scope creep, but I want to make sure I understand the position correctly. Without starting a holy war, I'd be interested in opposing perspectives on what constitutes usability. // jeff ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
