An Exercise in Usability....Part 1

Some of you know that I'm an engineer. My brain thinks in terms of functionality: Use this tool to achieve that result. I focus on "achieve". However, that small word "use" can apparently create some difficulty in terms of product design.

Have you ever been in those smelly stores (as I call them) in the mall....the ones with all the scented candles, perfumes, or bath products? Me neither, but I know people who have. They tell me that after a while, they can't smell the difference between the individual products. Everything starts to smell the same, resulting in personal preferences becoming indistinguishable from the masses.

What I'm learning about usability is that one person's assessment of the ease of use of a product can become muddled through constant use of a product. For example, often a product's developer is focused on functionality; after all, that's why the customer is ultimately purchasing the product, right? Well, that's partially correct. If the customer can't figure out how to operate the product, you've lost their purchase, and they'll never know how good your engineering is under the covers to achieve the desired result. When the developer uses the prototype product for a long period of time, it's rather easy to become blind (unconsciously forgiving) to ultimately complicated user-interfaces.... complicated from the customer's perspective, that is.

In my particular case, I've been working on a product website, knowing the value is there, and attempting to communicate that value to the would-be customer. However, I found that my constant use of the website's interface has immunized me from seeing its pitfalls. With that realization, I brought in a focus group to review my site and answer questions in my survey-style approach. The feedback was indeed helpful, and it did impact our efforts. That said, I also knew I was an amateur, and was either missing the opportunity to extract more data, or worse yet somehow affecting the data as it was gathered.

So last week, we brought in a usability expert to formulate a plan and conduct a usability study. The study is all-encompassing, covering both the product website as well as the product itself. After meeting a couple times to hone the objectives of the study and fix immediate problems found by the expert, we scheduled the study for last week. It ran all day, and included special computers with cameras to capture the user's face as well as session being recorded. The results will come back next week, and I'll give you all an update. It's been a very positive experience so far, and I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

I'll keep you posted!