The usability and overall experience of using a product are now major competitive factors in consumer products. People have finally stopped blaming themselves for the problems they have using products and started to demand ease of use. Professionals in the field of user-centered design are in short supply, and new degree programs are popping up left and right to remedy the situation. Does this mean that all the confusion and frustration caused by poorly designed products will at last come to an end? Probably not. The truth is that we, as designers, might not always be the champions of user experience we claim to be.

The Catch-22 of usability is that, in general, the best way to improve the usability of a product is to reduce the amount of using it requires. This is not a new idea. Don Norman (p. 21) brought it up as early as 1990 when discussing user interfaces:

“The real problem with the interface is that it is an interface. Interfaces get in the way. I don’t want to focus my energies on an interface. I want to focus on the job.”

Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann, and Dave Cronin (2007, p. 202) are still trying to drive the point home two decades later when giving advice to interaction designers:

“Next time you find yourself crowing about what cool interaction you’ve designed, just remember that the ultimate user interface for most purposes is no interface at all.”

Unfortunately, when making usability improvements, we often end up perpetuating the same problems we’re trying to solve.

We designers are creative people, and as such, we have a tendency to create. So, when we’re asked to, for example, make something easy to use, that is exactly what we do, make. This is supported by the fact that our core skills are typically related to giving form to something. Of course, there are plenty of cases when interaction with a product is desirable and there is definitely something to be said about making beautiful products just for the sake of it. Still, even the decision of having users interact with anything at all should ideally be based on a thorough understanding of user needs.

An argument could be made that usability development should be left for non-design professionals with a background, for example, in cognitive science and ethnography. However, people will always gravitate towards solutions they’re familiar with and avoid the opposite, and it’s unlikely that any single professional will be able to tackle all usability issues. For this reason, the best outcome is likely achieved by a team of experts with a mixture of competencies, a common goal of making people’s lives as easy as possible, and no preconceived notions of the final outcome.

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References

Norman, Donald. 1990. “Why Interfaces Don’t Work.” In The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, edited by Brenda Laurel, 206–209. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Cooper, Alan, Reimann, Robert & Cronin, Dave. 2007. About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.