When interviewing software developers I often ask them to define the term usability. What I’m really asking is, “have you ever thought much about how your users interact with your software?” This is a rather important aspect of software design.
Asking someone to define usability also gives me a good idea as to whether they have ever read any books on the subject or had formal training. There are many self-proclaimed “usability experts” or “user interface specialists” who actually don’t understand or haven’t yet discovered the basic principles that go into user experience design. They simply haven’t thought deeply enough about the problem.
Now, I don’t claim to be an authority on usability. But I try to be cognizant of usability principles when I go to design a piece of software. If you’re interested in getting a handle on these principles yourself, I would recommend starting with the three fathers of user interaction design:
- Donald A. Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
- Bruce Tognazzini, founder of the Apple Human Interface Group and author of many classic interaction design papers and columns.
- Jakob Nielsen, long-time author and web usability ninja. Start with his excellent article, Usability 101: Introduction to Usability and subscribe to his bi-weekly Alertbox newsletter.
Oh wow, just what the world needs…another usability freak.