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Article: The Dark Side of Usability
Go back to: General discussion
Hi Everyone,
I just read this article: The Dark Side of Usability
I thought it would be interesting to share this with the group and discuss.
Looking forward to working with you all.
Best,
Erica.
1 person liked this
That was a great read dj zero
Good read, I agree to their point, although I think for the most part that's usually not a concern. Seems that you would only want something less-usable in the case of a very complex web app, where the user really needs to think about solutions to the problem. 99% of the time on the net, that doesn't seem to be what's going on.
Good read, made me remember this post:
http://lifehacker.com/5672301/hard-to-read-fonts-can-make-text-easier-to...
But more so, it made me remember an analogy i once read from David Allen, that the human brain is a problem solving machine, as such it is akin to a Ferrari, sleek, fast, ready to respond to any situation... memories are not problems, they are boxes with "stuff" in them: sometimes useful, sometimes not, but all in all its your life. A Ferrari is awesome but you would't use it to move houses, for that you need a truck.
I would counter-argue that anything that externalizes mechanical thinking and bogs down high-end thinking with heavy dependance on memory would weigh down human capacity to think.
Of course it's possible to dumb down to your surrounding and leave the thinking to the machines, a conformist's path, but it's still worth it to give a shot for those that would rather use that "brain time" to create.
This is a very interesting article. I have to wonder, now, how it might apply to Web Design. If Socrates was right and writing stuff down allows for brain-atrophy and resultant damage to one's ability to reason and plan, just how "simple" should we make our web designs? And, at what point does a web site design's artistic flair cost a user too much cognitive numbing?
For example, I love playing with Google's Wonder Wheel. It's fun and somewhat helpful - interface-wise. But, I rarely use it for serious searching. Mainly because the DESIGN makes me leery of whether the "wheels" are really showing me everything.
It's definitely something to consider. Thank you for posting the article link.
Very interesting article with lot of interesting conclusions. However, in our days, people's time is limited so whatever design is towards the direction of eliminating superfluous movements is desirable. I don't think that memory development is something that users care about when the browse net. The most important issue is the job to be done quickly at any cost. I noticed that both groups accomplished the tasks at same time, but is it applicable in general? That's something that has to be answered.
I disagree, I think that most users want to get the job done properly, with quickness as a secondary goal. For example, if you purchase something from an online store and your browser fills in an address it remembered, let's hope that it chose the correct address. Otherwise if you didn't notice, you just quickly wasted a whole bunch of time & money.
My impression of the article was that for interactions which are new for a user, they should be easy, with guidance provided so that the user can accomplish their goal without mistakes and quickly.
However, if we're talking about a complex application that someone uses all the time, they would learn better how to use the software if their hand isn't being held. An analogy of this might be how when I was a child, I rode in the backseat of the car while my parents drove. I paid little attention to how we were getting there. When I became old enough for my driver's license, I had trouble picking a route... I recognized the intersection and knew it would take me north, south, east, or west, but I hadn't developed the strategy of how to go from point A to point B.