An honest usability engineer

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]

Jared Spool just went up a notch or two in my estimation (I know; I'm sure
he's been losing sleep wondering about that):

"So, to answer your question about what has shocked me the most, I'd say it
is the realization of how much we really don't know."

"Usability is not usable!  It doesn't work.  It doesn't produce the results
we promise it will.  And we get angry when people stop paying attention to
us."

"As far as I can see, the things that were done right in making web sites
more usable didn't happen in the usability community.  It's interesting to
note that the most usable sites in our studies, such as Dell, eBay, Amazon,
and Edmunds have no real usability efforts to speak of."

"You don't need to have a usability group to make a usable site.  In fact,
there is no evidence to suggest you even need a single usability
professional on site to make a difference."

"So, which web site capitalized on usability?  None really. We've never
seen a site that succeeds more than 50% of the time, let alone 60% or 70%
of the time.  We don't know what one looks like.  We certainly don't know
what it takes to build one.  Oh, we can pretend we do.  But we really
don't, because we never have seen one.

"And what's worse is that the sites that have come closest didn't use what
we've been preaching.  What does that say about what we know?"

http://www.webword.com/interviews/spool2.html

Now that we're starting to be honest about the subject, there's hope for
real progress.

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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In God we trust; all others must provide data.
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.


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