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Re: "usability"?

Subject: Re: "usability"?
From: Peter Neilson <neilson -at- alltel -dot- net>
To: Lou Quillio <public -at- quillio -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 22:21:29 -0400

I think that what's going on is very much like has often happened in quality engineering. Some MBA discovers Quality or Usability, and gets all excited. But of course he doesn't want to rock the boat. The key is, of course, to declare that the procedures already in place are the epitome of quality or usability. Everyone can go to a Quality Training Seminar, and then go back to work doing just what was always done, SSDD. Similarly, if the "usability" of the product is defined to be the use of the product, then it has, ipso facto, usability.

I use the term "quailty" for quality when it is done that way. So perhaps we should call hijacked usability "usibality" or "abusility".


Lou Quillio wrote:

Geoff Hart wrote:

In this case, the definition is clearly (according to the context you
provided) "how to use it". That isn't the correct definition of
usability in any dialect I'm familiar with


OMG, there goes "usability". It just happened. A year from now
you'll be reading the English-language manual for an Asian-made
consumer product, and the operating instructions -- the biggest
section -- will be headed "Usability". And nobody will think it's
weird but us and Jakob Nielsen.

Might as well pick a replacement term for "usability" now, cuz it's
about to be hijacked.

LQ

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Follow-Ups:

References:
"usability": From: Ronald Schwarz
"usability"?: From: Geoff Hart
Re: "usability"?: From: Lou Quillio

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