Feature: The Persistence of Usability Myths

Last year we researched the top 10 usability myths. A number of people, including technology pundits, had attacked usability. We thought the attacks were based on misconceptions. For example, one misconception was that usability is purely a matter of ensuring fast download times. We conducted an online survey to see whether web professionals agreed with the pundits.

In our survey, most respondents worked in web design (97%). They included managers, webmasters, designers, programmers as well as sales and marketing professionals. (Interestingly, few respondents had the same job titles.) The largest group (57%) were involved in interface design, and of those 36% had no formal design training. Only 8% were involved solely in usability.

Overall, few respondents agreed with the myths, and so the question remained: why had the pundits got such a skewed view of usability and what does the profession need to do promote a more accurate view of itself?

Myth 1: Usability is top 10 lists
For the pundits, guidelines, lists and rules were seen as a key part of usability. Our survey revealed that respondents agreed. Sixty-nine percent of respondents agreed that 'designing for usability means applying a set of guidelines' despite the evidence that they have limited value and can be simplistic. Only 16% disagreed. However, the rules continue to be made and broken. Eric Schaeffer, CEO of Human Factors International was quoted in Business Week in December 2002 saying he 'recently reviewed [a] Web site ... that violated countless usability rules. For one, it had red text on a blue background, a terrible combination because the human eye focuses on red behind the retina, and blue in front of the retina. The result can be a condition called chromostereopsis, which can result in headaches and dizziness.'

Some guidelines are based on good scientific research; most are not. Many are not administered within the scope of their relevance. It may be arguable that basic usability guidelines have become an established part of web design culture. It is ironic that some still promote wholesale use of guidelines, despite the research against them.

Myth 2: Usability is Jakob Nielson
The pundits only heard the loudest voices in usability. The results of the survey indicated that the largest group (39%) agreed with the statement 'A few self-appointed experts dominate usability'. However, only 12% of respondents considered gurus 'as their main source of information'. More recently newer voices are to be heard, including Catriona Campbell and Giles Colborne, who have both been featured in the national press. Only 1% cited the UPA as their main source of usability information.

At the March 2003 UK UPA meeting, 'people and their ability to communicate' was seen by buyers as a critical factor. It would seem that to get more business and dispel the narrow outlook of the gurus, the profession needs to be more media savvy.

Myth 3: Usability is dominating design
To the pundits, usability is a negative force that has an overbearing influence in web design. The results of the survey indicated only 8% of respondents thought usability was 'dominating web design'.

Some commentators see usability's domination belonging to the past. Considering 'what's next?' for ebusiness, James Lewin of "IT World", reckons that 'It's time to move beyond usability as the yardstick of web design'. Closer to home, Patrick Jordan (President of the Contemporary Trends Institute), has a similar but more sophisticated take on this with his 'new human factors' viewpoint. Whatever the influence of usability, anecdotal evidence indicates growth and diversification. An example of diversification is Netraker who describe themselves as a 'usability and market-research firm'.

Myth 4: Usability limits innovation
One of the pundits' beefs against usability was that it stops innovation. For example, In "alistapart", Curt Cloninger says that 'Usability experts bemoan the evolution of the web into something beyond a card catalog'. However, only 16% of respondents agreed with this myth.

This myth, however, would seem to resonate in a business world currently determined to reduce risks. This year, the Meta Group outlined priorities for Chief Information Officers; the main one was 'drumming the principles of value, cost and risk management into the IT culture'. Meanwhile Tony Scott of General Motors sees the priority as 'increased focus on software and systems quality' brought about by 'continued cost pressures'.

While this points to opportunities for user-centred design in the present, it would be a mistake to be complacent. Innovation is essential to profitability and the profession would suffer if it were perceived as being unable to add value when market trends change.

Myth 5: Usability is common sense
This is one myth (that worryingly) respondents agreed with - though it was close: 46% agreed and 43% disagreed – that 'usability is just common sense'. The myth is exemplified by Martin Perks' review of "Homepage Usability". He says that 'While some of the book's guidelines are common sense, others are banal'. James Lewin demonstrates the limitations that the myth imposes on the profession: 'The "artsy" sites of the day [the dotcom boom] were easy targets: they had so many things wrong with them that it was easy to find fault. Fixing these basic usability problems led to big improvements for many websites'.

While 'basic usability' may have been folksy and common sense, the interaction of people and technology cannot be. Moving beyond common sense implies the need for sophistication in how we describe our work.

Myth 6: Usability is about stupid users
Many pundits argued that usability assumes users are stupid. Only 10% of respondents agreed with the myth and 64% saw users 'becoming increasingly sophisticated'. Recently, Meg Hourihan of O’Reilly Network echoed the results of the survey: 'the language of GUI widgets is familiar to a much wider range of non-technical people'.

However, some continue to perpetuate the myth. In "Business Week Online", technology writer Jane Black says that 'usability engineers ... track how computer users move through a software product's command screens and where they make mistakes - then strive for ways to make the task so intuitive that it's idiot-proof'. Jennifer Maselli in "Information Week" reports that 'one usability lab draws a refreshing conclusion: users are stupid'. Though meant ironically, this is the type of comment that leads to misconceptions, from which we all suffer.

Myth 7: Usability is a fad
While only 2% of respondents agreed with this myth, it is still believed outside the profession. James Lewin argues that 'websites conforming to a set of informal web design conventions marks the usability phase'. He goes on to point out the limitations of this phase: 'a usable Web site or application meets minimal criteria: the site literally is able to be used. A very usable site may offer nothing of interest to customers, or may be critically flawed in comparison to competitive sites. Expect a real-world approach to Web design, emphasizing comparative analysis, to steal the throne away from usability. Making your Web site easy to use will always be important, but knowing that customers want to use your site is more important'.

Many others argue that the Web is an evolutionary medium. It may be the case that the usability profession needs to reflect this evolution; otherwise it might find itself out of step with industry.

Myth 8: Usability focuses on problems
Read literature on usability and count how often the word 'problem' crops up. This was a myth that respondents agreed with in the survey. Forty-eight percent of respondents agreed that 'usability focuses on problems' and 66% that 'usability specialists are good at finding problems'. There are problems with problems – it makes us look very negative. Indeed while clients need to know what's wrong, providing them with solutions is where value can be added to their products. James Lewin sees 2003 as the 'time to create an approach to Web design that helps us identify not only what's wrong with our site, but also what's right, and what we need to add'.
Nielsen does not help us. He told the UK-based "Internet World" that 'The true goal of usability is to direct the design – to tell it where to go. The second role of usability is to clean up design'.

One area where the profession can do this is by working with designers (value adders) rather than policing them. As David Jarvis, one of the respondents, noted, 'designers are not hostile to the idea of usability testing. In fact they like the idea of providing design to shoot down the ridiculous ideas from clients'.

Myth 9: Usability is a luxury
Eighty-five percent of respondents disagreed that 'usability is luxury'. While the return on investment on usability has been considered at length, industry trends indicate other challenges for usability researchers. Derek Payne of Leica Microsystems told "Computing" recently that 'I like projects with a three month development cycle' and Cath Everett reports that 'companies are saying that whatever they implement should take no longer than 13 weeks and provide a return on investment'. This all suggests the need for quick fixes as well as adding value. On a more positive note Hank Barnes of divine inc sees this year as one with an 'increased focus on designing business and processes from the outside in, ie. the way your customers want it, not the way you have executed traditionally'.

Myth 10: Usability is about download time
That usability can be perceived as what James Lewin calls typically fast loading is limiting. Unfortunately this is often the key issue that gets associated with usability. On Adobe's pages, Valerie Casey argues that '...the web has been so heavily criticised for download time, and all these sort of things that people like Jakob Nielsen talk about, have led to standardising the way that Web pages are made'. In our survey, sixty-one percent of respondents disagreed that 'download speed should be the overriding web design criterion' and twenty-eight percent that 'the user experience is more important than download speed'. A growing number of tools analyse basic usability problems, like download time, but even the tools are becoming more sophisticated. An example of this is WebEffective which 'could be used by firms to issue prompts to ask users how they respond to elements of Web sites. For example, it might ask a user why they had abandoned a shopping cart on an e-commerce Web site'.

Conclusion
Technological advances lead to new opportunities and problems. For some time it was illegal for cars in the UK to travel faster than the person walking in front. With more cars, roads and improved technology we can now see this as anachronistic. It would be dangerous to limit the user experience to the capabilities of yesterday’s technology.

John Knight and Marie Jefsioutine
Usability
User-Lab

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