Media: New Thinking challenges Usability

"Usability and Listening to Customers have Limits", Gerry McGovern tells us. But has he linked these concepts too closely to leave himself with a point?

'Listening to customers and making sure your website is usable are important to website success. It is much more important, however, to have a website that delivers real value both to the organization and the reader.'

So far, we're still with you, Gerry.

'Going for value can sometimes mean going against customer feedback and usability best practice.'

Depends what you mean by 'value'... this is beginning to sound dubious. Should value and usability be opposed like this? Usability is just the analytic part of design that considers users' needs.

'When asked, Amazon.com customers seemingly didn't want one-click ordering. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, felt otherwise. From his experience, he knew that people hated purchase processes. I read about this a couple of years ago and it really made me think. Here was someone who did not listen to his customers wishes, gave them something which they said they didn't want, which after a while they really got to like.'

Yes, we all know that customers don't know what they like till they're given it. That's why we have usability as well as market research. I thought Gerry was up to speed with this distinction. Perhaps not...

The rest of this less-than-usually-well-thought-out column goes on to criticise Nielsen obliquely for using cost savings rather than effectiveness as a value judgement in praising an intranet. As if the usability community still valued Nielsen as it used to...

And McGovern concludes: 'Usability sometimes misses the point. If you're trying to sell me red shoes, I don't care how user-friendly your website is, I'm just not interested in buying. If you're charging me 30 percent more than your competitor, all your fancy usability is pretty much irrelevant. If I think this product is cool and I must have it, I will gladly suffer an unusually designed website just to get my hands on it.'

Hmm, I don't think 'unusual design' is the problem, is it?

All these months I've been covering the McGovern column because he usually takes an interesting perspective on design. It's sad to have to take issue with his ideas. Usability... fancy? Perhaps, like Nielsen, other people can have a column so long that providing content gets gruelling and standards slip.

Associated Link: New Thinking: Usability and Listening to Customers have Limits

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