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Interface Design Mailingliste: [Interface] Usability
Autor: gui bonsiepe (bonsiepe_at_ds.fh-koeln.de)
Datum: Mon 10 Apr 2000 - 14:20:31 CEST
Guten Tag
Ich schreibe gerade an einem Vortragstext fuer den Internationalen
Kongress "Design + Research", der vom Politecnico di Milano vom 18.
bis 20. Mai veranstaltet wird - zu dem offenbar (nach der Liste auf
der website zu urteilen) eine ganze Menge Leute aus aller Welt nach
Mailand kommen werden. Ich werde zum Thema Design as Cognitive Tool
einen Vortrag halten und gehe darin unter anderem auf Nielsen's
einaeugige Interpretation der usability ein. Nachfolgend ein
Ausschnitt. Vielleicht hat jemand dazu einen Kommentar.
Usability from a design perspective
Taking the team approach as starting point for the development of
digital documents and tools, we can ask how to characterize the
professional responsibility of the designer in digital media.
Looking at the numerous, sometimes conflicting, interpretations of
design and its difference to engineering and sciences, we can
perceive a set of basic features or constants of which I shall focus
only on two. On the one side, we have the concern for the user, and
on the other side we have esthetical quality. It is the focus on the
user and his concerns from an integrative perspective that
characterizes the approach of a designer and that differs from other
disciplines (including ergonomics and cognitive sciences);
furthermore it is the concern for esthetical quality that includes
also the dimension of play. Here we enter a conflictive area, because
the domain of usability is strongly claimed by representatives of
cognitive sciences - as for instance Jacob Nielsen - that deal with
web design and advocate the use of usability engineering methods. In
order to formulate this exclusive claim on the domain of usability, a
rather simplistic vision of the world of web design is propagated. I
quote: "There are essentially two basic approaches to design: the
artistic ideal of expressing yourself and the engineering ideal of
solving a problem for a customer." (5) In this dichotomy between art
and engineering, design does not even enter into consideration. We
may speculate about the reasons why this has happened. Perhaps it is
a reaction against "cool" pages that are user-hostile though
aesthetically captivating - the so-called killer sites - and
furthermore an uncritical interpretation of usability, taking for
granted this complex notion. Usability seems to be what usability
engineering methods can measure. Though certainly the necessity of
experimental testing of designs is not an issue for debate, an
understanding of usability that excludes the aesthetic domain leaves
out essential aspects and thus looses legitimation to be of any use
for assessing web design projects. These aspects cannot be
disqualified as glitzy stuff and pushed under the carpet only because
they are difficult to assess - they probably fall through the rough
grid of usability engineering criteria. The claim that "the way you
get appropriate design ideas (and not just good ideas for cool
designs that nobody can use) is to watch users and see what they
like, what they find easy, and where they stumble" (6) is anything
but new - it is what designers anyway do in their profession.
Furthermore, it does not explain how appropriate innovations in the
use of designs occur - it is intrinsically conservative. My final
criticism is directed towards the unilateral interest in for instance
in the speed of finding an information on a website, because it
overshadows the issue that web design and CD-ROMs serve to
communicate and to enhance understanding.
I am well aware of the possible misunderstandings that the use of the
term "esthetics" can provoke when we talk about design. As a matter
of fact, according to a simplistic interpretation, design has
primarily to do with esthetical quality, that in hard business can be
dismissed as a secondary option, and therefore does not need to be
considered as an essential feature. Design could even easily be
dismissed as a discipline mainly concerned with "style" - whatever
that means. But that approach would be too reductionist and may be
responsible for the visual - and operational - malaise of good part
of educational and business software.
--
gui bonsiepe
Interface Design - Design Department
University of Applied Sciences (FH) - Cologne
<http://www.ds.fh-koeln.de/~bonsiepe>
voice: +49 (0) 221 - 8275 32 36
fax: +49 (0) 221 - 318822
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