user relations

It's great to know that usability has its own Day. This Thursday, November 13, is World Usability Day and that means that a lot of events and activities will be held around the world to draw attention to making technology more usable.

Here's an excerpt from the World Usability Day web site:

Technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy to access as a doorknob. In order to humanize a world that uses technology as an infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, government, communication, entertainment, work and other areas, we must develop these technologies in a way that serves people first…

Love it. It’s a mantra worth repeating every day of the year.

I've been invited by the good people at Macadamian Software Engineering and OCRI to participate on a WUD panel that focuses on “Software Usability: Listening to the voice of the user”.

Here's the summary:

Software usability is about more than an attractive design. Usability can make the difference between users liking your application or getting frustrated whenever they have to use it - affecting your company’s bottom line. To develop software that users like, developers must collaborate with users to find out what they really need. Companies that know the right way to listen to the voice of the user will have a better chance of success in the competitive market. On World Usability Day, a panel of experts in the user experience field will discuss how software companies can find out the right way to incorporate research into the development process.

I recently jumped ship on a project that seemed destined to hit the rocky shores of missed deadlines and then sink in the swirling eddies of communication breakdown. I wasn't on board for long - about a week and a half really - but during that time I spent far too many days trying to obtain critical information about the project's code structure and database from the engineers who had developed it.

What is a software application?

When we think of a software application, most of us will conjure up the image of some sort of user interface splashed across a computer screen. As far as most of us are concerned, whatever is on the screen is the software. Period.

Engineers will tend to look at it a little differently. They are of course very aware of what goes on 'behind the screen' that makes all this stuff appear as it does and do all the things it does.

The motto and the objective of The User Advocate Group is to:

"Bridge the Gap Between End Users and Engineers"

Last weekend we set the clocks back for the winter. It's always nice to have an 'extra hour' and to perhaps do something a little special: lay in bed, go for a leisurely breakfast, take a long walk in the park. It's one of the perks of living on a tilted globe.

For me, this time of year also means that I get to be an Occasional User for certain technology interfaces such as the button riddled panel on my car stereo and the monstrous web tool for managing expiring domain names.

Getting back to this story...

A few weeks ago I spent two and a half hours standing (literally) at the counter of the US Airway check-in counter trying to secure a ticket to San Francisco using a free travel voucher. (No the online experience just didn't work for this one. Another story.)

A curious bit of personal history came to mind after I read Rachel Clarke's blog post about an online game (SaveMyHusband.com) which is based on a fake kidnapping. Rachel picked up on my 'We Were Framed' post in which I explain how we use 'frames' to distinguish the real from the fake.

The last straw was the toddler ramming his stroller into the stranger's legs for the third time. The child's mother was behind a mountain of luggage filling out name tags. A slightly older sister was orbiting at high volume trying to get someone's attention. Anyone's.