[Sigia-l] "Usability Must Die"?

[Listera]

    * Usability is a tool that should be in the kit of all software
designers/programmers. It only became a profession when people found they
could charge £1,000 a day by calling themselves Usability Engineers and
pontificate on the mysteries of 'ease of use'.

    * Experience Design is just Web Usability that is charged out at a 25%
premium, and is the first destination of the rats fleeing the good ship
Usability.

    * It is no longer about Human Computer Interaction, but has degenerated
into a narrow field that only talks about guidelines and patterns for web
page design, and is obsessed by abandoned shopping trolleys (or carts).

    * It has succeeded in bringing the user out of their box, but has only
gone as far as putting them behind a one-way mirror where they can be viewed
and examined like animals in a zoo.

    * It is used as a battleground where 'web designers' argue with 'proper
programmers' about when it is acceptable to use Flash.

    * We are allowing it to be used as a wedge to divide the different
groups who are involved in creating software systems.

    * It has been subsumed by the corporate design process which is used to
take control away from designers/programmers and put it in the hands of the
marketeers.

Join the backlash now and help turn the software world upside down.

    * Lets put the people using our software at the heart of everything we
do instead of just paying lip service to the primacy of the mythical user.

    * Remember the three Ps:
      Its always about People, and it should always be done with Passion.

says Chris McEvoy (a programmer who loves HCI but hates Web Usability) at:

<http://www.usabilitymustdie.com/>

Best,

Ziya