[Sigia-l] Can Usability get a CUE?

[Steven Pautz]

On 8/26/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:

> May be I don't pay as much attention to the usability biz as I should, but
> my impression is that usability outfits have been making recommendations
> for
> many years. Recommending that they shouldn't would be somewhat 'radical'.
>

I should have been more clear, sorry -- by "modern usability" I mean
usability-conscious *design* -- the interdisciplinary, non-siloed approaches
practiced here which (hopefully) lead to adequate usability *and a whole lot
more* without being oriented around (or chained to) "best practices" or
resultant attributes of the created product (e.g., usability).

(Not that IA, IxD, Design, etc should be considered part of usability, of
course, but rather that their approach and mindset towards usability
represent improvement over the old-school thinking.)

"Stop making recommendations" does seem very radical to the "classic" side,
but I doubt many "modern" people would see it as such -- it's certainly
old-hat to Jared himself, which makes me think he's trying to walk lightly
and bring the "classic" up to speed without insulting them. =)

(His other two recommendations seem to target a similar goal, which makes me
think he views these three items as key differences between "classic" and
"modern" -- items which, if changed, would reduce the 'siloedness' and
emphasis on attributes of the "classic" practitioners. Assuming that's
indeed what he's doing, I think it's a great approach.)

---------------------------
Steven Pautz
liker of parentheses