[Sigia-l] "the year of consumability"

[Dmitry Nekrasovski]

Are there people within IBM who have a clue about user experience?
Yes, many of them.

Is that expertise reflected in the statements made in the article?
Definitely not.

Is it unfortunate that IBM obscures its accomplishments in this field
behind clueless jargon like "consumability" and "outside in design"?
Absolutely.

Dmitry

On 5/22/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:
> OK, I haven't made that up:
>
> "In the [IBM] Software Group we call this the year of consumability. We want
> to make it easier for our customers to consume software and get value out of
> it much faster."
>
> IBM Joins User Experience Race
> <http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2134810,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K000059
> 4>
>
> IBM, the company that came up with that most unfortunate phrase "user
> engineering" a decade ago, has been selling complexity for decades, as a
> fundamental aspect of their business model.
>
> <http://www-03.ibm.com/easy/page/1996>
>
> In fact, I used to use Lotus screenshots to demo atrocious UX examples years
> ago. Now it's 2007 and I find the IBM Lotus GM fantastically naïve in the
> above article, both in language and framing.
>
> Am I wrong? Is this isolated to the Lotus group? How is it possible that
> such a colossal company in the U.S. (with claim to "user engineering" no
> less) can discover, uhm, 'consumability' in 2007? How can one not despair?
>
> ----
> Ziya
>
> "People who live in the present often wind up exploiting the present to an
> extent that it starts removing the possibility of having a future."
>
>
>
>
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