Friday
Jul252008
Measure UI's ultimately by "trust"
Friday, July 25, 2008 at 3:52PM
I've spent a week in Melbourne learning from the likes of Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, Jackob Nielsen and Kara Pernice. All part of the 'Usability Week' series of workshops that the Nielsen Norman group runs annually in San Francisco, London, New York and Melbourne.
And something seems to be distilling in my mind: that speed is not always a good indicator of the usability of a device. Neither is perceived time (a different thing completely) or overall efficiency.
Perhaps, the best way to measure the quality of a UI is "trust".
How much do you trust the software, service, device. That you can look deeper and not see ugly bits of string and cellotape holding it together. Like a screwdriver that you can use for opening a paintcan.
That your computer won't crash. That it will be reliable. That it will do reasonable, predictable things.
That it is your friend.
That you'll be able to work out *anything* with reasonable effort.
At plasq, Skitch and Comic Life attracted some strange usages People would use these applications, these bits of software, for tasks which they weren't design for. Often this required many more steps, but people trusted these applications enough to go the journey. These applications became, and remain, the virtual Swiss Army Knife for many people. I often find myself using Skitch to measure graphics' pixel widths, even though it was in no way designed for that task. But I so much trust and grok the way it works, i find ways to bend and warp it's abilities to meet my needs.
What tools do you trust?
How would we measure users' trust and confidence? Just ask them?
And something seems to be distilling in my mind: that speed is not always a good indicator of the usability of a device. Neither is perceived time (a different thing completely) or overall efficiency.
Perhaps, the best way to measure the quality of a UI is "trust".
How much do you trust the software, service, device. That you can look deeper and not see ugly bits of string and cellotape holding it together. Like a screwdriver that you can use for opening a paintcan.
That your computer won't crash. That it will be reliable. That it will do reasonable, predictable things.
That it is your friend.
That you'll be able to work out *anything* with reasonable effort.
At plasq, Skitch and Comic Life attracted some strange usages People would use these applications, these bits of software, for tasks which they weren't design for. Often this required many more steps, but people trusted these applications enough to go the journey. These applications became, and remain, the virtual Swiss Army Knife for many people. I often find myself using Skitch to measure graphics' pixel widths, even though it was in no way designed for that task. But I so much trust and grok the way it works, i find ways to bend and warp it's abilities to meet my needs.
What tools do you trust?
How would we measure users' trust and confidence? Just ask them?
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