The Battle Between Usability and User-Experience

[Brianlan]

Folks-

I came across this article today:

The Battle Between Usability and User-Experience

It puts forth the proposition that usability (ease of use) and a positive user experience are at odds. What do you think?

 

[cef]

I read the article, and I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

The author defines usable as requiring less effort, being more intuitive, being more "learnable", and being "more powerful" in that you can "do more with it faster".

He defines something with a good user experience as evoking an emotional response via sensory input: color, layout, structure, sound, graphics, content, etc.

You can certainly have both at the same time, or neither or only one for that matter. I don't see why it's a "battle" between one or the other.

If you like grunge-style sites, you could design one that hit all the right emotional buttons, from the colors to the fonts to the images to the branding to the content, and also have it highly usable, with clear navigation, unobtrusive use of flash and javascript, excellent textual and visual cues to help guide and assist the visitor, and more.

By the same token, you could have a completely unbranded, flat and visually bland site which also happens to be a usability nightmare: unclear menus, "mystery meat" graphical navigation (as Vince Flanders calls it), poor forward/backward link handling, and more.

k10k.net is an example of a highly usable and navigable site with a great user-experience factor. On the flip side is so-called usability expert Jakob Nielsen's very own site (useit.com): bland and unattractive (ostensibly for simplicity sake) but also hard to comprehend, use and navigate.

Those are only two of many examples which show how you can have both (or neither) at once.

Oh, and the author's road analogy is terrible. It's actually been proven that straight roads are NOT more usable; they lead to white-line fever and hence more accidents. You need some gentle curves and changes to keep the driver focused.

IMHO the author decided that he wanted to write about the idea of a conflict between usability and user experience, and then did everything he could to make the data fit his thesis.

 

[psalzmann]

Great post! I think this information should come in handy to many of us here writing interactive applications for the web. Happy is good, and the article seems to hit major points.

Good read

 

[TeviH]

I agree with cef 100%. I disagree with the author of the article. I also believe that poor usability results in poor user experience, as the user becomes frustrated.

The author's example of a usable road has to be a huge freeway? Silly. If I'm driving to the countryside, I don't need a huge freeway. If there's low traffic on the roads, a simple 4 lane road, 2 in each direction, with a concrete divider between them, and clearly labeled signs placed reasonable distances from exits is fine. In fact, raise the road a few feet so you can see more in the distance for a better view. Usability + User experience.

A great example of this is when I was growing up in Florida. They built a "flyover" which was a road built ~10 stories in the air and cut across a whole mess of highways. A highway shortcut with a spectacular view!

"mystery meat" graphical navigation (as Vince Flanders calls it)

lol!! classic!

 

[cef]

I wonder what the OP thinks --he hasn't posted back yet

For me, it's more a battle between user experience and accessibility. Often, the very features which make for a dynamic and compelling user experience are at odds with usability requirements.

But then again, is it important to adhere to usability standards on a site which --by its very nature-- contains inaccessible content? For example, if I have a site dedicated to photography, and I deploy a fancy flash navigation system and an absolutely stunning flash-based gallery, is this so terrible? The very content itself --photographs-- is inaccessible to begin with; so why should the rest of the site worry about accessibility?

Now, if I also have some articles about photography or the creative process, then sure, make those parts accessible.

I'm probably offending some accessibility purists (and zealots) here, but as TeviH knows from another thread I posted in, IMHO, best intentions must sometimes be tempered by context and practicality.

 

[TeviH]

Yup.

Know your audience and the purposed of your website. It's foolish to stick to the standard strict accessibility guidelines for photography...

 

[den'd domain]

A good idea would be to check out what kind of sites you'll be competing with. take a look and the decide what you might want to do! also what kind of users are you looking to target!