Beyond “I think” and “I feel”

Is your organization jumping on the “usability” bandwagon? Analogs for usability include “user experience” or “ease of use” or even “information architecture”. Ironically, I often hear stories about how organizations marginalize their new usability people and fail to benefit.

Marginalization or “let’s skip usability for now” reflects the political problem of NOT impressing the right people at the right time.

Check this blog to read concrete, proven recommendations for getting usability moxie. I’ve consulted on and taught computer-human interface design for the last 20 years, including 10 years of usable web design, all under the auspices of www.humanfactors.com.

Speaking credibly…

Many new usability professions report that when they give their opinion, colleagues will say “that’s your opinion, and now, here’s my opinion”. So, we end up with a battle of opinions. While on politics that might be standard, in professional dealings it’s nice to bring facts and methodology to the table.

This problem requires changing one’s style of communication, including dropping phrases like “I think” or “I feel”. Instead, use appeals like the following which have been reported to work successfully in many instances.

These suggestions must be used with attention to the context and usability savy of the listeners. Be prepared to explain any technical words that otherwise would not be understood. The brief form of these suggestions makes them sound almost like Zen koans. Make comments below to get clarification or add your own experiences.

a) Best practices suggest….(Check out recommendations from your usability training and reading. Online resources offer help such as the University of Minnesota at Duluth or Human Factors International’s research reviews.)

b) Research indicates…(Check out the above and also www.usability.gov)

c) Our usability tests indicates…(Report your results)

d) Cognitive task analysis shows this sequence of work….(Discuss how users incur various costs in effort related to visual, intellectual, memory, and motor loads as the occur in sequence. Discuss the possible tripping points.)

e) If I were to conduct a usability test, I expect x% of our subjects to have a problem… (And follow up with cogent reasons)

f) I don’t know…we’ll run a usability test…. (Be humble. Better to conduct a test and avoid speaking for “all users” off the cuff)

g) If I were a usability test subject, I would probably experience x… (Here, you are speaking for at least one user, yourself, but in the context that it is not all users who may have other problems–or even no problem).

h) Similar issues in other usability testing revealed x….. (While not exactly the same as the “current” problem, we can make this inference from prior testing)

i) Our standards indicate… (Consistency has great value of itself. Above that, we hope the designs in the standards have been usability tested for ergonomic value.)

j) Our interviews and observations among end-users showed us that…. (Clarification of the users’ collective mental model often begins with anecdotes of individual end user behaviors and statements.)

k) In interviews and observations, end-users demonstrated that… (A stronger version of the preceding statement)