Creating a good UX is not a design problem, it’s a power struggle. (Alan Cooper)

I like to joke that I work in a sausage factory. Now, the various companies I’ve worked for over the years have produced some mighty tasty sausages. Our customers would be shocked, though, to know what actually goes on behind the scenes in the creation of their particularly delicious software, website, or app. 

It’s really not too surprising if you think about it though. First, there are usually way too many chefs in the kitchen – the client, upper management, the design team, IT, legal, usability … And everyone has their own opinion – if not axe to grind.

Further, there’s typically no set recipe. Oh sure, everyone tries to formalize the process somehow. But what all that usually devolves into at some point is a good, old-fashioned knockdown, drag-out fight. 

And I think that’s just human nature. We all pay lip service to collaboration, but there are always going to be dominant types who fight for their way as they climb up the corporate ladder. Ever been exposed to the DISC personality typology? It’s the only one I know that actually is quite honest about all this –  with D meaning dominant, S submissive, and C compliant (I is for influencers, by the way – sort of dominant types who are also pretty nice). Other folks may simply have fallen in love with their own design, want to get their own two cents in, have poor impulse control, or just possess an overly sized ego. 

I have noticed, though, that some companies are a little better at managing this than others. A lot of them, for example, have solved the problem by simply being very hierarchical. Of course, unless you’re the U.S. Army, this really isn’t the optimal solution. (To tell you the truth, though, I actually prefer this structure to the Darwinian free-for-all.) And I’ve also worked at some companies where people were actually pleasant to each other, weighed the evidence, and tried to make the right decision. Shocking, I know.

Well, one thing a usability engineer always has going for them is the evidence. I find that can have a lot of weight, even in the middle of those knockdown, drag-out fights. And as for those types who aren’t interested in evidence and live in a alternative fact-free universe? Well, those are fights I don’t care to even get involved in.

Though it’s definitely not just Microsoft

(Thanks to Manu Cornet for this)

Cooper also said:

• "Things that behave differently should look different."
• "The fanatic preparation for the possible has the inevitable consequence of obscuring the probable."

It got so easy it got hard. (Gayle Wellborn)

Gayle Wellborn was simply a former exec I worked with at one time. Unlike a lot of execs, though, she seemed to really get usability. For some reason, it was just very easy for her to identify with the user. I’ve never met another exec – with their MBAs, or technical backgrounds, or bean counter creds – who was able to accomplish that so easily.

This particular comment came out at some review, and though we all kind of laughed at it at the time, I found that the more I thought of it, the more I became aware that she had really put her finger on a very important principle of design.

Now, most tech I deal with has just the opposite problem. It’s just too darn complicated. Sometimes, though, a design team has learned that lesson, and has gone just a little overboard in the opposite direction.

In particular, I find that this is an issue with graphic designers. Often, they want a nice, clean, aesthetically pleasing interface. And, sometimes, to get that, they might throw away some parts of the UI that were actually pretty central for the user to understand what exactly was going on. So, though the UI might look super simple on the surface, it actually makes the user’s job a little harder, forcing them to guess what some things might mean, or how to do something, or what to do next … when we could have made it so much more easy for them.

I see this a lot, in particular, with mobile. Now, I realize we’ve got a lot less real estate to work with, and the last thing we want to do is make it cluttered. But just thinking back to the struggles my users have with hamburger menus, or kebabs, or the tiny little dots that signal a carousel … 

And it’s not a matter so much of simply deleting affordances. There are also features that don’t appear until you mouse over them, using one feature to do multiple tasks, an over-reliance on icons (and a subsequent aversion to labels), gestures … 

But how can you tell when it’s so easy it’s hard? Well, one thing is to keep your target audience in mind (and realize, of course that they will be different from you). Personas are great for this. Second, test it out. See what’s hard, what’s missing, what needs a little boost – and then fix it. 

Under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, any lab subject will do exactly as they wish. (Caroline Jarrett)

And that’s why we love them. It’s what makes our job fun.

I’ve always said that the great part about usability is that we get to work with the two most complex things in the universe – humans and computers. There’s no telling what we’re going to get.

But we wouldn’t have it any other way, would we? Living, breathing human beings, with all their quirks and complications, make for very interesting work. 

In fact, I like to tell new usability engineers that out of every 10 users, they’re probably going to get at least 1character. But characters are fun, are not too hard to handle, and can help brighten up a long day.

Of course, I also point out that 1 in 100 is going to be a crazy. And that, for 1 in 1000, you’re going to need to call security. Both do make for engaging stories afterward though.

It’s also why I take a fairly relaxed approach in the lab. No lab coat for me. No voice-of-god mic. No clinical lab setting. I just like to sit with the user, engage with them to the degree they need it, prep them properly, then sit back and see what happens.

I know they’ll go off script sometimes. And, usually, I let them. I’ve gotten some good stuff over the years that way. That said, I have also developed a number of good tips and tricks to get them back on track without their ever knowing it.

Heck, after 3000 users, I kind of like it when I get a bit of challenge. Honestly, though, there’s probably nothing I haven’t already seen before.

Please forgive the long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one. (Blaise Pascal)

Huh! I always thought it was Voltaire.

Anyway, one thing I’ve noticed over the years that this is a very common problem with new usability engineers and user researchers. And what that means is both too many pages (in reports, of course – not letters) as well as too many words on that page.

Now, I do have a hunch of where this comes from. And that would basically be school. Think about it. Throughout everyone’s academic career, we are usually awarded for over-delivering. It’s basically the standard way to show how smart you are and how much work you’ve done. Hey, nobody’s awarded gold stars for 16-pt type, wide margins, and something slightly under the mandated page count, right?

I guess I’m kind of lucky in that I happened to round out my academic career with a graduate degree in tech writing. The difference between what I learned in that program and what I learned as an undergrad English major could not have been more stark. 

In fact, it was only as a grad student that I first learned the basics of the rhetorical situation – audience, purpose, and context. So, who is this for? What are you trying to accomplish with it? How is it being delivered? How will it be processed? How likely is it to be accepted?

In other words, in the real world, the point of writing is not to impress the teacher and get a good grade. It’s to get things done – to impart information, to offer suggestions, to come to an agreement …

And what’s an effective way to do that? How about a PPT where you can get through every slide in an hour? A presentation where the amount of information on each page is not a distraction to what you are saying? Something where an audience member might remember 3 main points 10 minutes after the presentation is over? 

To tell you the truth, this is advice that is not just for junior team members. I just sat through a presentation where a very seasoned team may have gotten through 10 slides of a 40-page presentation.  

And it’s definitely not easy either. It takes a brave (and experienced and humble) soul to take all of that great work they did and distill it down to something that their audience can actually relate to, process, and value. It’s truly something every UE and UX researcher needs to remember though – it’s not about you!

Yup, that's him alright!

It depends (every usability engineer ever)

I’ve often joked that I want this on my tombstone … Even though I feel a little conflicted by it.

On the one hand, I see my offering this statement as a good thing. It means people are coming to me with questions. So, basically, I’ve gained their trust. Yay!

On the other hand, though, there are some things that make me cringe a little when I have to say this. Probably the main thing is that my clients seem to be thinking in black and white terms. Alternatively, they may also simply be wanting a thumbs up / thumbs down from yours truly.

One of the things I feel like I am always trying to get across to my clients is that the world is a complex place, and a lot of it is very situational. In particular, I like to get across that usability issues are often contextual in nature.

For example, who is this system for? A technical audience? Well, they may be just fine with it. Your average Joe or Jane? No way in heck!

In addition … What is the user’s goal? How motivated are they? Where will they be doing this? Have they seen stuff like this before? 

What are your goals? Are those in conflict with the users’ in any way? How should we prioritize? Who is making the decisions?

How hard is it to the make that change? Do you have time to do that? Is it worth the effort? What are the goals of your project?

Overall, how is this decision being applied? In just this particular situation? Across the board?

And on and on and on.

You know, maybe “it depends” is just a good way to begin the conversation. Maybe a better way to word that simply would be, “Tell me more.”

Ha ha!  Very clever, funny developer guys!

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (Benjamin Disraeli)

I have a mixed relationship with statistics. 

On the one hand, I know their an important part of our history. I also know there some of us out there who still do a bang-up job with them (Jeff Sauro and Jim Lewis come immediately to mind), Finally, I also realize that stats definitely have their use.

I myself, however, am much more qualitative. I generally like to leave stats to things where they are a much better fit – surveys, web analytics, A/B testing, big data ...  I’m more than happy with my rich, why-based qualitative data.

That said, I do use stats.  Because of the qualitative nature of my data and the much smaller number of participants I typically have, though, my stats tend to be much more on the lighter side.  For example, if I’ve got my typical 10 users, I think it’s good for my audience to know if it was 2 users who had a certain problem versus 9 of them.  

I also typically eliminate any 1-offs. I find they typically draw too much attention to themselves by their mere inclusion.  That also has the added benefit of making my report easier to write, and easier to read as well. 

I also might do error rates.  Once again, though, I try to keep it simple.  If the user aces a particular task, that’s a 100.  If they veer off somewhere but eventually get back on track, or if they complete everything but miss 1 small part, that’s a 50.  If they give up and look to me (and even then complete it with some help from me), that’s a 0.  I add ‘em all up, and then generally use a simple academic grade scale – 90 and above is an A, 80 to 90 a B, and so on.  I just want to give my audience a rough idea of how the system performed.  (BTW, time on task – because of think aloud – means absolutely nothing to me.)

Finally, I also like to do a SUS. Note, though, that scores for individual tests mean almost nothing on their own.  I do keep a running total of all tests we run however. And that let’s me compare 1 particular score to all the rest, to an average for the type of system or user group, or for previous tests of the same thing. Very helpful.

So, yes, I do use stats.  But only in the simplest, most direct ways that pretty much anyone – business types, developers, writers, graphic designers … could understand.  

I have no idea why he’s on a phone case, but there you have it

Do the right thing. (Digital Equipment Corporation)

My first job out of grad school was at Digital Equipment Corp., or DEC. For those of you who haven’t been around as long as I have, I like to tell people that it was the number two computer manufacturer in the world at that time, and was something of the Google of its day.

Google, in fact, has a similar motto, “Don’t be evil.” Well, DEC’s is a little more positive, of course. But it's still the same general idea.

Now, we might contrast those two that with the motto of Facebook. Their motto was originally “Move fast and break things” (they’ve since come up with some bland official pablum). 

Well, I guess they've managed to do both, haven't they? They moved very fast, and they seem to have broken many things – the ability to go more than a few minutes without looking at your phone, any sense of personal privacy on the Internet, journalistic objectivity, the democratic process, civil discourse …

I think this is particularly ironic as Facebook is a social media company – a company who’s purported purpose is to bring people together. Of course, there is also their business model. And that revolves around addiction cum targeted marketing – basically hooking people then delivering them to large corporations so they can extract your hard-earned dollars (and yen, and euros, and yuan) from you in the most efficient manner possible. You know, maybe their motto ought to be, “Profits before people.”

So, what does all this mean for the average usability engineer out there? Well, there was a time when our main job was to make things easier to use, for users. In essence, we made the world a friendlier, nicer place. These days, though, it seems mostly to be to sell, sell, sell. That moral high ground we used to occupy is steadily eroding. 

So, what can we do about it? Well, when your company, or project team, or colleagues, appear to be blindly headed down that path of moving fast and breaking things, perhaps you can be the still, small voice of conscience. In other words, don’t be afraid to raise your hand. Ask them about the implications of what they’re proposing, what effect something might have on your brand, how that UI change will fit into the customer journey. Remind them, too, that there is more to the world than profits, that a handsome paycheck does not absolve you of all moral obligations, that there is still a possibility for UX to make the world a better place.

The only wrong thing former DEC CEO Ken Olson did was to bet against the PC  :^(