Last month, I wrote about how intuitive software needs to be. This led to a really great discussion, and one of the general points of consensus is that many applications lack basic usability engineering.
Developers often create UIs on the fly without any input from real-world users and without the benefits of usability testing. As a result, otherwise good applications are often difficult to use, and users get frustrated. At the same time, many (if not most) development teams do not have anyone trained in usability engineering, and the budget is often not there to bring in a consultant. How well do you think your team is baking in usability engineering and testing into your applications?
Are you doing enough usability engineering and testing?
J.Ja
Disclosure of Justin’s industry affiliations: Justin James has a working arrangement with Microsoft to write an article for MSDN Magazine. He also has a contract with Spiceworks to write product buying guides.
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