Kids these days!
Could youth be to blame for poor usability?
Those designing and creating things we use in our daily lives are generally quite young. This is certainly true of web design, but also in many other fields such as product design, architecture and most things artistic. Along with youth comes enthusiasm, creativity and the inspiration one finds as they begin down their own particular path in life. Excellent, without this many great ideas simply wouldn’t exist.
But it’s an inescapable truth that wisdom only comes through experience, so with the above qualities also comes impatience, brashness and let’s face it, a bit of a superiority complex. Young designers are unlikely to consider factors such as audience goals and the broader context (social responsibility?) in which the product of their skills will exist. And that’s fair enough, they’re focused on toning their technical skills and forging their own presence in the big wide world. So the ‘soft’ aspects usually come in second place, if they even finish the race at all.
Conversely, if you look at the most respected and influential people in the [broad] user centred design community—such as Don Norman, Bruce Tognazzini, Bill Moggridge and some of the ‘web crew’ like Jeff Veen—they are all seasoned veterans. Most have moved through many different jobs in their careers and have accumulated broad experience that helps them with ‘holistic’ design. That’s not to say they are perfect and made no mistakes when they were young; indeed that’s precisely my point, they have. It’s only through the passing of time, and building of experience, that we gain the ability to design products and solutions whilst giving proper consideration to all aspects of the ‘problem space’. Those who stay in the game for the long-haul are all the better for it.
I don’t mean to stereotype everyone under a certain age as irresponsible and everyone over that age as supremely wise. And of course there are exceptions to any rule, but I think generally the hypothesis holds water. Most cases of poor usability occur because the person directly responsible hasn’t the experience to know better, rather than deliberate malpractice, evil corporations or lack of methodology.
And it does seem that innovation and creativity are more prevalent earlier in one’s career and a greater appreciation for context and usability come about later. There’s little doubt in my mind that a combination of both ends of the spectrum is crucial for a successful design endeavour. And when this requires two ‘types’ of people to work together to achieve the right combination, mutual respect and knowledge sharing are the key.
Which is why the current trend for experienced members of the Information Architecture and UCD community to want to leave the practise, is so potentially devastating. If we lose the experience we will be left unbalanced, as the field of web design was before we ‘discovered’ usability, HCI and all the other old school knowledge that are now key fixtures in any responsible designers arsenal.
About the author
Patrick Kennedy is a user experience strategist and design researcher based in Sydney Australia. He leads research activities that improve the user experience of cross-channel products and services; helping both designers and business decision makers in bringing those products and services to fruition. Read more.
Comments
That’s why we invented usability testing! When we started out we didn’t know what we were doing either.
Young designers not having experience shouldn’t be a problem if those young designers (or their bosses) are up for usability testing. Of course one advantage ‘experienced’ designers have is that they have seen so many usability tests they often already have insight into what won’t work without testing. Try explaining that to the young people of today though! :-)
I had a gig a long time ago where my client was new to interactive media, and very excited. We bumped heads a lot, because my attempts to make the product usable were at odds with his attempts to come up with a ground-breaking new interaction paradigm. “You usability people”, he shouted at me once in a meeting, “are all about doing what’s been done before.”
He was right a bit.
Shane
Sure, everybody needs to start some where. But it helps to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’.
As someone who has come from a very dark place, where little intelligence is put into design work (where art is too often passed off as design), perhaps I’m overly critical and expect that everyone ‘should see the light’. However, I know full well what’s it’s like to discover ‘new’ knowledge and learn from the work of more experienced people. The learning and growing process is very beneficial.
I suppose the answer to all this is mentoring; young designers being allowed to explore and experiment but guided by lessons learned (with the ultimate goal of producing something truly fit for purpose).
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