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HCI VISTAS, VOLUME-II, 2005-2006 | |||
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Institutionalizing HCI: The Bubble Bursting! | ||
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Article IRN-7./Feb. 2006 |
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The process having distinct and repeatable pattern, explicitness, well-defined coordinates in terms of its temporal steps, formulas, clearly defined objectives and users, and the parameters for success measurement; can be considered for institutionalization. Basically, when you institutionalize an activity, your attempt is to achieve quality through well-defined procedures and by following the best professional practices. However, creative activities are difficult to capture in procedures.
If you consider HCI (usability engineering to be precise) as a candidate for institutionalization, I see following challenges that need to be addressed. Firstly, user profiling itself is extremely complex. For example, how to profile the cognitive and motor skills of users? There is no straightforward answer to this question. Then if you consider the application of multiple disciplines like anthropology, cognitive science, behavioral psychology, visual cognition, social science, ergonomics, etc; one does not know which portion of knowledge from these disciplines should be taken for decomposition of a given usability problem. And how to apply this multi-disciplinary stuff into design? Design of usability tests is also another very creative (undefined) area. There are innumerable variable factors in usability testing. The ideal sample size for usability testing is still a matter of debate for the researchers.
Is one talking about institutionalization of things like affinity maps, card sorting, context study, user interviews and video recoding of usage scenarios? These tangible activities identified by clever usability researchers appear to be suitable for process definition. But surprisingly one comes across many projects showing no corroboration (or very negligible corroboration) with the findings of context study or affinity maps in its final design! So did one go through this process because it is fun and fancy? Similar contradiction can be faced with participatory design approach. As there is a famous saying 'Camel is a horse designed by a committee' ! And what have we institutionalized? It is the external process which is quite ritualistic. Probably one has not paid enough attention to the internal mental process which is difficult to capture. Isn't it a case of successful surgery (procedure wise) but the patient is dead?
Usability techniques have some external aspects (explicit ones) but there is whole lot of internal mental process that a usability designer/researcher goes through (the tacit aspects). This internal mental process deals with creativity and innovation, which is very difficult to institutionalize. Imitating only the external aspects is similar to believing that pipe smoking like Sherlock Homes can make you a better detective!
So, beware of the best usability practices!
The best usability practices can be disastrous if taken out of context. For example, in nature, the principle of 'variance' is contiguous with the principle of 'consistency'. Let me illustrate this. All humans have similar anatomical features (that is the consistency) but each one is born with different appearance and character (that is the variance). Such contradictions can coexist only in nature, which is the major source of creativity! But most 'user interface guidelines' or the popular 'usability heuristics' promote 'consistency and standards' in a rather lopsided manner. And all of this is being done in the name of institutionalization of best usability practices! Standard procedures in creativity are like crutches. Due to lack of self-conviction and reasoning, often one takes refuge to standards, to justify the design decisions. For a designer, the best way is to walk independently towards the objective.
In my opinion, 'empathy for users' is the nucleus of real User Centred Design (UCD) approach. The key issue is how to inspire empathy in designers ? Empathy and creativity both are most difficult to capture in a process and both are the products of internal mental process. Without the genuine empathy and creativity, all external procedures are futile.
Therefore, I summarize the principle of usability as under-
Empathy + Creativity = Usability
Above definition of usability is from the viewpoint of usability professionals. It describes what it takes to arrive at a usable design. This definition is articulated as above for the first time. All popular definitions of usability (such as the efficiency with which a user can perform required tasks with a product) are presented from the viewpoint of users. I close this discussion by suggesting an alternative-
'Usability Culture' is a better approach
over the 'Usability Process' for its institutionalization. Feedback at
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