usability: an FAQ

I get this ques­tion asked whenever I men­tion usab­il­ity. So this post will be my attempt to explain usab­il­ity to them.

What is usability?

I would define ‘usab­il­ity’ as ‘the art and sci­ence of mak­ing things usable’.

Isn’t every product usable?

Yes. Every product is usable. That’s why they are created/manufactured. This holds true for ser­vices also.

Then, how does usab­il­ity come into the picture?

Products are designed to sat­isfy a need or a want. A mobile phone allows you to be ‘con­tact­able’. A music sys­tem allows you to listen to music; a tele­vi­sion to watch live sports. These are the basic needs that a product ‘must’ sat­isfy. That’s why you buy a product. Usab­il­ity, as I men­tioned, makes these things usable, like say, a well-designed remote for your television/music sys­tem usu­ally by enhan­cing your inter­ac­tions with a product.

Let me put it in another way: Life is full of inter­ac­tions. You inter­act with vari­ous people and products daily. To make a call on your phone, you inter­act with your phone by press­ing a few keys to call someone or a single key to receive a call. Usab­il­ity is mak­ing these inter­ac­tions subtle or unnot­ic­able. Do you know how many keys you press to make a call? You never real­ise it. Every product has these inter­ac­tions. Some inter­ac­tions make you cringe like ‘being put on hold while try­ing to call cus­tomer care’. Some are com­pletely unnot­ic­able like call­ing someone on your mobile.

How is it both an art and a science?

It is a sci­ence as the pro­cess of mak­ing things usable is a sci­entific and meas­ur­able pro­cess. It is an art because a good usable product brings a bit of emo­tion in your inter­ac­tions with it.

I will be updat­ing this post frequently.