Tom Stewart is Executive Chairman of System Concepts. He was a founder member of the Human Sciences and Advanced Technology (HUSAT) Research group at Loughborough University in 1970. In 1979, he joined the management consultancy Butler Cox and Partners and worked on assignments in Europe, North America and Australia where he was mainly concerned with making computer systems usable by and acceptable to non-computer staff at all levels.
He joined System Concepts in 1983, became Managing Director in 1986 and has managed the growth of the company to become one of the largest independent ergonomics and usability consultancies in Europe. He is active in British, European and International ergonomics and usability standards and chairs the ISO committee responsible for the ergonomics of human-system interaction (including ISO 9241 and ISO 13407). Tom was appointed President of the Ergonomics Society in 2008.
Why does Amazon not (appear to) care about accessibility?
There are some very simple techniques that digital marketers can use to check how accessible their communications are to people with disabilities, so I was rather surprised to receive this email from Amazon:
World Standards Day 2011: What does it mean for usability?
14 October 2011 is World Standards Day where the three major international standards bodies IEC, ISO and ITU celebrate the contribution that standards make to international commerce. The theme this year is ‘Creating Confidence Globally’ and it strikes me that this is particularly relevant to usability.
Most creators of digital products design their products to be usable: effective, efficient and satisfying. Although sometimes this is hard to believe, I do not think anyone deliberately ignores their users.
However, what some designers quite frequently fail to do is to apply current usability best practice or test out their products before launch. When real users find the products difficult or cumbersome to use or fail to get the desired results and stop using the product, this can come as a surprise to the unwary designer (and their bosses who see the costs of their investment rising and the benefits diminishing).
DIY usability assessments for expert users
I firmly believe that observing real users doing real tasks is the 'gold standard' for usability testing, particularly when the designers observe it themselves and see the problems only real users can find.
However, sometimes full user testing falls outside the budget and the project manager will decide to use an expert usability assessment instead.
This works well for websites where an expert usability consultant can put themselves in the shoes of the user and work through typical tasks identifying critical usability issues.
But what if the system supports far more complex tasks, which users take years to learn?
Who needs an iPad?
In my Econsultancy blog in January 2010, I said that the newly announced iPad would succeed because of its usability. At that time, the technology press was undecided about whether the iPad would succeed and I was accused of being a ‘dribbling Mac fanboy’.
Five accessibility myths demolished
I was pleased my grumpy old man blog post on usability myths really sparked some interest, with most people agreeing, although a few seemed eager to point out that I’d just ‘critiqued’ them rather than ‘demolished’ them.
I guess I’ll be similarly accused of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story this time. Still, I’ll take the risk and attempt to knock some accessibility myths on the head.
Top five usability myths demolished
I guess it’s grumpy old man time but I am really beginning to get hacked off with general ignorance (with apologies to Stephen Fry) about usability.
So rather than just grumble in the corner, I have decided to demolish five of the most persistent myths about usability.
The iPad as a serious business tool for toddlers
The iPad is being promoted as a product for all the family, so how does it perform against standard usability criteria when the user is just 17 months old?
Having recently spent a fortnight with my young grandson, Finley, in the USA, we offered to share our experience of the iPad as a serious business tool for toddlers with the UK Usability Professionals Association at their recent PechaKucha Night.
Usability or interaction design: who does what
I was recently asked about the apparent confusion in the digital design community about who does what. I mainly talk about usability and user experience as I believe these best encapsulate what matters to users – the total experience with a product, system or service.
However, other agencies see interaction design as the core service, which only bothers me because I think it runs the risk of confusing clients. In my view, it’s really quite straightforward.
Tips for usability testing with children
Children represent a huge market for digital products yet most are designed by and for adults. Even those which are targeted at children often get it embarrassingly wrong – like dads trying to be ‘cool’. But all is not lost. We have found that user research and testing with children opens up a whole new perspective, helping adult designers to see the world through the eyes of a child.
Our user research with children has ranged from social networking and mobile phones to online games and websites targeted at everyone from toddlers to teens.
Here we share some of the lessons we have learnt in adapting our usability research and testing methods for children...
Usability, usability, usability: why the iPad will succeed
Like a staggeringly large number of people round the world, I have been eagerly awaiting the launch of what is now the Apple iPad. I even followed a live blog to get the latest blow by blow account of Steve Job’s presentation.
Of course tablets are not new but there are three reasons why I think Apple will succeed this time and they all link to usability. Not the ‘usability is just making it easy’ type of usability but the ISO 9241-11 version, where usability is defined as: effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction.
