Amberlight unveils new look offices
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read press releaseUsability? HCI? Terms explained
Why all these terms?
A sprawl of labels and jargon is not helpful for the uninitiated, but often very telling to those on the inside of the debate. The ways in which we describe ourselves and our work can be highly political. Should only someone who is called a 'designer' be responsible for designing something? Is usability an expert field in its own right, or an area of learning to be applied by anybody? And so on.
A reckless attempt to summarise
Usability
Simple. This is a property of a system or product. If something is
usable it means that its target audience can reach their goals when using
it; there are no barriers to task completion. Usability companies focus
on this pure end, and ROI is often very easily demonstrated.
Information Architecture (IA)
Also easy. An IA is the structure, labelling and navigation paths
of an interactive system. A good IA will mean fewer usability problems
for users.
User Experience (UXP)
Users' behaviours and reactions towards a system or product. Usability
is definitely one factor that contributes to user experience, but only
alongside things like brand and emotional impact.
User-Centred Design (UCD)
Not a property, but a process. Established UCD techniques ensure
that products elicit good user experiences (that then result in improved
sales, and so on). This will usually mean that the system is usable in terms of task-completion.
However, in products such as video games, good usability is often
at odds with good user experience.
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
The psychological study of people and digital technologies. This field includes
academia and industry, and shares knowledge of practical methods that
may be used in UCD and also design principles that may be employed to
create good user experiences, and good usability.
Why is this important?
This may seem like the splitting of hairs that is sometimes perceived to be inevitable in such a highly analytical industry. However, the debate is deserved: the distinctions define job roles, organisational shape and - ultimately - the degree to which products are created in their users' interests.
The Amberlight approach is one of HCI knowledge informing and being infomed by our UCD practice, such that we can develop useful, accessible, usable and persuasive systems.