I was at the UMO: Bad Design Expo’08 held recently on the occasion of ‘World Usability Day’. The expo was on badly designed products. The aim was to highlight ill designed products that we use in our daily lives. They were not software products but simple products like leaky pens, sandals with heels and so on. Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can use a particular tool or product.
According to usability philosophy, if a user has problem using a product then it is not the user’s lack of knowledge of the product but the product itself is badly designed.After going to the expo my perspective on things has changed. I look at objects that I use every day in a new light. I actually went to the expo to look at the cartoons. The theme for cartoons was global warming. Some of them were witty and creative. But these thought provoking presentations on usability were a bonus.
I strongly believe that students are not aware of Usability. There are so many students out there who are very creative but are not aware of this field. When people talk about jobs in the software industry, they usually think of software development or testing. Many do not know about usability or for that matter technical writing too. I wish there was a way to provide proper career guidance to students across towns and villages in India.
Something to think about
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