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Usability
Today, to finish up the week, I decided to take a topic that is as hard to nail down as Jello; usability. I am not a usability expert. But I do know when something doesn’t work.
I’d like to pick on Facebook today because it is often held up as an example of modern usability. Frankly, I find it lacking.
In the old days we studied GUI design. The intention was to use a common set of graphical elements working in the say way, so that users would understand how something worked simply because of the controls displayed on the screen. They could use things they learned in one program to assist them in using a completely different program.
- Check Boxes contained within a group box meant you could select zero, one or more of the options.
- Radio Buttons contained within a group box meant you could select only one of the many options.
- Tabs were used for organizing data when there was too much content to display on one screen.
Early browser based applications had to find different ways to provide the same kind of visual indications because the browsers didn’t have a common set of rich controls. Images were often used to emulate controls, but were slow and clunky. So, we moved away from menus, tab strips, data panels, and many other organizational tools because they didn’t perform well.
Instead of Menus we used buttons across the top of the page for Main Menu Options, and buttons along the side of the page for sub-menus. The side buttons might change depending on the button selected at the top of the page.
I looked at Facebook with new eyes today, and saw the same old thing we did a decade ago. The only difference is that with higher network speeds we can use fancy graphics to camouflage the fact that it is still the same old screen.
Actually, this works pretty well with simple programs…and maybe we should be keeping them simple. So, I tried to do something simple. I tried to create a question allowing a user to select one or more of a restricted set of responses. Guess what? You can’t do that.
Facebook questions have the capability of displaying the options with either a radio button, allowing the user to select one option, or with a check box, allowing the user to select more than one option. I wanted to ask the question, “What Relational Database Engine(s) do you prefer?”, and allow the user to select as many options as they liked. Here is my point…the usability factor…it can’t be done.
In order to have the question present Check Boxes, when you define the question you have to allow the list to be modified by those completing the question…in other words, they can add new options.
If you, instead, lock the list so the options are restricted to only those you have entered, then a radio button control is displayed beside the options, and those completing the question may only pick one of the options.
First of all, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to get check boxes instead of radio buttons. I don’t know, does the option "Allow Users To Add New Options" communicate to you that the list is mutually exclusive, or allows multi select? I have no idea how this is supposed to be more usable. Secondly, they are mixing two different requirements into a single parameter in their application.
If this is supposed to be easier for a non-computer-literate individual to use, I have no idea how that would work. It seems like there should be two parameters that are not related.
- Allow others to add options
- Allow only one choice when answering
It’s easy to pick on the designs of others. That really isn’t my goal today. I hope this little rant encourages you to think about how others see the things you design. IMHO I think it is nearly impossible for us to be objective regarding the usability of our designs.
What do you think? What is the value of usability? Do we put effort into training instead? What really are the key questions we need to be asking when developing our applications for usability? Send your ideas and experiences to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
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