Improving Software Usability?

kevin_conaway asks: "Software usability is one of the hardest things to get right. Writing good, usable software is the holy grail of software development, yet few developers give it more than an afterthought. As a professional developer, I delight in writing software for other developers but shy away from writing an interface that the end users will see. What resources/books are recommended for improving your Human Computer Interaction (HCI) / software usability skills?"

Interface design != Software design

[teh moges]

As much as everyone here loves to create their own programs and websites, for professional jobs, it must be known that those that create the software should NOT be responsible for designing the interface. Its a challenging field. While almost everybody here can create a good design without thinking, creating a great design is alot harder. Its the same with everything. Using certain software, ANYONE can create a good website. It takes skill to create the great ones though. Using certain software, the company I work for has their interns creating press releases. They work, but they aren't great. Anyone can design a logo, but theres a reason the big companies hire design artists. The very same is true in interface design. If you are worried about it and your budget can afford it (it should be budgeted for anyway), hire an interface designer.

Christopher Alexander is also a good read

[2nd Post!]

There is information [wikipedia.org] about him on the web, and he has a few good books such as "Notes on the Synthesis of Form".

Why do I mention him? To a certain extent, especially to users of software, the interface IS the product. The interface is the only way they will ever use any of the features, so if something is hidden, hard to find, hard to use, or designed to be misused, then that feature will never be of any prominence.

So remember to design the interface around your users and your problem. Your program is literally the interface that sits between the users and the problem, a bridge as it were.

Re:Interface design != Software design

[cgenman]

As much as everyone here loves to create their own programs and websites, for professional jobs, it must be known that those that create the software should NOT be responsible for designing the interface.

While this may be true in some sense, things will still rely heavily upon implementation architecture. Good user interface is NOT about a pretty front end, but about a logical hierarchical control layout and a minimalist featureset. On a PC, a highly usable program should be possible without a single piece of art. The programmer should work with, not for, the designer and artist to create a great interface.

Really, one of the key parts of a great user interface is sending people home. Figure out the bare minimum of what you need, implement that in the most straightforward logical fashion, and go home to your wife / husband / slashdot. It will still have a learning curve for people who aren't working on it all day every day (like the developers), but it will be far more comprehensible than the average "let's pack every feature in" mess.

As a tech artist friend of mine likes to say "I want one button that says 'Do what I want,' and I want it to work."

A few simple guidelines

[c0d3h4x0r]

Just by following a few simple common-sense guidelines, you can drastically improve the usability of any given software:

• Simplicity: keep things as simple as possible. Fewer options/settings/etc means less to have to figure out. If you must provide an option for something, supply a reasonable default. The user should never have to configure a bazillion options before being able to just use the program.
  
  
• Sane hierarchical organization: The human mind can only processes and deal with the external world by grouping, categorizing, and thinking of a collection of items as a single "chunk". So sanely organize options in hierarchical menus; sanely organize navigation into a tree-like path; etc.
  
  
• Direct manipulation: users always expect to be able to direclty manipulate an on-screen object by clicking directly on it, dragging it, etc, so design your UI that way. (Example that violates this: a listbox with items in it, with buttons underneath that must be clicked to act on the selected item, rather than allowing the user to right-click on the item itself to get a pop-up menu.)
  
  
• Data transparency: there should always be a way in the UI for the user to clearly see the information they want organized in the way they want it, and it should never be a mystery to the user where some calculated field came from or how it was calculated.
  
  
• Terminology: keep technical lingo out of the program's UI as much as possible, and make all text and phrasing clear to non-technical users. Whenever an error occurs, present a dialog that clearly explains the nature of the error and which also suggests a course of action that might rectify the error.
  
  
• Real-time on-screen feedback: when a user performs an action, they need immediate feedback to know whether the action succeeded or failed. Real-time responsiveness is super important. If a user-initiated action will take longer than about 0.1 seconds to achieve the ultimate result, then you need to put up a suitable progress indicator that updates itself responsively as the operation proceeds. If the user clicks on something and they don't realize the system is just busy processing their request, they are likely to click on it again and again without realizing the first time succeeded. (Example that violates this: you launch an app from the Windows XP start menu... you don't hear the hard drive churning or see a hard drive light because you are remoted in via Remote Desktop... no visual on-screen cue is given that the app is actually loading up... so you try to launch it again... in the end you get 2 or 3 instances of the app).
  
  
• Don't assume user expertise: always assume your user knows NOTHING about computers.
  
  
• Scenario-based design: don't merely dump a bundle of functionality on the user; give them a program that guides them through all the steps needed to solve their scenario. It's the difference between handing someone a graphing calculator and handing them a math expert.
  
  
• Users won't read, and shouldn't have to: users don't read text -- it's a proven fact. Nor should they generally have to. For most people, reading is an unpleasant expenditure of valuable energy and time that could instead be used getting something done. If you need more than one brief sentence in the UI to explain something, then your UI is too unusable and you're just leaning on text (that won't get read) as a crutch. Users should be able to jump in and start being productive with your software without having to read a manual, README file, or any other long-winded explanation whatsoever.
  
  

Re:A few simple guidelines

[stymyx]

And, most importantly:

• Software model should conform to user model: Always have the program do what the user expects [joelonsoftware.com].

Re:A few simple guidelines

[isj]

Don't assume use expertise

I am one of the few people that have read the CUA guidelines, and they make at lot of sense, although many of the specific details are now outdated. The CUA guidelines say that you have to first decie if the UI is going to be a standard UI where it has the conform to system defaults and in general user's expectations; or if the UI is a so-called walk-up-and-use UI (such as ATM interfaces). The difference is that the standard UIs have to conform to standards but can contain many features, while the walk-up-and-use UI has to be simplistic and require absolutely no learning, but can break any standard as long as it makes it simpler to use.

So the guideline should be:

• Know your users: Don't assume your users have no expertise, but neither assume that they have. Find out. This impacts not only the program UI but also the documentation. If you do not know your users (or the intended target group) then the program is always too simple and to complex at the same time.
  

Re:A few simple guidelines

[Haeleth]

Just by following a few simple common-sense guidelines, you can drastically improve the usability of any given software.

You appear to be claiming that the guidelines you quote are universal and apply to every conceivable bit of software. I would beg to differ.

Simplicity: keep things as simple as possible. Fewer options/settings/etc means less to have to figure out.

Photoshop would not be a popular program if it only provided the five most common graphical operations and only let you configure three aspects of each. It's successful precisely because it's insanely configurable.

In other words, while there is indeed a place for simplistic software (witness the popularity of basic photo editing programs that literally only offer crop, size, and red-eye removal), it is by no means desirable for all software to be simplistic. Complex tasks require complex interfaces. Simplistic interfaces limit users to the options you have chosen, and I find it hard to believe that you can imagine all the possible ways a user will want to use your program.

Don't assume user expertise: always assume your user knows NOTHING about computers.

You cannot possibly believe this applies to all software. Are you seriously saying that the writers of a kernel debugger should assume their users know nothing about computers?

Scenario-based design: don't merely dump a bundle of functionality on the user; give them a program that guides them through all the steps needed to solve their scenario. It's the difference between handing someone a graphing calculator and handing them a math expert.

If a mathematician asks for a graphing calculator, you think they should instead be handed another mathematician?

Yes, simple tasks should have simple interfaces. Anyone should be able to answer emails, browse the web, write letters, keep an address book and diary, and print photos from their digital camera.

But that does not mean that simplicity should always be prized over functionality. Some things in life are tough. I've never driven an 18-wheeler: I would not expect to be able to sit down in one and take it across the continent. I've never filed a lawsuit: I would not expect to be able to waltz into a court and win a billion-dollar case. Why should I expect computers to be any different? If users won't read manuals, that is the users' problem.

Re:Making data export difficult or expensive

[Jeff Molby]

I can't stand software that makes it extremly difficult to get your data out of

It sounds like you're pretty bitter. Do you think software inherently comes with import/export functionality and these developers take the time to hide it from you, just so they can extract more money?

Import/export functionality takes time. Time costs money. It is also something that most users don't care about. Sounds like a premium feature to me.

BTW, If import/export functionality happens to be especially important to you, it would behoove you to test it out when you're evaluating the software in the first place.

Holy Grail

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, usable software is not the holy grail of development, because it's been done. Holy grail means something everyone wants to find but no one has.

Re:Users are the best resource

[rossifer]

Often the users are better UI developers than programmers are.

I might say that each user brings a different perspective to the discussion, and maintaining perspective on the UI they're writing is a skill that is very difficult for most developers to maintain.

Restates, I disagree that the user is a better UI designer, but instead, they can help developers get outside their normal "deep in the guts" perspective. I intensely dislike the assumption that developers are "bad at UI development". Most are actually pretty good at identifying poor designs and making them better.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Gnome Usability Report

[pugdk]

I couldn't agree more. Trying to tie usability and gnome together is like saying oil mixes well with water...

Gnome usability makes me puke, this socalled "linux desktop" does not remotely do what anyone would want a desktop shell to do - hence when we are talking about gnome, we should talk about useless instead of usability.. *sighs*.

KDE now, here we have a consistent user interface, usability is high and you can actually get it to function as you would like - heck, this even goes a long way for Windows (XP) as well.

So yeah, lets talk usability in terms of KDE or windows or whatever else, but definitely NOT gnome.

-pug

Re:here are a couple: GIMP?

[vanyel]

I went and fetched the latest gimp, and it looks like it actually supports both X's now, that's an improvement, and there are things I like about it, like the markers on the edges showing where your pointer is.

The main thing I've always disliked about GIMP is that it's too busy and stuff is scattered all over. It's a bit overwhelming for someone starting with it, a bunch of icons that really don't mean much unless you already know what they mean or spend a lot of time mousing over. Since I've used lite versions of photoshop for a decade now, it wasn't worth the effort of jumping the hurdle.

On the other hand, it's really not much different than the little side menus photoshop puts up (which is another change I'm not sure I like in Elements, building them all into a frame around a hole where your image goes), so I'm not sure why they're more daunting.

Maybe it's just inertia... Now that I just spent the bucks on Elements a week or so ago, I guess I'll try using Gimp again ;-)