Comments on: Expert interview: David Hamill, Good Usability

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:29:27 +0000

Hi David. Corporations have a multitude of challenges and yes one of them is web governance. It is a lack of governance that often causes the problems that end in another costly redesign a few years down the road.

By: David Hobbs

David Hobbs — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:51:36 +0000

I agree that fitness to purpose is key, and that doesn’t necessarily mean simplication (although unnecessary complexity is bad of course too). One point to consider is that strategy and usability research/design isn’t enough: many corporations have issues with their Web Governance which makes even implementing (or, the bigger issue, maintaining) the plan difficult.

By: Tracey Grady

Tracey Grady — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:16:26 +0000

David provides great insights here, but it’s his final point that resonates most for me as a web designer. I have encountered companies who expect speculative design options before committing to work with a designer, but everyone gets sold short by this process.

By: Mark Palmer

Mark Palmer — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:14:40 +0000

I see what you are driving at David although I don’t agree that accessibility is simply a subset of usability. Accessibility issues must be overcome long before disabled users can even think about usability issues.

In my experience, disabled users often encounter all of the same usability issues as able-bodied users. However, they also encounter a further layer of issues caused purely by the technical implementation of the design or the functionality.

That said, this small fact doesn’t detract from the fact that this is a very good article.

By: David Hamill

David Hamill — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:25:21 +0000

Hi Mark, I agree with you. But I think you’re approaching usability as the process of making things easy to use. What I’m saying is that usability is actually about it being fit for purpose. That includes being accessible as well as being easy to use.