How Usable is Your User Interface?
I attended the Agile Usability session at SD West. It was presented by Mickey Phoenix and Jeff Lopez-Stuit, both from SolutionsIQ. The central idea of their talk was how to create a superior user interface when short and quick Agile iterations budget zero time for upfront analysis of the user experience. Indeed the entire discipline of User Experience (UX) engineering does not seem to fit with rapid application development methods like Agile.
In the talk, Jeff mentioned the Ten Usability Heuristics defined by usability guru Jakob Nielsen:
- Visibility of system status
- Match between system and the real world
- User control and freedom
- Consistency and standards
- Error prevention
- Recognition rather than recall
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- Aesthetic and minimalist design
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
- Help and documentation
They are not specific recommendations for the layout of your user interface but are higher level principles to consider and abide by to create a product that is easy to use. The goal is for your user to “become one with tasks” that the software implements.
These heuristics are a valuable tool to use when reviewing the user interface of your software between development iterations and before release to your customers and users. Make sure your global software development team is aware of them as well so they can make good decisions when creating your software.
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