Collaboration is beautiful isn’t it? It’s pretty awesome when two disciplines come together to produce a finished product that may have otherwise been unachievable. But, sometimes two disciplines are blended together without us even taking notice. Even then, the end result is something to be proud of. In this case I’m talking about Usability.
Usability and Human Centered Design
What is usability you ask? According to Wikipedia, “Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.” The term usability is most commonly used in Human Centered Design (or Human Computer Interaction, Human Factors, User Experience, etc).
The easiest way to understand usability is through examples. How easy to use is your TV’s remote control? If I wanted you to retweet this post without leaving this page, could you do it? (Go ahead and try. Seriously, scroll up and do it.) How many buttons do you have to press to record a video on a Flip camera? Does your doorknob work properly?
Here’s how to look at Human Centered Design. If it’s done well, you don’t notice it. If your TV remote is intuitive, you simply use it and go about your day. You use your doorknob daily (I hope) yet probably never realize that someone determined how high it should be. You just use it and it just works!
How do Marketing and Human Centered Design Intertwine?
Human Centered Design is involved in various different products from conception through product launch. It involves research, wireframes and mockups, usability testing, design, and repetition. The same can be said for marketing and advertising.
Once again I’ll use a few examples. There’s a rule of thumb that says a billboard shouldn’t have more than seven words. Why is that? Because the user – the person who will read the billboard – is driving. How much can they possibly read while going 70 miles an hour on the interstate? We’re skimmers anyway, so your message better be concise regardless of the marketing medium you use.
Both disciplines, Marketing and HCD, should conduct a good amount of research from the beginning. Who’s the target audience? What is our customer base? Another area where these professions intertwine are focus groups ands usability tests. In marketing, agencies use focus groups to test ads and gauge the target audience’s reaction to them. In HCD, usability tests are conducted to see how easy a consumer can use a product.
And perhaps the most obvious similarity is in website design. How easy can users get the information they need from your website?
Is it so simple, it’s complex? Maybe so. I like to think of it as advanced common sense. No matter how you look at it, HCD affects our daily lives through the products and devices we use. What are some of the daily devices you use that are designed so well, you don’t even think about them? Do you interact with any products that seem like they could have used more testing before being released? Did you realize that some of the products you use are actually designed and tested by an HCD team?
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