Daniel Hardy

I read some where you can tell a lot about a designer by the way their computer’s desktop looks. Interesting idea although something tells me it is not exactly accurate. Anyways I decided it could be a fun continuous post to show the various states of my desktop as they occur.It is also a nice way to demonstrate one of my favorite parts of being an Ubuntu user, I cancustomize it anyway I want.

[Update: 08/01/2007] This is a shot of my desktop looking like OSX. It isn’t perfect but pretty close. The window animations are similar to OSX as well thanks to Beryl.

What is the user experience of usability? This question has been rolling around in my feeble mind over the last several days and I am yet to find an adequate answer.Usability is like cellphone production. The primary stake holder is not always the end user. Cellphone manufacturersrarely sell their phones directly to the public. Instead they sell them to a service provider who in turn sells them to the public. Usability functions in the same way in that, those who usability must answer to are generally not the customer. More often it is the business group or development leadership for that application that ultimately prioritizes the value of usability.

This creates an interesting situation where the primary concern of a usability specialist (end user) is often not the primary concern for the person making the final call. The difficult piece is that users generally don’t understand all variables that go into building a product. If usability gets cut to meet a deadline or for simplicity in production the end user may get a lower quality product. In the end, the user doesn’t directly care if it was easier to build or makes it to market three days sooner. All that matters is that the product works as they desire.

With this in mind can the user experience of usability be improved there by improving the end product? I think the ultimate answer to this is - it depends on your companies protocol and priorities but there is always some room for improvement. Realistically usability must strive to find a harmony between what is right for the user and what is right for the business group. In my opinion this is the definition of a usability specialists. They become a mediator attempting to balance what is best for the business while safe guarding what is best for the end user. Unfortunately these two often conflict making the usability specialist the outsider when it comes time to deal with the stake holders.

What can be done to improve the user experience of usability? This is hard to say and perhaps a topic for another day.

I made it out of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness alive. I have upload a few pictures to my Flickr Account from the trip in case anyone is interested in what it is like to “rough” it.