I am instead increasingly horrified that this was supposedly the result of over a year of design. And not just a bunch of nerdy engineers — as much as the end products bug me, I forgive 37signals and similar engineering-driven cultures for this reason.
But Facebook claims to be getting design centric. They have a design channel on their blog, for example. They did user testing, and apparently enough of it to change the design as a result. And what bugs me is that I am also an interactive designer, and do everything I can to not fall into the traps they are currently in. These sorts of failures, with that sort of money thrown at it, make me sad to go off and sell the same services to someone.
This is by no means the first time I've seen such problems, but it's so high profile I think this serves as a teachable moment. Good usability is the supposed baseline goal for any product, at least one with a design team behind it. A perfectly valid definition is that usability measures or improves (depending on whether you are a researcher or designer):
- Effectiveness - can users complete tasks, achieve goals with the product, i.e. do what they want to do?
- Efficiency - how much effort do users require to do this? (Often measured in time)
- Satisfaction – what do users think about the products ease of use?
Usefulness brings the usability goals back to the user's life. It's goal-centric, with the reminder that user goals are a lot bigger than any corporate goals. They involve their locale, society, culture, ethnicity, social standing, and their life goals. And don't think that a social media site isn't deeply tied to real world influences like social standing.
User goals are never going to be "create an account with site x." Ever. So a first step for any designer is to try to understand how business goals (e.g. increasing registrations) can work with existing user goals. There are lots of ways to do this, but even performing these exercises are pointless if you don't have the right approach and mindset.
Responsibility is about making sure the design, business or technical solution is correct for the users and the company, and not evil. I wrote about a particularly clear failure of this a couple years ago but there are many more subtle variations. Back to Facebook, if there is this much ruckus over privacy policies, that should have emerged heuristically, in needs research, in usability testing or someone should have woken up at 2 am and gone "wait, what are we doing?!" And then worked on persuading everyone else to find the right solution before it's a PR disaster.
I'll also remind everyone that these goals are your responsibility within the organization. While I didn't mention it specifically, collaboration is all about making the right choices. If the product is drifting, it's your job as a designer to bring it back, and explicitly tell everyone why it's a problem.
And yes, I do walk the talk. While it can be tricky depending on the relationship, both for Little Springs clients and when an employee at Sprint, I have stood up and tried (often successfully) to keep products useful and both morally and legally responsible. It can be tough, but it's easier than watching the product die, or than answering questions from lawyers and federal agencies.
What are the consequences of bad design on your product, and what are you doing about it?
Hi.. first thanks for sharing the article. Really a usefull one to know about the Effectiveness, Efficiency, Satisfaction.