Usability; crowd sourcing

Anyone who has ever tried to follow instructions for putting something together, installing something, or even using modern technology can attest to the fact that usability studies are extremely useful and not done often enough.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. I took the Professional Development Seminar on usability studies this semester, and the way usability studies are conducted by "professionals" in that field are expensive and time-consuming. They involve video taping, think-aloud protocols, encoding, and statistical data analysis. They were really hot in the late 1990s, according to the U of Chicago prof who taught the seminar, but they've fallen out of favor.

I think some companies might have thrown out the baby with the bath. Sure, encoding video and audio tapes can provide a great deal of useful information, but there's no reason not conduct basic usability studies that can be completed inexpensively and relatively easily. How much would it have cost Apple to have a few young and a few older secretaries or others who were not familiar with the equipment try to turn figure out how to maneuver an iPod (especially how to shut the darn thing off)? How much would it have cost them to ask a few middle aged people to read the serial number off the back of the thing? (It's small and white against a chrome surface; it's basically illegible for anyone over 20)? Look at the usability study for the Purdue OWL. I dare say they got quite a bit of useful material without video cameras and think-aloud protocols. People need to approach these issues in a manner of "How can we do this most productively?" instead of "How can I turn this concept into a six-figure salaried position?" Consumers would be better off.

Another factor is the increasing lack of interest in providing any kind of support or customer service in American corporations. Try getting answers or help from ANYONE these days. The 800-number system is saving companies a bundle, I'm sure, but how much longer are we as consumers going to put up with not being able to get reliable information or talk to anyone who knows anything about what we're asking? I honestly don't know why we tolerate it, and it's only a matter of time before some enterprising company recognizes the discontent and sweeps in and offers service. What Japan did to the US auto industry in the 1989s will be NOTHING compared to that, and I can't wait for it to happen!

The crowdsourcing concept is, of course, running creatives out of jobs. It was inevitable. If it becomes possible to do something technologically, it's only a matter of time before employers demand it. Companies want the latest thing as quickly and inexpensively as they can get it. Why WOULD anyone go to the hassle of hiring a photographer, setting up a location, hiring a model or models, getting the processing done, etc. when they can dowload a stock photo from Microsoft for free? With the magic of Photoshop, you can download a photo and alter it to add your product in about an hour, compared to the week and half you need to have a professional photographer shoot a photo, and it costs NOTHING compared to the hundreds of dollars a professional shot would cost. When I think of all the time and money the last company I was marketing manager for wasted on photos for direct-mail ads and compare it to how fast and easy it would be to do that stuff on desktop with Photoshop now, it makes me laugh.

I recently learned about something else that someone with savvy can offer a small company in order to get a marketing position. There are FREE communication management systems that a marketing person can use to set up various kinds of forms. Engineers and product designers can type in the product specs, the marketing person can write up some copy and -- again with FREE software -- it can be incorporated into a C or reverse C Web layout in nothing flat.

With some practice with various computer programs, an enterprising person who really needs a job could walk into a small company and say, "Let me show you how I can replace your entire marketing department for a fraction of the cost." Of course, it would be great if that savings would be passed on to consumers or used to increase the wages and benefits of the line workers, but that's not going to happen in THIS culture.

The more technology can do, the less we need people to do. That's the culture we've created and are perpetrating.