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I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I'm Lisa Halabi, the new addition to the happy gang that is called The Usability Company (TUC). I hark from a background in usability and ergonomics. I approached TUC already knowing Marty Carroll from our shared time spent on the Usability Professionals Association Committee and Catriona Campbell from various speaking events. It really is a very small field, but getting bigger by the day. It was obvious to me that TUC are going places and have a good reputation in the field.
After a brief orientation I find myself already working on a large Usability Evaluation for a major central government web site. Nothing like being dropped running then!
So, it's always a bit daunting when you start at a new company. It's the little things that can make you look really daft, like not knowing where the toilets are or how to operate the door's intercom system. This got me to thinking: it's a bit like usability really. Technology has the amazing ability to make users feel incapable or embarrassed, especially when trying something for the first time. Yet I'm always amazed at the ease with which people will blame themselves for not being able to do something. It is human nature to believe that we must be at fault or that we are in some way below average intelligence if something doesn't work like we expected. I have a mantra; there are no bad users, just badly designed interfaces. If a user can't easily navigate their way around or find what they're after quickly and efficiently, then the chances are the design is at fault, not them.
It's a good job I'm so passionate about making things simple and easy to use. I often find myself getting increasingly frustrated with new technologies, which just don't seem to work the way I expect them too. Often they're too complicated and too much bother to figure out. It just doesn't seem worth it sometimes. In our busy hectic lifestyles most people don't have the time to read the manual, look at the help pages or even go for training. Even if they did, who wants to! Wouldn't it be better if things were so intuitive and easy to use that they could be picked up as you go along? Good design is invisible, you don't notice it when it works, but when it doesn't you soon know about it. My job is to make technology invisible so you don't even notice how easy it was. Then I know I'm doing my job well. If you're not thinking about it, then it's worked.
So I'm happy to be aboard and look forward to working with some of you in the future.
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