Focused on the process of turning high-tech
ideas into successful products that mere
humans can understand, learn, and use effectively.

Utility + Usability + Learnability

In over twenty years of experience with high-tech products, TFH has found that these are the three legs of an imaginary stool that make or break a product. In an industry obsessed with IPO's and instant riches, it is often believed that if the product attains utility, users will put up with usability flaws and learnability difficulties.

Not so and not any more! A good user experience, that much-maligned and often misused phrase, can only be obtained by keeping the right balance among these three legs. If so, why do so many products suffer from lack of balance that leads to a total crash in the marketplace. There are two reasons for this lopsided state of affairs:

1. Lack of a well-established process
2. Absence of well-assigned responsibilities

1. Lack of a Well-Established Process

More often than not, high-tech products are the outcome of mad races by engineering teams eager to prove that they have the next great technology. These teams believe that they are designers who are capable of designing and implementing the right product with the latest and greatest technology. So, they apply the engineering methodologies that they know so well and hire a graphic designer, long after all engineering decisions have been made, to slap on some visual interest to their unchangeable product.

The sad truth is that engineering methodologies are not empirical, that is, they do not include input from the people that the product is intended for. And even with a team that has somewhat and somehow been convinced that this input is important, the typical scenario is to run some user tests when it is too late and what is learned in the test cannot be implemented because it would greatly affect the schedule of the product.

The moral of this situation is that the high-tech industry needs to change its process to a more user-oriented one, from conception to specification to final polish. It is a tall order, but as the industry matures and becomes more market driven, as opposed to engineering driven, it is also inevitable. Those who do not change their process will simply not survive.

2. Absence of Well-Assigned Responsibilities

A well-defined process requires implementers who understand the various stages of the process and vigilantly carry out what each stage requires. The discussion of whether engineers need to be retrained or marketing experts need to step in could go on forever, while great product ideas linger. What will bring about the much-needed change in the industry is a top-down approach by the general managers or chief executive officers who will insist on the empirical approach every step of the way.

The good news is that there is a very well-trained cadre of professionals that hail from a discipline known as computer-human interaction design (CHI). They understand the empirical process and would make excellent advocates and overseers of the process. The bad news is that these professionals have by and large been treated as adjuncts to the main engineering effort at most places (a few companies excepted). Because of this treatment as second-class citizens, these professionals have also not stepped up to the plate to take on the responsibility of becoming key figures in the definition of a product.

The Process for a Well-Balanced Product

The empirical process advocated here does not minimize the creativity in both initial product conceptualization and continuous product enhancement. What it does prevent is the technology for the sake of technology. In order to have technology that is designed for humans, it is imperative to bring in the humans to establish the utility of the product at the beginning (market research) and get hands-on input every step of the way to develop the optimal usability and learnability (user testing).