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Ambrish Jha

Usability engineering is the process by which a product is designed and developed so that it fits with how people think, learn, behave and play.

Mumbai , Nov. 7

HOW often has one purchased utility products only to find them not meeting one's requirements? Washing machines, television sets, toasters, furniture and even vehicles have not always lived up to consumer expectations.

Often times consumers do not use many of the features in most of the products, especially the new integrated electronic gadgets.

This brings into picture the concept of usability of a product. "Usability engineering is the process by which a product is designed and developed so that it fits with how people think, learn, behave and play. Its roots can be traced to cognitive psychology,'' according to Mr Erric Schaffer, CEO, Human Factors International (HFI), a US-based usability service provider.

Psychologists have been employed since the 1940s to improve the design of everything from cockpit to toasters, to make them more user-friendly. However, experts believe that users are more tolerant towards consumer products but not so with products and services of the digital world.

All these were the focus of discussion at the `World Usability Day', a conference organised by HFI in Mumbai recently.

In recent years, usability has gone beyond being a mere concept and become an important part of software development, says Mr Schaffer. He looks at usability as an approach to product development that incorporates direct user feedback throughout the development cycle to reduce costs and create products and tools that meet user needs.

"Usability of software applications, corporate Web sites, e-commerce, or an Intranet is adequate or proper only when they have proper interface design. Interface is the part of the product that human interacts with,'' he said.

An example pointed out by him is the Web site of the President of India — http://presidentofindia.nic.in/. The name of the President is not mentioned on the home page. The surfer gets to know his name only on clicking `profile' option on the navigation panel.

There are numerous State Government Web sites, which lack usability.

User-centred approach takes into account human factors. According to Mr Schaffer, this is multi-disciplinary in nature and is characterised by active involvement of users and a clear understanding of user task requirements. Once usable technology comes into practice it reduces training costs, limits user risk and enhances performance.

According to him, many HFI clients have managed to double their sales using quality usability engineering.

The conference also focused on the fact that India needed to hone its competitive edge through better usability engineering and awareness. "Indian growth in the third wave will be fuelled by highly trained and creative staff. Usable design could become a crucial differentiator in keeping India the global leader in technology services,'' he said pointing out that although Infosys or Wipro are leaders in back office software " when it comes to forefront of customer facing sites and products, they are no match to IBM."

Ms Apala Lahiri Chavan, MD and Vice-President, Asia, HFI, said, "Indian technology companies have very good coding systems, widely acclaimed, but US-based companies take away many orders from them despite charging ten times more because of their proven usability and better interface record."

Mr Schaffer said that 10 per cent of the work force in any organisation should be devoted to usability engineering. The Indian IT sector, according to him, alone needs at least 60,000 usable professionals.

However, Mr Sreedhari Marri, Associate Vice-President and Head of Communication Design Group, Infosys, disagreed. "We have a different work environment and a different model. The US model is not appropriate in India," he said.

Infosys, with total staff strength of over 40,000 has just 100 people for usability engineering and it plans to add another 100 in next two years. Mr Marri agreed that there are `n' number of creative persons in India, who can do wonders with proper training. However he said, "It is our policy that we cannot recruit anyone who is not graduate. Hardly a few institutes produce quality usability professionals. We will have hard time in finding even 100 we need in next two years."

Ms Geeta Narayan, Head, Srishti School of Design, Bangalore, said, "Big companies do feel that creative people can be found only through reputed institutes. It is my life's mission to prove this notion wrong."

Usability may have cost benefits, roots in human factors, may adopt a bottom to top approach, but it still needs to gain ground. Mr Schaffer summed up this when he said, "Despite increased awareness companies often dedicate less than one per cent of their development staff to user-centred design issues."

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