So things are a bit toasty in IA-land. Meanwhile, over on TECHWRL, some of the writers are still venting that content is more important than style. To quote Cher from the movie Clueless: As if!

I very much like Hedley's response about it being like a three-legged stool:

I find discussions about which is most important, content, layout, or navigation rather pointless. Why propose useless either-or competitions? Ask yourself 'Which is the most important leg on a three-legged stool?'. ... As my dear old mother was wont to tell me at her knee, 'The most important aspect of documentation is completeness, accuracy, understandability, accessibility, and attractiveness.'

And seconded! Given that it's been two weeks, excuse me for offering another gratuitous plug for our forthcoming book and in particularly, Whitney Quesenbery's chapter on the "5 E's of Usability." Her model is based upon the ISO 9241 standard which describes usability as:

The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.

Whitney takes this definition and expands upon it, and comes up with her list for the five characteristics of usability:

• Effective
• Efficient
• Engaging
• Error Tolerant
• Easy to Learn

Now here's the trick. Any given product is very unlikely to be completely successful in all five of these characteristics. (Remember the adage: "Cheap, fast, good: pick two."). This is how business and technical constraints are worked into the user-centered design process. See Whitney's Using the 5 E's and her What does usability mean? for more.

My point for sharing this is that it this is how you get from something like a blanket (and hardly useful) "content is king" statement to a concept that is actually practical in the real world.

03:32 PM | linkme | home