Usability.... Waste or Important?

In the era where technologies are seeking new comforts for consumers/users. Is it worthwhile to design a product without keeping in mind user's acceptance? Is the poorly designed interfaces are the reason why so many products are never used? Will the poorly designed products have any future?

Mr. Gaurav Awasthi, Mass Communication student says - While surfing few shopping and job sites he had a terrible experience to locate the relevant links to manage his account. Are these sites designed in accordance to user's skills, experience and expectations?

The competition is growing rapidly and users are getting more and more options everyday. So in this scenario will the companies giving least priority to user experience can have a wider reach?

Few important factors should be taken care of while designing a new product-

• User has limited short term memory
• User are prone to commit mistakes with complex designs
• Different users have different capabilities and skillsets
  
• Users have different preferences and requirements
  
• There should be minimal surprises for user while using a product
• How the information should be served to users

Some suggestion should be taken care while designing-

• UI design process should involve user analysis, system prototype and evaluation.
• UI prototyping should be a staged process with early paper prototypes.
• Colours should be used sparingly maintaining the consistency.

" If Functionality is what technology do, then INTERFACE is how user interacts with it."

- Thanks, Akash Srivastava