Quotes About Usability

#1. A technical insight is a new way of applying technology or design that either drives down the cost or increases the functions and usability of the product by a significant factor.

Eric Schmidt

#2. The argument is not between adding features and simplicity, between adding capability and usability. The real issue is about design: designing things that have the power required for the job while maintaining understandabili ty, the feeling of control, and the pleasure of accomplishment.

Donald A. Norman

#3. A painting doesn't have to have a real usability other than you looking at it. Obviously, a car, an engine, or battery has to fit people's needs.

Henrik Fisker

#4. Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience.

Jakob Nielsen

#5. The best-known definition of usability is the one from ISO, the International Organization for Standardization (9241-11): "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.

Carol Barnum

#6. The less concerned with aesthetics and usability these friends and family members are, the more easily they navigate sites and applications I can't make head nor hair of. Like the ex-girlfriend who mastered Ebay.

Jeffrey Zeldman

#7. Usability methods are like sandpapering a chair. If you are making a chair, the sandpaper can make it smoother. But no amount of sandpaper will turn a chair into a table.

Alan Cooper

#8. If you don't have people that care about usability on your project, your project is doomed.

Jeff Atwood

#9. Inadequate use of usability engineering methods in software development projects have been estimated to cost the US economy about $30 billion per year in lost productivity.

Jakob Nielsen

#10. Usability rules the web. Simply stated, if the customer can't find a product, then he or she will not buy it.

Jakob Nielsen

#11. Behavioral design is all about feeling in control. Includes: usability, understanding, but also the feel.

Donald A. Norman

#12. Findability precedes usability. In the alphabet and on the Web. You can't use what you can't find.

Peter Morville

#13. Far too few designers put any thought into usability, ending up with a great product that's completely inaccessible.

James Dyson

#14. Usability is like love. You have to care, you have to listen, and you have to be willing to change. You'll make mistakes along the way, but that's where growth and forgiveness come in.

Jeffrey Zeldman

#15. When you go to a site, you usually run into usability problems pretty quickly. They're not hidden. They're not complicated. They're not baffling. They were in the design or crept into the design.

Steve Krug

#16. Workflow and usability are not afterthoughts; they impact the core of any project and dictate how it should be engineered.

Ryan Holmes

#17. I specialise in taking teams of designers, psychologists, usability experts, sociologists and ethnographers into the field. It's called 'corporate anthropology,' but personally I'm more comfortable with 'design research,' because I'm not an anthropologist by training.

Jan Chipchase

#18. Usability is not only about ease of use but also about bringing something meaningful, having an objective in common with the user.

Marcus Osterberg

#19. I don't think there are as many usability issues as there are tactical or strategic decisions related to whether incorporating social networking into your site is going to help or hurt.

Steve Krug

#20. Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability - they should go hand in hand.

Donald Norman

#21. 80% of the mistakes you will make in information architecture can be caught if you bring in a great usability expert from the beginning.

Roger Black

#22. The empirical usability of the sacred ceremonial words makes both the speaker and listener believe in their corporeal presence.

Theodor Adorno

#23. There's almost always a plausible rationale - and a good, if misguided, intention - behind every usability flaw. Another

Steve Krug

#24. Usability is the baseline. Your values, aspirations, and dreams are what fills the space above.

Hillel Cooperman

#25. It's important to be informed about issues like usability, reliability, security, privacy, and some of the inherent limitations of computers.

Brian Kernighan

#26. In the consumer economy taste is not the criterion in the marketing of expensive soft drinks, usability is not the primary criterion in the marketing of home and office appliances. We are surrounded with objects of desire, not objects of use.

Donald A. Norman

#27. Don't make me think

Steve Krug

#28. Happy talk must die

Steve Krug

#29. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.

Robert M. Pirsig

#30. Designers love subtle cues, because subtlety is one of the traits of sophisticated design. But Web users are
generally in such a hurry that they routinely miss subtle cues.

Steve Krug

#31. It doesn't matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.

Steve Krug

#32. Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left.

Steve Krug

#33. Like a moth, Rene was attracted to the flame of fame

James D. Bradley

#34. As a rule, conventions only become conventions if they work.

Steve Krug

#35. If you want a great site, you've got to test. After you've worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can't see it freshly anymore. You know too much. The only way to find out if it really works is to test it.

Steve Krug

#36. In reality, though, most of the time we don't choose the best option - we choose the first reasonable option, a strategy known as satisficing.

Steve Krug

#37. Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum.

Steve Krug

#38. When fixing problems, always do the least you can.

Steve Krug