Usability
Out of context: Reply #61
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Usability-
There is no such thing.What makes a site usable- blue links, left menus, direct text. How do you know the audience finds this usable at all. Surveys? The web is a new medium- when you get on the computer for the first time you are exposed to these concepts-
humans adapt and learn. We are entering a new age of the web were most children grew up using it from an early age. They can adapt and determine the functions.
Would you consider a Play Station joystick usuable? The idea of a mouse when it was first introduced? The concept of your light and heat controls being in different place on different vehicles? The cell phone generation?
The known is only the known becuase it was given to them. Standards are built around that. With more exposure to any new concept- the more known it gets and then the more user friendly it seems.
Honestly, would you consider the computer itself user friendly, especially Windows. Yet 95% of computer users use it- they were introduced to a new idea and adapted to it.
Usability is a lie for the lazy and uncreative. There is no such thing as a "Be All end All" direction to information. And the point of communication design is to deliver something related to the message. A complicated menu system may not work for PNC Bamk, but a simple one would not work for the Memento DVD.