Why is Usability so important?

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3 of October2007

If you’re a web designer or a web developer, sooner or later you will be confronted with the concept of Usability. Some of us take it very seriously. Some of just shrug it off as not being important. I feel like there are many resources explaining details about Usability, but not too many that simply explain why it is important.

Usability is giving the user what they expect. Giving it to them in a simple, easy manner to avoid frustration. Why keep the user happy? If they get frustrated, they won’t come back. This means lost opportunities, lost customers, and in many cases, lost money.

Here’s an experience I had just the other day on blockbuster.com. We’ve been using their online rental service for a few weeks now. I had the movie “Next” at the top of my queue. It was Monday morning, and Blockbuster was about to ship out a movie 5 or 6 hours later from my queue.

I didn’t want to receive the movie in the mail. I changed my mind. So I went to my queue, and hit “delete” for that movie. The screen refreshed, but nothing happened. So I tried it again, same result. Very frustrating. It’s like driving a car, turning left, but the car goes right. Or hitting the brakes, and they don’t work. Would you continue using that car? I wouldn’t. I am the user, and I want to be in control. That’s what I expect.

So then I just moved “Next” to the end of the queue, so I wouldn’t receive it. That seemed to work. Well, guess what happened the next day? I received “Next” in the mail. What the?!? What’s the point of having a queue if it doesn’t behave the way I want it to?

After complaining to customer service they explained that it there is a certain time period where the movie is being prepared to ship out and it cannot be reversed. I guess that’s fine, but tell the USER about it. Several weeks ago the same thing happened, but when I tried to delete, an error message came up. Several times. That is NOT user-friendly. If there has to be a delay, tell me about it. I can live that. But no message.

As a result, I am seriously considering canceling with Blockbuster and trying their major competitor. Chances are that other customers feel the same way. Just because the site didn’t behave like I wanted to. Just because it wasn’t usable.