What is usability?

How can making life easier, be so difficult?

So many buttons, so little time..! Have you narrowly missed injuring yourself trying to unwrap a new DVD in time to record a TV programme that's about to start? Perhaps, like many others, you also find programming the DVD player a real headache. In an age where technology is supposed to make our lives easier, very often our past experiences make us worried about using new products because the task ends up taking twice as long or we can't work out how to use the product in the first place. So we often blame ourselves when we fail to make something work, and feel obliged to stick with old technology because trying to master a new one can be so difficult.

Take the self-service checkouts at supermarkets - how difficult can it be to scan a few items, pack them and make a payment by yourself? If you wanted to find out, you could ask the customers using these checkouts... but there aren't any! Or if there is someone using it, they're only still there because they've got a problem. How does the machine check the age of someone buying alcohol? What do you do if you find that you've got a leaky milk carton and you need to change it - abandon the checkout and your shopping while you go and get another? Does it time you out if you take too long? That's why there's always a member of staff on hand to help... but aren't these checkouts meant to save customers' time and free up staff for other jobs? Is it the design of these machines that make it difficult or are we trying to work with too many variables - including the people themselves?

It's all about 'usability' and although the concept is becoming better understood, there are still so many things in daily life that cause us problems. It's not just high-tech items that we find difficult to master. For example, flat pack furniture often comes with incomprehensible instructions, and you end up with a wardrobe when you were convinced that you'd bought a bed!

How many times have you had to ask someone the way out of a public building? Finding the way out is an especially difficult task in a large department store where the owners just want you to stay in the shop to keep spending. There are often no visual cues as to the way out, for example, the checkouts are nowhere near the doors, and there are no straight walkways to guide you out.

For ergonomists (or human factors specialists), the lack of usability in everyday life is particularly galling, because user-centred design is fundamental to what ergonomics is all about. Many ergonomists are employed to apply their knowledge in the workplace to improve equipment, systems and environments and make the workplace more efficient, safer or more comfortable. Others are involved in product design, addressing usability issues by using their knowledge about human capabilities and limitations. They may suggest alternative designs, and carry out usability testing among real users, gaining valuable knowledge at an early stage and feeding this back to designers and manufacturers.