Quotes About Usability

DOS is ugly and interferes with users' experience.

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.

I found the iPad to be too large and heavy to use comfortably in casual situations (like reading in bed, for example), and too limited to use as a replacement for my laptop. By comparison, the Nexus 7 is just the right size for use anywhere - it's very similar in size to my daughter's Kindle Fire, but lighter.

Macs are not intuitive. It's intuitive to the person who created it. It's not intuitive to me.

Accessible design is good design.

One of the problems with computers, particularly for the older people, is they were befuddled by them, and the computers have gotten better. They have gotten easier to use. They have gotten less expensive. The software interfaces have made things a lot more accessible.

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

Don't make me think

If there's one thing you learn by working on a lot of different Web sites, it's that almost any design idea--no matter how appallingly bad--can be made usable in the right circumstances, with enough effort.

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.

The main thing you need to know about instructions is that no one is going to read them—at least not until after repeated attempts at "muddling through" have failed.

The fact that the people who built the site didn't care enough to make things obvious—and easy—can erode our confidence in the site and the organization behind it.

usability is about people and how they understand and use things, not about technology.

It doesn't matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice. —KRUG'S SECOND LAW OF USABILITY

Or as Jakob Nielsen so aptly put it: The human brain's capacity doesn't change from one year to the next, so the insights from studying human behavior have a very long shelf life. What was difficult for users twenty years ago continues to be difficult today. I

In the last few years, making things more usable has become almost everybody's responsibility. Visual designers and developers now often find themselves doing things like interaction design (deciding what happens next when the user clicks, taps, or swipes) and information architecture (figuring out how everything should be organized). I

Knowing how people will use something is essential.

Form must never trump function. Some objects are made to look so smooth, you don't know where to pick them up or how to turn them on. If I'm designing a garlic press or cheese grater, I need my hand to fit comfortably on it. I like to know, instinctively, how to use it.

Who wants a stylus. You have to get em and put em away, and you lose em. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Cable boxes are, almost without exception, awful. They're under-powered computers running very badly designed software. Their channel guides are slow, poorly laid out, and usually riddled with ads.

One of the problems with computers, particularly for the older people, is they were befuddled by them, and the computers have gotten better. They have gotten easier to use. They have gotten less expensive. The software interfaces have made things a lot more accessible.

the %C/A can be obtained by asking downstream customers what percentage of the time they receive work that is 'usable as is,' meaning that they can do their work without having to correct the information that was provided, add missing information that should have been supplied, or clarify information that should have and could have been clearer.

A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.