Skills: December 2009 Archives

Recently, Jakob Nielsen published one of his Alertbox posts with the title Anybody Can Do Usability. In this post, he made a comparison between cooking and usability.

According to Jakob, usability is like cooking dinner:

• Everybody needs the outcome;
• Anybody can perform the most basic activities;
• Anyone can learn these basics pretty quickly;
• There's a level of excellence beyond the basics;
• Skill levels form a continuum from beginner to expert.

The cooking analogy stretches even further:

• Although multi-star gourmet restaurants are wonderful, there's also a place in the world for modest neighborhood restaurants.
• Even if you can afford it, you shouldn't eat out every day.
• Variety is the spice of life.
• Sometimes it's nice to have others do the work.
• There's value to being an outsider who's not restrained by corporate politics or "the way things are usually done."

So like cooking, anybody can do usability; the basic methods are simple enough.