| This book was written with several practitioners and professionals in mind. The first group is the software engineers. Not everyone has had the opportunity (or wants) to take classes in human-computer interaction, usability, or user interface design, and not every company can afford to hire usability professionals to assist with optimizing the user friendliness of a website or the discoverability of the new features of an application. If you are a developer or an architect, you are one for a good reason: Your magic and craft is turning ones and zeros into a solution that makes life and work better. However, just as it is good to know what to do if you get a flat tire and not rely on a mechanic, it is good for you to be able to apply simple concepts to improve the usability and appeal of your solution.
The second group of readers I had in mind consists of usability professionals. This group includes a subset of my colleagues at Microsoft whose job responsibilities and talent make them the "voice of the user" to the rest of the company to ensure that our products and services are easy to use, easy to learn, and so on. If you are like my colleagues, you care not only about how a product or service is used or consumed, but also how it is perceived, what emotions it may conjure up, and what behaviors it may cause. This book provides the research, the logic, and other useful knowledge to help you understand how to deal with and correct usability issues arising from time and timing.
A third group of readers is everyone else who has some responsibility to ensure that a solution is delivered with quality and value. This includes program and product managers, testers, marketing professionals, and all other decision makers involved in putting a solution in front of the user. Reality is such that we have to make tradeoffs, compromises, and workarounds. Reality also dictates that we work with the resources that we have. This book takes that into consideration and provides as much practical guidance as possible on how to set reasonable and informed tradeoffs. |
