Domains and Technologies

Focus groups can be misleading. Users often favor elements that have emotional appeal but hinder performance. Designers must understand these tradeoffs. For a critical area such as air traffic control, performance is the paramount interface concern. For a home software program, user appeal has more weight.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has ordered a reversal in his company's software development in favor of reduced complexity. In a recent US News and World Report article, he proclaims that adding more and more features (called "bloatware") is history. Gates now recognizes that the vast computer-phobic population will never become customers unless computers become less confusing.

These are critical success factors for commercial software. Every stage of development must include usability testing to ensure that the interface addresses these factors for the target user base.