> Repeat after me: There is no typical user. There is no typical
user.
> There is no typical user.
>
> ...
>
> Persuade us with actual data, carefully collected, clearly defined,
and
> thoughtfully considered.
All right...I have to throw my 2 cents into the ring, as well.
One thing that interests me about this particular debate in library land
is that there are two extremes that are very well represented: on the
one hand you've got the people that would design library systems/tools
based on their own (usually incorrect) assumptions about what users
should want and need. On the other hand, you've got people who need the
"carefully collected, clearly defined, and thoughtfully considered"
studies on which to base all design decisions--the "hyper-realists," if
you will.
If you design systems according to the first group, you end up with
tools that only librarians like to use. If you design systems according
to the second group, you either end up with "analysis paralysis" (and
get nothing built) or you can end up designing systems that add feature
after feature in order to satisfy all carefully researched user desires
and end up being one big mess. Sound familiar?
If you think about some of the most widely useful tools around, they're
designed so that almost anyone can use them; paradoxically, they
accomplish this with one simple interface and a very limited set of
functionality. A screwdriver. A hammer. A stapler. A car.
How can this be?
These tools were designed to accomplish a particular task. A hammer is
great at hammering nails. That's all it does. That's all it tries to do.
It's got a grip that anybody with a hand can hold onto. It's designed so
that anybody with an arm can swing it. Its design doesn't try to take
into account everything that somebody might want to do with it--nor does
it take into account all of the edge cases and advanced functionality
that would work better in a different tool.
If we want to design tools that are useful to people, we need to take a
step back. We need to go back to the drawing board. We need to figure
out what exactly a particular tool is meant to help people accomplish,
and make sure that the entire design focuses around helping people
accomplish that thing.
And, of course, the "people" aspect is important. Yes, we should conduct
user studies. We should make sure that our designs are "user-centered."
This brings me back to this idea that "there is no typical user"--yes,
and no. What's the typical user of a screwdriver? There's not one. Usage
exists across all sorts of boundaries by which we might classify people.
But, on the other hand, if we think about it a different way, there is a
typical user of a screwdriver: somebody who wants to drive a screw.
That's it.
In information architecture and information design, there's this concept
of "personas." Essentially, you take each major group of users that will
be using your tool, and you make up a "typical user" for that user
group. You're not trying to come up with the "average" user (and maybe
the difference between "average" and "typical" is where we're hung up).
You're trying to create a set of realistic people with their own quirks,
motivations, and desires that will help guide your design process. As
you're creating your design, you ask yourself, "Is this something that
Joe would actually use to help him accomplish his goals?" And of course
you sometimes have competing goals and competing design decisions that
you have to make, and so you have one or two "primary" personas whose
needs trump everyone else's.
These personas should be based on user research--you need to identify
your user groups, find out what their goals are (in context of whatever
it is you're trying to help them with by designing a particular tool),
and learn a bit about them. Chris Barr gave the example of sitting down
with some of your users and actually finding out what it is they do and
how they work, which is perfect. But personas typically have an element
of creativity to them. They're not perfectly scientific. And, you know
what? That's okay.
So...there's a middle ground. Chris Barr's post represents that middle
ground well, and I think that's where we need to be. But it requires
some skills that I don't think the library world cultivates--and,
typically, when people acquire those skills, they leave and go to
greener pastures at a high-paying design firm, but that's a different
discussion.
BTW, Alan Cooper's book, _The Inmates are Running the Asylum_,
[http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum/dp/0672316498] is very
pertinent.
Jason Thomale
Metadata Librarian
Texas Tech University Libraries
Received on Tue Feb 05 2008 - 14:06:59 EST