Product usability

All products have usability as an essential requirement. While interactive technology has been at the forefront of society, the economy and innovation for much of the last 20 years, there are still many products being brought to market that are not necessarily new technology (taht is, software, web interactions, other Internet products, etc.) Many such products, though, can still be said to have an interface, and many interface usability principles for new technology are essentially the same as those that would be applied to product usability for a more conventional product and its design.

Those principles include:

• utility of the product: its output or service.
• effectiveness or ability of the product to accomplish user requirements
• reliability of the product: its low rate of faults, failings and failures.
• appeal of the product, including visual appeal and appeals to ethos and other determinations.

Interface design usability is different from traditional product usability in only a few ways and as people are more familiar with new technology all the time, these differences are increasingly blurred. However, the difference can be listed as follows:

• facility of learning: How "strange" is the product to people. How does the product bridge the familiarity gap through the use of understood iconography or through the use of a help menu, etc.
• memorability: How well do users remember how to use the product in between times of usage?
• tolerability: What factors contribute to the user's ability to work through frustration, including brand loyalty, product help and, of course, low rate of errors and problems with the product?

The argument can then be made that new technology creates a set of extra problems over more traditional products and few would argue that traditional product usability is more problematic.

Traditional products might generally be thought of as non-interactive. Broadly, this can be categorized into "passive product, active user" products including consumable commodities or storage products and "active product, passive user" products, for example self-operating machines, which may require alerts and alarms, for example.

Especially in cases where your product is interactive, the experience of a company like Interpix, with nearly 20 years' experience in bringing new technology interfaces and products to market is just as easily applied to new product usability as it is to new technology products.

Please consider engaging our usability services, as you design and test your new product.