{"id":120,"date":"2009-05-09T13:14:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-09T13:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/?p=120"},"modified":"2022-10-18T13:14:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T13:14:46","slug":"good-usability-sometimes-is-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"Good Usability Sometimes is Bad!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>\"\"Now before y\u2019all sceptics out there start getting into the disagreement mode, let\u2019s see what actually is the reason for this rather controversial heading\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Usability means a application, apparatus, thing or whatyamightcallit (my spellingchecker had some problems with that one\u2026) is sufficiently easy to use by those needing to use it and for the purpose they\u2019re using it for. In general it\u2019s a good thing for things to be usable. If we\u2019re talking computer programs and websites this applies, too. But\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Could it actually be a problem if something complicated is easy to use? I think it is. Let\u2019s look at operating systems for a minute. These do very complicated things, and – even worse – a lot can go wrong. If handling an operating system is easy, you might have serious problems when things go wrong. In general I would say that you should keep your hands of everything you don\u2019t know enough about (define enough???). If you want to administer an operating system, you should be knowledgeable and experienced and know lots about the complexity you\u2019re dealing with. If this complexity is hidden by a soothing layer of usability, things can go wrong very quickly and very badly. With all due respect to the guys at Microsoft, this is actually one of the reasons MS Windows is getting so much negative talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question that remains is the whereabouts of the thin line between making difficult or dull tasks efficient or simple, and on the other hand making it too easy for unqualified people to mess things up\u2026 How unusable should a complicated thing be? How much RTFM are we allowed to demand from those dealing with complexities? In fact, isn\u2019t a system that\u2019s complicated and difficult to use more usable than a similarly complicated system that\u2019s easy to mess up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, you could mess up the non-usable system, but that\u2019s besides the point. If usability promotes error-free working, that isn\u2019t so bad, but just think about this; Don\u2019t strict and awkward security measures give you similar results?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am interested to hear your opinions on this from you. Please don\u2019t hesitate to comment or link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now before y\u2019all sceptics out there start getting into the disagreement mode, let\u2019s see what actually is the reason for this rather controversial heading\u2026 Good Usability means a application, apparatus, thing or whatyamightcallit (my spellingchecker had some problems with that one\u2026) is sufficiently easy to use by those needing to use it and for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willemkossen.nl\/b\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}