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Usability is good management
By Gerry McGovern
The professional manager is always looking for feedback. They test their plans and theories constantly. They are sensitive to cues within their environment, adapting as appropriate. The website manager operates within a feedback-starved environment. Thus, they need to be much more proactive in seeking feedback. Usability is a way of doing this.
Classic management thinking dictates that you need to mix practice with theory. It's easy for higher levels of management to lose touch with their customers and staff. That's why many organizations make sure that their managers 'get their hands dirty' on a regular basis.
Progressive supermarkets get managers to spend time packing shelves, filling bags, answering customer queries. Sitting in an office and making plans is one thing. Finding out how things actually work is another.
As supermarket managers participate in basic functions, they are keenly observing. They think about ways of making processes better. They wonder if a new trend is emerging because several customers have asked for a certain product.
The Web is a cold, clinical, feedback-starved environment. Yes, we have all these website log files that give us all these wonderful statistics. Most of these statistics are irrelevant; many are misleading. I have yet to meet a manager who is happy with their website statistics.
When well implemented, these statistics are of a certain use. They will tell you how many people visited your website, what were the most popular pages, how long they stayed, etc.
But they will not tell you why people stayed for five minutes. Was it because they really found the content useful? Or was it because they got confused by the navigation, and couldn't find what they were looking for?
Some people think usability is a new discipline. It's not. It's as old as...
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