Usability applies to many different products, services, interactions and environments. You can just as easily talk about the usability of a bank deposit form as the usability of a website or software application. Or the usability of automated phone systems.

Ensuring that a phone system is usable has its challenges. I should know, when I worked as a software engineer I used to program them. Phone rage is a real problem – nine of our 10 people’s experiences at call centres leave them frustrated and angry.

Recently I shifted houses, and needed my telephone reconnected. This was my experience:

Call 1, 5 mins: Got cut off.

Call 2, 10 mins: Operator told me I called the wrong number, and should call back. Can’t you just transfer me?

Call 3, 10 mins: Rang the “right” number, but kept getting a ring tone instead of cheesy hold music. Wasn’t sure that I was getting anywhere, so hung up.

Call 4, 53 mins: This time I stayed on the line a lot longer, but eventually figured “this can’t be right” and I hung up.

Call 5, 15 mins: Decided to press 0 to talk to the operator. After 10 minutes on hold the operator told me she had to transfer me to the New Connections Department. I got through to an automated message telling me that the office was shut because its opening hours were from 7am – 9pm. I was ringing at 6pm. The system hung up on me.

Call 6, 5 mins: Phone system hung up on me.

Call 7, 5 mins: System hung up on me again. Can the system tell I’m ringing on a competitor’s phone?

Call 8, 4 mins: System hung up on me again. The system can definitely tell I’m on a competitor’s phone.

Call 9, 60 mins: I waited for an hour on hold, and eventually got through to a nice, friendly guy, who easily set up the new connection. See – easy.

There are a lot of ways that this experience could be improved, by applying some basic usability principles:

• Ensure that I am given appropriate feedback: tell me where I am in the queue, so that I can make an informed decision about whether to stay on the line or call back later.

• Ensure that the phone system is consistent: hearing a never-ending ring tone (like in call 3) was inconsistent with my expectations and experiences with other systems.

• Ensure that I am able to recover from errors: I made a mistake by ringing the wrong number in Call 2. The system made a mistake of making me start from scratch.

There are many more best practice guidelines on improving the usability of phone systems. (Drop me some email if you’d like to know more.) Many of the guidelines are based on underlying usability principles that apply regardless of the technology. It’s all about understanding human behaviour.

Quite often we are asked to comment on the usability industry in New Zealand – particularly by those looking for jobs in what is a tiny industry. There would be less than a dozen people working full time in usability in this country. Optimal Usability is New Zealand’s largest usability consultancy and we have only four people working full time!

The industry’s small size does have its advantages as we make for a tight group of good friends. But it’s hard for people who want to get into this fascinating area, and the lack of skilled usability practitioners is a major inhibitor to the growth of the industry.

The options for usability consultancies are to hire consultants, and teach them usability (expensive) or hire one of the 600 graduates who complete HCI papers each year and teach them to be consultants (cheaper at first, but expensive in the long run). Regardless, it’s a catch-22 situation. We need to work with industry-experienced practitioners (our clients rightfully expect that we are experts) and yet it is next to impossible to get industry experience without on-the-job training.

The options for people wanting to get into usability are to:

1. Up-skill by reading, reading, reading. The good thing is that a lot of best practice is freely available if you have the time to do the research. And don’t just read the usability books – take a look at market research, psychology, web design and associated fields. Don’t ever stop reading.

2. Get practical experience. From the reading you’ve done, try running your own user tests for a friend’s site. Do expert reviews of websites, and get someone more experienced to look over your work.

3. Find a mentor. While a lot of usability is common sense, it’s the subtle things that are the hardest to learn. How to ask questions, how to focus your observation. Mentors are quite likely to have good advice on career directions, and a healthy book shelf.

4. Become involved. Get to know the people in the industry – hang out with them. One common thread between all the usability people I’ve met is their hospitality. Join the UPA, and the popular mailing lists, such as SIG-IA and UTEST.

Having said all this, things are looking up. AUT are talking about introducing a usability major and the good work of Kirsten and others in setting up the New Zealand chapter of the UPA is very promising. As far as we’re concerned, the more people doing usability in this country, the better.

Trent