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Usability and accessibility in the press

The quotes below are taken from the press worldwide, and are intended to provide general support - in layperson's terms - to those arguing for the implementation of more usable and accessible systems, websites and devices. Please note that all highlights in bold are mine. Each quote is linked to the relevant article online.

If you have any suggestions for additions to this list, I'd be happy to hear about them. Any additions suggested by readers will of course be acknowledged. You can find quotes from the academic and expert literature in the companion page to this one.

Read on....

BusinessWeek Online: Why Design Matters
"Newspapers claimed that at many as 20 to 30 people died as a result of the new information system. Yet a subsequent government inquiry report stated that "the system did not fail in the technical sense....[it] did what it was designed to do. Kim Vicente's intriguing new book, The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology, cites this tragedy as an example of what can happen when technologists don't understand enough about how their designs should work in the real world, with real people." (31 March 2004)

CNET News: Business apps get bad marks in usability
" Business applications from major software makers are often difficult for the average office worker to use, costing companies millions of dollars and compromising many corporate software projects, according to a new study" [from Forrester Research].

"Most software companies have little incentive to make their applications more intuitive, because their training programs are an important source of revenue". (14 January 2003)

The Observer: Consumer goods - and ills
"Many corporate websites make buying anything like a dungeons-and-dragons computer game, where every advance towards the treasure requires a new effort of mind-reading, violence and rat-like cunning. Do companies know how many people give up, baffled, enraged and resolved to use any other alternative? The supermarkets are a good example, as are the train companies. Amazon and the no-frills airlines have shown that buying online can be simple and straighforward - so why do the rest make it such a trial?" (12 January 2003)

ZDNet News: 'If you must place yourself in life-threatening situations with a modern information appliance as your only hope of rescue, don't pick something with an obscure user interface'

"It soon became apparent that my right leg was no longer working and not available to support locomotion. To summon assistance I extracted my new SPV from my pocket and turned it on. Since the SPV uses a typical Microsoft operating system (and in contrast with my iPaq which comes to life instantaneously), the SPV takes about a minute or so to boot up."

"The next time I looked at the phone it appeared to have turned itself off -- so I tried switching it on again. When it eventually came to life I could not get it to dial [...] No amount of menu searching let me find anything that would turn the phone's radio back on. At this point I remember making a few comments about the dubiousness of Bill Gates' parentage. I eventually managed to flag down a passing skier who let me use her Nokia phone (which switched on immediately) to call for help...."

"So there you go: if you must place yourself in life-threatening situations with a modern information appliance as your only hope of rescue, don't pick something with an obscure user interface." (10 January 2003)

The Guardian: Investors bugged by top companies' websites
"An annual survey of the websites of FTSE 100 companies, published today, found that while the technical sophistication of the average site has improved, a substantial number of company websites remain 'wallowing in mediocrity'."

Seventy-two company websites "vary from needing some substantial attention in one area or another, to needing a lot of urgent attention, to being irredeemably bad and in a state where they should be thrown away,' according to the report."
(6 January 2003)

BBC News: Websites blind to disabled need
"Many pay lip service to usability. But few, it seems, are worrying about accessibility. Part of the reason for this is simple ignorance..."
(9 December 2002)

The Business Journal (Minneapolis/St Paul): Online transactions rise after bank redesigns for usability
"When U.S. Bank officials discovered that it took some users 10 minutes to complete an online transfer, they knew something had to change. By improving transfers and other features on its site, the bank has driven online usage up at a rate double the national trend." (6 December 2002)

Computer Weekly: Users risk prosecution for poor Web site design
"Companies are not only losing business but also risking prosecution through poor Web site design. So says the vice-chairman of the BCS Quality Specialist Group after research showing that sites are failing to meet the needs of disabled people..."

"Growth in the number of registered blind and partially-sighted people and of elderly potential customers of Web services should encourage organisations to consider the design of their sites. If the marketing opportunities are insufficient encouragement, the risk of prosecution and the resulting negative publicity could provide the motivation." (Thursday 5 December 2002)

BusinessWeek: Usability is next to profitability
Usability is a "good investment" that can produce "dramatic results", according to this Business Week article. (4 December 2002)

Line 56: Taking focus off the website user
"Many companies mistake technologically robust solutions for usable solutions, and this confusion can result in sites with laundry lists of mismatched features. Common errors include user registration requirements with little clear benefit; screens that are visually difficult to follow; and confusing task flows. All these errors can translate into user frustration and eventual drop-off. [...] While a site may meet a company's technological objectives, it may fail to deliver value to users. In order to deliver websites that fulfill technological requirements, while also providing users with compelling reasons to visit, clients must focus on user experience early on. Focusing on user experience maximizes the impact of the time and money spent, and can greatly improve user adoption." (3 December 2002)

Wireless Software: MMS will fail if usability is not improved
"Usability tests show that consumers are baffled by the terminology and design of today's MMS-enabled handsets. These results suggest that handset manufacturers and operators need to work hard to make MMS easier to use if they are to start building decent revenues." (30 November 2002)

PMN: 3G Lab finds usability issues with MMS
"3G Lab, a British software developer and consultancy, has found widespread confusion among users experimenting with MMS services. A study conducted in 3G Lab's Usability Suite found that many users were unsure [...] how to send messages." (28 November 2002)

Computer Weekly: Software usability tests can save you millions
Boeing, the US aircraft manufacturer, for example, is making a product's usability - the ease with which end users can be trained to operate the product - a fundamental purchasing criterion.

"We simply can't afford to pay for products that cost us a lot of overhead anymore," said Keith Butler, technical fellow at Boeing's Phantom Works research and development arm.

When thousands of end users are involved, design flaws can cost millions of dollars in lost time and productivity, he said. (25 November 2002)

Computerworld: Users begin to demand software usability tests
"The Boeing Company is changing the way it buys software and is making a product's usability - the ease with which end users can be trained on and operate the product - a fundamental purchasing criterion. It's a move the aerospace giant sees as an essential means of controlling IT costs."
(25 November 2002)

Computer Weekly: Poor intranet design costs firms £9.7m a year
"Large companies may waste up to £9.7m per year in lost productivity if their intranet is poorly designed..." (21 November 2002)

BBC News: Why websites are getting easier to use
"Many websites ignore the basic rules of interaction. Yet usability is at least as important as how a site looks."

"If the world resembled a website, chances are that life would be pretty confusing. Shops, for instance, would either be very long and narrow with hardly any staff, or tiny booths with enormous stock rooms - and hardly any staff. Others would look great but be impossible to get around."
(5 November 2002)

New York Times: Drivers, TiVos and Other Conundrums of the Digital Age
"Technology and I are at our wits' end, our marriage on the rocks. I yearn for smarter electronic gadgets that will enable me to fulfill my potential. Meanwhile, my home is filled with gadgets yearning for a smarter master to enable them to fulfill their own potential."

"The Windows PC realm has a way of making me feel like a Swedish exchange student. I think I understand the language, only to discover that I really don't."

"Something has gone terribly awry when educated adults can spend thousands of dollars on a consumer product yet still be forced to buy a book or hire a high school kid to figure out how to use it. My computer came with dozens of shrink-wrapped discs and CD-ROM's, with no clear instructions on what to do with them. More thought seems to go into the packaging of cereal toys." Registration - free - required for NYT (4 October 2002)

Daily Research News Online: The plight of the mobile navigator
"An analysis by ChangingWorlds (Ireland) and Mobile Metrix (Sweden) finds that the majority of current mobile portals are designed in such a way as to inhibit users from finding and using mobile services. The analysis [...] is based on data collected from 20 European mobile portals. [...] Unless usability is treated as a priority it is very hard to see how mobile service usage will increase – an issue the industry at large requires to happen." (September 2002)

BBC News: Access all areas of the web
"This year, [...] the Royal National Institute for the Blind's Look Loud Day [...] was also used to highlight a particular problem faced by people with poor vision or none at all: the appalling state of the world wide web from the perspective of someone using a screen reader or other accessibility tools." (June 2002)

BBC News: Shoppers shun shoddy sites
"A seven-month research project by Abbey National and market analysis firm Taylor Nelson Sofres has revealed that [...] websites that take too long to load, are hard to navigate, bombard consumers with pop-up adverts and force them to register to get access to services could be stunting the growth of e-commerce in the UK." (27 February 2002)

BBC News: Web rage hits the Internet
"More than half of all internet users admit to losing their rag with the net at least once a week, according to a Mori study.

High on people's stress meter is the length of time it takes websites to appear, help buttons that do not offer any help and requests for personal details before being allowed into a site. One frustrated IT manager admitted to smashing up his £2,500 laptop after a web page failed to recognise his personal details after six attempts." (20 February)

USA Today: When designers ignore consumers, products can flop
"In the recent history of bad product design, some examples are real standouts. [...] How about a combination camera, MP3 player, Web cam and audio recorder that one reviewer called a "mini-disaster". Then there was the Internet-access appliance, designed for kitchen countertops, that was so heavy the owner's manual advised caution on picking it up. These are just a few of the recently introduced tech products that reviewers panned for having crummy designs. And they won't be the last. That's because many companies still use old-fashioned product-development strategies."
(31 December 2001)

CIO Magazine: Mazed and Confused
"The CEO wants to know how your web site is doing. So you ask the Web jockeys to pull the latest stats. Hits are growing. Page turns per visit are up. The search button has been getting lots of action too. But before you pass those numbers on to the CEO, think again: The search button's popularity could be a sign that customers can't tell where the site's navigation buttons will take them. Those hits and page turns could be a sign that customers are lost, testing link after link. You don't know because at your company, as at most companies, no one has ever asked customers whether your Web site is easy to use.

"And what you don't know can cost you. Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. estimates that Fortune 1000 companies shell out an average of $1.5 million to $2.1 million per year on site redesigns without knowing whether the redesign actually made the site easier to use. Convoluted e-commerce sites can lose up to half of their potential sales if customers can't find merchandise, according to Forrester. Hard-to-use content sites can turn off up to 40 percent of return visitors, and those losses add up quickly. " (April 1999)

InfoWorld: IBM's redesign results in a kinder, simpler website (pdf)
"IBM's web presence has traditionally been made up of a difficult-to-navigate labyrinth of disparate subsites, but a redesign made it more cohesive and user-friendly. According to IBM, the massive redesign effort quickly paid dividends. The company said in the month after the February 1999 re-launch that traffic to the Shop IBM online store increased by 120%, and sales went up 400%." (April, 1999)

CIO Magazine: You think tomaytoes, I think tomahtoes
"To build a model intranet, Bay Networks spent $3m and two years studying the different ways people think about the same thing. The result: They all think alike about the $10m saved ech year." (April 1999)

Read quotes from the academic literature in the companion page to this one.
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