Get ready for the World Usabilty Day

14 November 2006

November 14th will be the 2006 World Usability Day.
This is a great initiative to celebrate web usability around the globe and to promote a more user-centered design.

The focus of the WUD is making people aware of the key importance of usability in everyday life. “Making life easier!” is their motto and this is the core aim of usability and hergonomics research.
If all the fields of design (including web design) cared more about making their products usable to people, we could be able to accomplish our everyday tasks more easily.

Often people have to understand and learn how things work to be able to use them successfully. This should be exactly the other way round. Things should be designed to fit people needs in a more natural way, so to adapt to patterns we already know.

This topic is developed by usability research and by cognitive psychology.
Donald Norman has written many interesting essays about this that I recommend reading. Personally, I find the psychological and scientific roots of usability far more interesting than the practical solutions, like for example the endless Jacob Nielsen’s lists of rules and best-practices.

Anyway, if you with to support the World Usability Day, join one of the many world wide events or publicize it on your websiteor blog. They have also made some very interesting posters to advertise the WUD.