reviewed by
Charles B. Kreitzberg, Ph.D.
President
Cognetics Corporation

Landauer's book is required reading for usability warriors. It provides a solid discussion of the financial conseuences of bad design. This review was originally published in the Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication (May, 1996)

Once an arcane technology, computers have become commonplace. When the unusual becomes usual there are bound to be consequences and with information technology this has happened at both an individual and organizational level. In the form of ATMs, SEGA games and now Internet appliances, computers have become consumer items. In the office, the typewriter, itself only 100 years old, nears extinction while many of its younger siblings such as the fax, the copier, perhaps even the telephone, are endangered. Yet there remains a uncomfortable concern that productivity has not risen as expected. Several years ago Harvard Professor Shoshanna Zuboff predicted major organizational shifts resulting from information technology in her book In The Age of the Smart Machine. Now, Thomas K. Landauer, formerly head of Cognitive Research at Bellcore and currently Professor of Psychology at Colorado University, has looked at the barriers that information technology creates to its own detriment.

In his book The Trouble with Computers (MIT Press, 1995), Landauer suggests that the core of the problem is that software designed to make computers work well does not translate into helping people work well. He suggests that businesses should take a long, hard look at how much time their employees are spending interfacing with their computers. If software were more intuitive, and easier to use, people could spend more time doing their jobs. One of the powerful aspects of Landauer's argument is that he bolsters his concepts with numbers. He predicts that if every software program were designed for usability, productivity within the service sector would rise by 4% to 9% annually.

Technical communicators can help, since documentation, including manuals, tutorials, online help and cue cards are all part of the human computer interface. In addition to working to improve the usability of the documentation, technical writers can be part of a more broad shift towards human centered design in their companies.

A basic question you should answer is "what's in it for our company." Too much software has failed to return the investment it took to put them in place. The first chapters of "The Trouble With Computers" is a survey of how and why computers have failed to be the panacea to business as predicted. This is some pretty depressing reading for those of us who work closely with computers and have come to love them. But, if you are looking for ammunition to use with company management, this section has just the kind of statistics and stories to help you make your case.

There are a few success stories, however. Every successful case study Landauer cites is a situation where software has been carefully integrated into the work process. (Use a quote from the book?) Designing for usability is apparently more than simply streamlining a program. It requires a profound understanding of the work process and the points where humans and computers intersect.

The rest of the book discusses usability engineering and user-centered design. Case studies illustrate Landauer's points, keeping the lessons of the book nicely grounded in practical reality.

There are not yet many comparative studies of the return on investment for usability engineering. Landauer has culled the literature for some the best statistics to help support the intuitively obvious claim that better designed software has a direct connection to the bottom line. He notes that the average user interface has some 40 flaws. Correcting the easiest 20 of these yields an average improvement in usability of 50%. The big win, however, occurs when usability is factored in from the beginning. This can yield efficiency improvements of over 700%.

The final chapter outlines his vision of a world in which computers truly assist and enable people to do more than they could do without those computers. Although Landauer's style is somewhat ponderous and not all of the book is easy reading, this book is well worth the investment.