I am seriously considering applying for an internship with the well-known (at least in HCI circles) Nielsen/Norman group, I have read much of what both of Nielsen and Norman have to saw about usability, and Nielsen in particular is very anti web 2.0. Well more particularly web 2.0 for no reason. It must add value for your user. Don’t just “go 2 point oh” because it’s cool, but because it makes sense for your organization and especially for your users.

Because newer technologies are… get ready… newer they are untested and therefore best practices and usability standards have not yet been established. As an HCI consultant as well as a designer, what do I say to a client who wants to use some of these newer technologies?

It seems to me that most of us, including myself are technofetishists. Is that a word? I mean we are so enamored with the latest gadget, upgrade, iphone, ianything, graphics card, scripting language, platform independent language, open source environment, that we are totally willing to bend over backwards and accept things that make us do terrible things. Things that are terrible in terms of usability, the environment, and the rabid consumerism that is already so evident in the western world (and growing in other places too, don’t worry I won’t leave you out developing world and asia).

So usability in the age of UX, is it simply that we need to “focus on the user and all else will follow”? Do we need to a little more luddite?

To be continued