Why poor design seems to be the rule in business.

I've been working as a consultant advocating good UX design for more than 15 years now and one thing has pervaded almost every interaction with executive management. I'm constantly asked to justify the time and expenditure required for good design practices. Nobody ever asks for a business case to justify the poor design practices that are systemic in corporate IT. My guess is that people do not recognize that the lack of an intentional design is still a design. It's just a poor one (usually).

In thinking about this topic again and again, I think I've had a revelation. I now understand exactly why this attitude is the rule.

It is a habit learned over the last 50 years.

It takes a person about 66 days to form a habit. I could not find any research on how it takes for an industry to form a practice.

Think about it. When computers first entered into business environments, most people did not interact with them, most people interacted with the artifacts that computers could produce and with minority of people who could program the computer using punch-cards. Do you remember punch-cards? Have you seen them in documentaries? This is where the habit started. At this time the equation was very simple:

Cost to design and create a new interface system more usable than a punch-card reader > Cost to train the people who interface with the computer

This was abundantly true for so many reasons:

• The people who interfaced with the computer in the time of punch-card readers were super geeks and punch-card logic came easily to them

• The people who interfaced with the computer in the time of punch-card readers were very few in numbers

• The concept for other possible interfaces did not even exist yet

As time progressed and command line interfaces became the norm, this equation held. The number of people who interfaced with the computer increased ever so slightly, the types of people using them did not shift at all, and a small group of people saw the possibility of graphical interfaces, but the numbers were still overwhelming.

As time progressed even further and WIMP interfaces (thank you Xerox!) became the norm, this equation still held. The number of people who interfaced with the computer increased a little more rapidly, the types of people interfacing with them began to shift as people who used computers in grade school hit the work force, and a different, but still small, group of people saw the possibility of putting standardized graphical frameworks on top of information systems, but the numbers were still overwhelming.

Time moved on yet again and web browsers have now become the norm (thank you Mozilla!), and despite the fact that the equation has finally shifted most businesses do not even realize the basis on which the original decision was made. It's not anyone's fault. There is no "big book of corporate assumptions" lying around that people are supposed to check every couple of years. Just like a habit, the mode of operating has become somewhat unconscious. When executives ask for the business case for good design, I do not believe that they know the basis for the question itself has completely changed.

• The number of people who interface with computers in business or consumer settings is rapidly approaching 100%.

• The types of people who interface with computers has dramatically shifted in ways beyond thinking styles; People of all ages now access computers and a new generation has entered the workforce; A generation of workers who don't view their employers as bosses, but as an easily replaceable organization entering into a trade agreement with them.

• Useful, usable and desirable interfaces and experiences are readily conceivable (thank you Amazon & Apple!)

The equation has changed!

The required investment in user experience pales in comparison to the amount required to train an entire population of job-hopping workers and fickle consumers.

The first step in breaking the habit is admitting we have a problem. If we are to remain economically viable we must challenge our base assumptions.

RATING TIME:

Non-intentional design habit - Garbage

Turning over a new leaf - Like it

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that." - Homer Simpson

Satisficing is not always satisfying

Satisficing for those who are new to my lexicon is the practice where someone will pick the first available acceptable solution, rather than continue to search for an optimal one.

I for one, am going to try an minimize my tendencies to satisfice. Why? Two big reasons.

1) It enables sub-optimal offerings. I like goodness in my life. I like things that give me that warm fuzzy feeling when I interact with them knowing that I am ecstatic with the decision I made to engage in some way with a product, company or even a person. George Bernard Shaw said it very well - “All progress depends on the unreasonable man. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.” If you want something better in life, don't settle. Settling perpetuates mediocrity.

2) Staisficing can quickly become habit forming and be applied inappropriately in your life to areas where consequences can be monstrous. Satisficing on toothpaste is one thing. Satisficing on love is quite another. There is this big contradiction in American society, where movies, television and other forms of story telling mediums simultaneously relate that "true love" is this precious and joyous thing that can happen to anyone and that "true love" is a romanticized fantasy created by Hollywood. Most people buy into the second message because it is easier to believe and lets people be impatient and lazy (WHAT? Impatient and lazy Americans? How can such a thing be?). It also advances the thought process that "you really aren't worthy of true love". I personally believe that most Americans are pessimistic on their own intrinsic worth as people and put masks on in the form of consumerism, pride, vanity and braggadocio to hide their inner insecurities about themselves. It is my further hypotheses that since the social morays that dissuaded divorce for baby boomers and the greatest generation have been removed high divorce rates are mostly a result of people satisficing when it comes to finding a life partner.

In relation to this I have some new rules to live by for myself:

1) Don't satisfice on anything that you will have to live with for more than 6 months. Any longer than that and you will regret your involvement and your settling. Satisficing has it's place (e.g., toothpaste or when it is used as a tool to learn and understand what you really want) but as you get a keener sense of self awareness and knowledge, satisficing should proportionately decrease as a practice.

2) Don't give up on finding that "perfect" outcome. I use the term perfect a little loosely because perfection is defined by the beholder and it is very rarely what we think it is even for ourselves (i.e., we know what we want, we rarely know what we need).

3) Truly buy into the concept that if you have to ask yourself "Is this what I really want?" the answer is no. That epiphany moment where total clarity emerges is the true hallmark of something that will be lastingly meaningful and satisfying.

So my rating: Satisficing = Garbage.