Tips for Usability Professionals in a Down Economy
Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2009, pp. 60-69
Article Contents
Tip #6: Keep up on Technology
It's never been particularly easy to keep up with the changing pace of technology. But have you noticed that the pace of technology change slows down when the economy takes a downturn? When was the last time you read an article hyping the latest great new "Web 2.0" application? Probably not very recently. So this one is actually easier to do now. And employers still value people who keep up on the latest developments, especially any that may have real value to the company.
What kinds of technology changes should you try to keep up on? That depends on the type of work you do. For those of us who work in the Web or software arena, some of the developments you might want to keep up on include the following:
- Prototyping tools. I used to be able to tell you the pros and cons of all the major prototyping tools for both the Mac and Windows. Of course, that was back when the main prototyping tools were HyperCard for the Mac and ToolBook for Windows! Things are a bit different now, with a wide variety of tools to choose from. The following are just a sampling:
- Balsamiq (http://www.balsamiq.com/)
- OmniGraffle (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/)
- The Pencil Project (http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/)
- MockupScreens (http://www.mockupscreens.com/)
- Axure (http://www.axure.com/)
- IRise (http://www.irise.com/)
- Adobe Flash Catalyst (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/)
And this isn't even counting a variety of mainstream tools that can also be used for prototyping, including PowerPoint, Visio, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver. It's always helpful for a usability person to be able to represent their ideas in some kind of prototype, even if it's just a static mockup. For brief reviews of sixteen prototyping tools, see Wilson (2008).
- Web trends and techniques. This is admittedly a very general category. But if you don't know a portal from a blog, a wiki from a Facebook app, or RSS from CSS, then you probably haven't been keeping up. Do these kinds of trends really matter to a usability person? Some do and some don't. How many people remember the Internet Appliances being hyped back in the 1990's? (Yes, I actually did a usability test of one of them.) The problem is that you can't always tell which trends are going to matter and which ones aren't. And the main way that some of these trends end up mattering to a usability person is that the ones which really catch on end up shaping our users' expectations. Five years ago, when we would conduct usability tests of Fidelity.com, rarely would a participant turn to the site search feature. Now, it's often their first choice. We call that the "Google factor." In fact, I've lost track of how many times I've heard a usability test participant say something like "at this point I'd just Google it." Maybe in a few years (or sooner!) we will be hearing participants say, "at this point I'd just Facebook it."