Jared Spool has a great insight into a weakness within the usability community.  He states that, in site creation, we need to consider the ‘whole experience’, not just what happens online.  This raises questions like ‘how do people get to your site?’ ‘what engages them whilst on the site’ and ‘what do people do once they leave the site?’.

His thoughts align with one of my own impressions of the usability industry.  People can create perfectly usable software, but they miss the ‘wow’ factor.  It works, but jeez it’s boring. And, by the way, all the competitors’ sites work just as well, but they provide a much better (brand) experience.  

I urge usability professionals not to write off creative design, as it can turn a usable experience into a ‘delightful experience’, as Jared puts it.

Have you seen sites that suffer in this way? Let me know about them.

Stamford have come up with a program that uses eyetracking and keyboard interaction instead of a mouse!

Eyetracking has has often been used to provide access for people who can’t  operate a mouse; but the researchers are looking at helping everyone. If we can have a camera in our new laptop, why not an eyetracker!  Imagine the market research you could gather!!