Usability
My conception of the term usability is that of an umbrella. It is a coalescence of variables and characteristics which help describe the likelihood of success in an interaction between an actor and an object or system. The term usability is most often an attribute we impose on something, but usability inherently requires accompanying interaction from an actor. As such, the characteristics of the actor are just as integral to usability as the characteristics of the object or system (Issa & Isaias, 2015).
In Education
In the context of Educational Technology, this conception of usability is misaligned. My conception takes the myopic view of actors and systems, one which may fit nicely in the broad context of human-computer interaction but is decidedly lacking in the educational space. It makes the erroneous assumption that actor’s know what their goal is during their interaction with the system.
To adjust this conception, I would propose usability in educational technology as the ability for an actor to interact with a system in a way that facilitates, or directly imparts lasting knowledge on the actor. Clearly there is significant overlap with this conception and the criteria outlined by Issa & Isaias (2015), but it is supplemented by a well-defined outcome, rather than the presumed rational goals of the actor themselves.
Configuring the User
The ethnographic account of user-testing at a hardware company in Woolgar (1990), is an intricate and at times, border-line comical description of the many hurdles and pitfalls that can occur in the practical pursuit of usability. Woolgar approaches this telling with a thorough analysis of the conceptualization of the user and machine, and how this conceptualization informs the configuration of the user.
He describes the configuration of the user through the metaphor of the machine as a text, where “Construing the machine as a text encourages us to see that the nature of an artefact is its reading” (Woolgar, 1990, p. 68). Essentially, text is purposefully organized to lead readers to interpret it in a narrow set of ways, just as systems are programmed and designed to lead users to interact with them in a narrow set of ways, and that this organization or design is what defines the text or system.
Unfortunately for the hardware company, its plethora of stakeholders all have varying conceptions of users and how their configuration should occur, resulting in what Woolgar describes as an “unsettled” identity of the machine and user (Woolgar, 1990). An example of this is illustrated in excerpts of a transcription from one of the company’s user-testing rounds, in which the tester encouraged the participant to “Just do it as if you were doing it normally” (Woolgar, 1990, p. 86). Because the testers don’t have a clear conceptualization of the user-configuration, they are compensating in their directives.
In another instance, a participant is asked to connect a printer module to the computer. Neither the testers nor subject are initially aware that, unintentionally, the computer and printer are incompatible models. The participant struggles to play the role of the user they believe is expected of them, while the testers are putting the participant through a trial that is entirely misconfiguring them.
Adaptive vs Prescriptive Usability
…the usability evaluation stage is an effective method by which a software development team can establish the positive and negative aspects of its prototype releases, and make the required changes before the system is delivered to the target users
(Issa & Isaias, 2015, p. 29)
Issa & Isaias present a conception of usability in which the system and its design are adaptive to its intended users. The design and development of the system are informed by its target users. They position usability as a process in which developers adjust and respond to the needs of users until the system sufficiently meets their needs.
…the design and production of a new entity…amounts to a process of configuring its user, where ‘configuring’ includes defining the identity of putative users, and setting constraints upon their likely future actions
(Woolgar, 1990, p. 59)
In contrast, Woolgar describes usability as a prescriptive process in which the user and their actions are shaped by the system and are therefore “configured”. The system does not adapt to users, but instead is designed to guide and limit users based on the preconceived conceptions of their requirements by the stakeholders.
This adaptive versus prescriptive notion of usability informs two different approaches to the design and development of technology. Adaptive is an ideal, one in which all the user’s needs are met through responsive development. I suspect the approach Woolgar describes, the prescriptive, is how usability realistically unfolds when the design of complex technology faces the many pitfalls of large corporations with hundreds of stakeholders and a duty to shareholders.
References
Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2015). Usability and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). In Sustainable Design (pp. 19–36). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6753-2_2
Woolgar, S. (1990). Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1_suppl), 58–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1990.tb03349.x