It’s not very often that you come across a field of work that transcends typical boundaries of the ‘classroom’, and goes on to become a way of life.  The science and art of “Usability” is one such domain.

For me, the journey began some 4-5 years ago, when I attended a talk by Dr. Eric Schaffer (Human Factors International) on the subject of Usability.  Since then, I have tried to imbibe its learnings & research, and put it into practice, wherever possible.  I have also been fortunate, that the work (Application Development and System Design) I’ve been involved in, over the years, has offered me the opportunity to do so. 

That said, until last week, it was still largely unstructured and based on gut-feel and reference readings.  As a result, each time I found myself in an argument on the “right way” of doing something (from a user perspective, that is), it ended up being my opinion against the other man’s (whether he was a developer, a designer or a project manager)! 

All that changed, last week, because I enrolled myself (and my project team) in an intensive program on The Science and Art of Effective Design (read: Usability), offered by none other than the world-leaders in the domain – Human Factors International. 

For me, individually, the program was a reinforcement of the beliefs and practices I have been following for the past few years.  In addition, the formal structure of the course also provided me with the terminologies, the well-proven methodologies of analyses and design, and other (non-subjective) tools and techniques which will help me continue on my journey…

Unfortunately for the developers and designers I will encounter in the future, I now know the “science” behind it, a wee bit better.  Fortunately for my own team of project managers, we will now all be on the same page.

If you are in any way associated with System Design, Application/Web Development, Graphic/Visual Design or  Communication Design of any sort, enroll yourself in this course:  It will give your Life a new perspective.