During my testing experience, lot of times I tend to report Usability bugs. Usability bugs are minor inconveniences to users and they don’t prevent users from using the system or they disrupt functionality. They are mostly a better way of doing a particular action within software.
I have been following trends in usability and there is no end to improvements one can make to software to make it better usable. And software developers and project managers are often inundated with requests to make usability improvements. They sometimes come under criticism for not addressing ‘critical’ usability issues. On the other hand developers fail to understand how ‘usability’ can be a critical issue. When they are struggling with more important ‘features’ needed in the system or working on making performance improvements, they find usability issues trivial.
So the question is why is Usability so important? On what basis they should prioritize usability requirements over other important features?
Example from practical life
On my way to office I used to notice a pot hole in the road. I always used to make sure that I don’t get into the pot hole and remember it. And everyday I used to wish the transport department will take care of it so that this ‘irritant’ will go away. This was a daily reminder to me and every day I pass the pot hole I used to wish it again. As a regular user of the road it was usability issue and I wanted it to be fixed.
One day I was going to office and suddenly noticed that pot hole has been fixed overnight. I was glad. It made me happy. I don’t have to remember every day to avoid the pot hole. It restored my confidence the transport department is ‘really working’ and taking care of minor issues also. Now I have become glad and will sure express my happiness if asked to.
Prioritizing Software Usability bugs
A software developer is not a user of system. So it is difficult for developer to appreciate usability issues. But a user of software will use the system on a daily basis. And over a period of time users become expert users. And expert users like their voice to be heard and their purpose of reporting usability issues is to be heard and enhance their experience. Sure they can work around the usability problem, but they are reminded on daily basis and think “why don’t they take care of this minor issue?”.
And also a usability issue generally becomes a productivity issue. Lot of times usability issues reported look silly but they make a big difference. An examples of usability issue is : giving a keyboard short cut to a frequently used command in system. Using CTRL + S short cut is a standard to use save option and I use it frequently. I do save every one minute to avoid loss of work. Imagine a new software which does not use this short cut but forces me to use mouse (involving three clicks) OR uses another short cut is a usability issue for me.
Fixing a usability issue makes a ’satisfied user’ a ‘raving fan’. As you start taking care of usability issues, you will start gaining more trust from users that we are thoughtful of taking their minor issues. Fixing usability issues makes learning process for users short and makes them glad.
It is also possible that so many others are facing similar usability issues but don’t bother to report.
I would not really recommend any set of steps to prioritize usability bugs. Make it a practice to take care of all usability bugs. Set up a process in which you can make it a habit to fix usability bugs.
Fix one usability bug for every 5 other bugs you fix. Or fix 25% of open usability issues for every release.
Some of the usability issues might be very easy to fix. In such cases fix them at the earliest opportunity.
Some of the usability issues might need design changes. In such cases add this as a requirement in your next version.
Summary
If you ask a software sales team or marketing team you will understand that convincing users from a vendor perspective is very difficult. But if the ‘appreciation’ comes from a user it makes a different impact. As I stated in my article Power of personal recommendation [1], fixing usability issues and getting more raving fans is one sure way to improve a software and works better than many promotional methods.
