Usability is not everything. If usability engineers designed a nightclub, it would be clean, quiet, brightly lit, with lots of places to sit down, plenty of bartenders, menus written in 18-point sans-serif, and easy-to-find bathrooms. But nobody would be there. They would all be down the street at Coyote Ugly pouring beer on each other.

Joel Spolsky

I agree, usability is not everything. But as Joel knows, if usability engineers designed a nightclub they wouldn’t just take their understanding of website usability and apply it to nightclubs.

Instead they would do field research to find out the various things that people do on an evening out. They would observe people in nightclubs and elsewhere to find their goals, behaviour and attitudes. They would try to understand what motivates people to choose night spots and what keeps them coming back.

When they had finished this research, they’d be able to design a nightclub that was a darn sight better than some cheesy chain of theme bars.

Still, it’s a funny quote nonetheless.

Apparently I’m warming to the idea of Verified By Visa since I was forced to register for it. They’ve used the number of people registering as proof that we’re warming to the idea. How does that work then?

I wanted to comment on the article but I was asked to register before doing so. Like most of their readers I couldn’t be bothered. My point might have been diluted a little if I registered and chose a password  for their site, just to tell them that the general public have too many passwords to remember.

But I was offered the chance to email them instead. So I sent my comment by email. In hindsight I should have edited my comment a little. What is OK for a website comment is not necessarily appropriate for an email that lands in someone’s inbox.

The response was a polite request not to contact them again. I don’t blame them really but I can’t excuse their lazy journalism.