My background is in Experimental Psychology, and I grew up academically witnessing a big fight between the Behaviourists and the Cognitivists.
In the red corner were the Behaviourists who believed that the only thing that was worth studying was the outward behaviour of animals and humans, best considered as ‘black boxes’ influenced and controlled by external forces. The ’stimulus’ triggered a ‘response’ behaviour. What goes on in the middle is not important, not worthy of study. This idea was in its time very successful because of its simplicity. It limited how to think, and sometimes in some circumstances this can lead to real gains because of the self-imposed constraints.
In the blue corner were the Cognitivists, just gaining the ascendent. What went on in peoples heads for the Cognitivists was massively important. Noam Chomsky was part of this scene, as, interestingly, was Don Norman as part of the new information processing modellers, but a minor player then. Cognitivists thought that mental models were important, and that language might be harder to understand than just as a very complicated string of stimuli and responses. Eventually. the Cognitivists won the day on this.
Strikes me that that the ‘battle’ between the ‘Experientialists’ and the ‘Usabilitists’ has a similar profile.
The Usabilitists see the user as a black box with no mindset, personality or context. The thing to study is the interface, and if the interface is ‘usable’ then its ‘usable’, period. Whatever the circumstances there is a guideline or rule to specify ease of use, whatever. The Usabilitists focus is on the interface, though they state the user is at the centre of things, the user is the focus like a rat is is the focus in the middle of a maze.
The Experientialists look at a bigger picture and try to get the context. They look at the user as they pass through time, try to get in their heads, try to understand motivations and mindsets. Its a harder set of questions, and there can’ be any hard guidelines and rules … it is really it depends … and it depends on things that are hard to get at, aspects of personality, motivation and context. No absolutes. No certainties.
Same battle? Kind of, I think. It’s interesting to make the comparison at least. One thing I do strongly recognise from this 80’s experimental psychology battle is that the way that the Cognitivists would never have made it without the Behaviourists being there first. As Experientialists, we need the Usabilitists to have been there, put the foundations in place and pave the way for the new (old? Have we been here before?) thinking.
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Some good food for thought there Dave, Thanks.
Comment by Mike — December 15, 2004 @ 12:15 am
I think you’re giving both the ‘Experientialists’ and the ‘Usabilitists’ way too much credit.
Comment by Ron Zeno — December 17, 2004 @ 1:00 am
OK, I’ll bite … in what way do you think I’m giving them too much credit, and if they don’t deserve credit, who does (or does not)?
Comment by David Hawdale — December 20, 2004 @ 9:42 am
You’re comparing meaningful groups of people (and schools of thought) with meaningless groups (or groups that at least aren’t meaningful enough to attribute much as far as common thought or behavior).
I don’t doubt for a second that there are individuals, some perhaps that would even accept the labels you’ve used, who do think about users in the way you describe. I don’t know who they might be, and doubt they have much influence on what others do or think or say.
Comment by Ron Zeno — December 21, 2004 @ 5:04 am
Hmmm … not sure I agree with all of that Ron, but some I do. Certainly the ‘experientialists’ and ‘usabilitists’ dont exist under those labels, but cognitivists and behaviourists did (and still do).
But, hey, its a metaphor! Metaphors help us understand the world and how it shapes up and where it might be going. The world that used to be nicely divided into the divided camps of usability and design is taking shape in different ways, with many of us trying to take a more inclusive view. I think that might kind of reflect the division between cognitivists and behaviourists, or at least its worth thinking about to examine similiarities.
Where it IS interesting and does reveal, I think, is the relationship of the different schools of thought to the user/customer. Although ‘usability’ claims to focus on the user, it actually in practice doesn’t now, it is all about interface. It wasn’t always like that in HCI or HF, and I think that is Neilsens influence. As an ‘Experientialist’, (a group of one?) I’d like to get back to the user/customer, their context and their experiences.
For others with this view, you might look at www.goodexperience.com, the work of Pine and Gilmore, Berndt Schmidt, www.adaptivepath.com, http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/experiencedesign, www.uxnet.org, Lewis Carbone, Walt Disney, etc., etc.
Comment by David Hawdale — December 21, 2004 @ 3:26 pm
[…] Finally, I agree with Jakob Nielsen about Amazon and E-Commerce Design. At last. It has been a vary long time since we last agreed. Way back in the mid 90’s I was a great fan. I enjoyed his Usability Engineering and his ‘guerrilla’ approaches. He was a real pioneer back then, a tech made good. But I have found his later work to be turgid and repetitive, with no real new insights. In Usability as Behaviourism? I have described his approach as reminiscent of behaviorism, treating users as black boxes with no considered emotions or cognitions, just like rats in a maze. […]
Pingback by Form Function Emotion » Blog Archive » Jakob say “Amazon No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design” — December 26, 2006 @ 11:57 pm
[…] Now it would be dumb of me to precis this article. Go read it and agree or disagree as you see fit. What do I think? Well, I agree with the premise, and I warm strongly to the idea that ‘an activity’ is a base unit rather than a ‘task’. Task based usability taken to extreme is just ‘Operations and Methods’ for the 21st Century, and is the foundation for the idea of Usability as Behaviorism. […]
Pingback by Form Function Emotion » The Vision of Good User Experience Redux - The Nod from The Don — January 11, 2007 @ 9:58 pm