Usability... Microsoft is known for it. She (Microsoft) has given birth to some of the most user friendly software known to man (and woman).
So the question is why oh why do we need a usability engineer. Why can't an Engineer, not think about usability. Sometimes we ignore simple issues like a two digit no. column on a grid is too darn wide and a description column which needs to be wide is too narrow for the description to be visible completely. Why oh why didn't we think about that before we were told by the user?
Because we were too busy churning out the high priority features so that they can be delivered on time. Too busy writing tests to ascertain the credibility of the application. Delivering non functional requirements like reliability, scalability, maintainability, security, and so on and so forth... Too busy designing, coding, testing refactoring... Delivering the bare necessities...
So the width of the column is the smallest thing in usability... there should be stuff thought of that is beyond imagination. Like how to make an application support operation without using the mouse at all. Completely with the keyboard. Or how to provide pointers so the user can intuitively know what to do next. Minimum mouse clicks... and perhaps hundred other pointers only a usability engineer can give you.
So how important is usability? What is the percentage of time that should be devoted to Usability when making the estimates? Inviting responses... Please comment...
