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USABILITY, ERGONOMICS AND HCI

 



These three characteristics are key in the IT world. It is good to think about these aspects when developing an IT-related idea. Why? Most of the software that is popular and successful in our society like Windows, Facebook or Google, if you look at it, are developed from these features. Without these, it will be difficult to reach people, which I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a disadvantage in your project.


Let's look at two opposite examples, one that has been successful and a parallel one that has failed, obviously based on usability, ergonomics and human computer interaction.


The example of a bad design, we would talk about Microsoft Bob. 

A graphical environment running on Windows 3.1 or 95 turned the operating system into a room where each piece of furniture represented a different application. In addition, a dog named Rover acted as an assistant and gave users advice. It was a huge failure, partly due to the success of Windows 95 that same year.

As we see in this example, Microsoft wanted to squeeze the most out of the ease of use of their OS, it was a roundabout way to treat users as if they could not learn. There is very little usability, the only people who might be interested in it would be children, but it is not aimed at a wide audience.


On the contrary, as a good example and following in the branch of operating systems we can mention Windows 10 itself. Dedicated mostly to the general public, to the great part of the citizens of the world. With "extensions" for people with various problems, mostly physical problems. Easy to use and an excellent HCI. It does not leave us much freedom to modify it to your liking but if you like it from the start and knowing that almost all your relations use it, as we are sometimes weak to society, we have few options left. But in general it is an excellent OS, made for all kinds of people.


We could conclude that it is quite important to take into account these aspects in your projects or to understand why something is very successful. You always have to take them into account.

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