Rich Pictures in Lightweight
Usability Methods
When people think of user interface design
they usually think of large, high-profile pro-
ects, such as word processors or military com-
mand and control systems. The majority of
user interface design projects are in fact very
small: perhaps, for example, someone has
requested a Windows 95 interface for some
small part of the company database. Another
example is the design of a Web page. The one
or two developers given the task probably do
not even consider themselves user interface
designers; yet cumulatively these small pro-
ects significantly affect the productivity of an
organization.
On a large project one can afford to recruit
or train developers in specialized techniques;
ndeed, an elaborate, well-specified design
methodology may be necessary just to manage
the large number of personnel involved [11].
On a small project the techniques used must
be “lightweight,” that is, the costs to the orga-
nization must be minimal. Nielsen [16] has
dubbed these techniques “discount.” They
may only achieve 90 percent of what is possi-
ble with more elaborate methods, but they do
so for very much less than 90 percent of the
cost. Costs here are measured in training and
n the time it takes to apply the technique;
therefore, lightweight techniques have to be
easy to learn and quick to apply. If a project is
assigned only 4 person-weeks of effort, a tech-
nique for improving some aspect of the quali-
ty of a user interface is unlikely to justify more
than 1 day of training and 2 or 3 days of appli-
cation. Examples of lightweight techniques