Off to London for Two Day Usability Strategy Session with British Telecom

One of our first and most exciting projects is working with BT, British Telecom, on their latest web innovation initiative — BT Workspace and BT Tradespace. While visual design and front-end development are top-of-mind for us during the next version of the service; usability is the name of the game right now. BT had asked us specifically to fly out to London early this week to work with them on usability issues and solutions during this next iteration of the service. It is a terrific opportunity to look at the service’s objective from a high-level; above the design and beyond the code — how useful and usable are we really making our solutions for our users?

We often call ourselves designers or developers but forget what that really means. Whether it be information architecture, accessibility, user experience design, or usability best practices — your final product will only be as good as the attention to detail you give it. These items are without a doubt areas of expertise within the industry on one level — but on another they are the crucial and fundamental details that make true web design and development terrific. It is strange how in this industry people are so quick to attempt and define us; almost demand a one line-title that sums up our total knowledge and experience. If you are really good at what you do — an explanation of what you do can be a lengthy and exhaustive one. It is important to remember that there is more than aesthetic design and standards-complient code to really making the web work.

So, off to the UK for the sole purpose of focusing on one of those crucial details, usability, to ensure the end result is more than beautiful and valid — but, useful, functional and ultimately successful. In race to be first to market and innovative on the web — I truly applaud BT for recognizing the importance of the details in successful “web design”.

Originally Published in nclud’s Sketchbook