Un(usability)

As a designer in interactive medium, I have to make sure that things are usable while designing anything. I think about how user would interact with it and that sometimes requires a change in the original design. If I see that user is going to feel lost with the way things are currently designed, I do them again to make them more usable, and that sometimes means compromising on the aesthetics of the original design. The final design may not look as appealing as the original one but it is definitely more usable than the original one. An example of this is the navigation on two image galleries. The first one was "Textures of life". The navigation in that one showed six thumbnails at a time and to see the next or previous six images, one has to click on a "more" button. When I saw people not being able to see the next set of images by using the "more" link, I changed the navigation to what it is in "a look around" where all the thumbnails are shown upfront.



I feel that the same thought should be applied to every thing but sadly it is not. One good example of bad usability is the buildings I see around me. "RNA heights" is a building that was being made when I moved here. Now it's complete and a lot of houses have been occupied as well. You can spot which house is occupied by the grills outside the widows and a sunshade above it. After these modifications by the residents, the building does not look as good as it used to earlier.



Any builder who has built even a single building in Bombay knows that people do the two things mentioned above. So why don't they make some arrangements for it themselves while they are making the building ensuring uniform look. They can alter the design so that a rain/sun shads is not required. Even it is required, they can make it uniform and they can themselves install the grills.



Going one step further. I have seen that the buildings are made using the concrete pillars. The structure of the building is supported by a concrete structure and the brick walls will not add to the strength of the structure. In such a case, why don't these people give the buyers a choice to design their own house? As a buyer, I may choose the entire wall to be a big window and it is possible for the builder to do it for me because I bought the house long before it is completed. I'm paying Rs20 lacks for a house, I won't mind paying one lac extra for an option to design my house.