Monday, 3 December 2012

Use-worthiness


The pleasure and advantage of working in different cultures, with unfamiliar languages and with bright and thoughtful people, is the discovery of new perceptions.  I was reviewing a systems model developed with Ken Thompson with a team in Sweden. We were considering how to “package” it in a way that made sense to those who might use it.

Bodil Jonsson provided the term “use-worthiness”. No, this isn’t an English term (and I think there isn’t an easy Swedish translation either) but I know exactly what it means. This one term covers the remit of technical usability as well as the value to the user. I like the way it conjures up the notion of return on investment (ROI); that something is worth using.

“Use-worthiness” – what does it mean to you?

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