学步园

Usability vs. user experience
可用性 vs. 用户体验

Author: Justin James
作者：Justin James

翻译：PurpleEndurer 2008-03-28 第1版

Category: User Experience, Usability
分类：用户体验，可用性

Tags: Experience, User, User Experience, Nothing, Search, Justin James
标签：体验，用户，用户体验，Nothing，搜索，Justin James
英文来源：http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=338&tag=nl.e606

I  am repeatedly struck between the difference between usability and the user experience. I know, “user experience” has been beaten to death by Microsoft for the last five years. You cannot have a good user experience without usability. After all, if the user cannot use your product to accomplish their goals, it does not matter if they enjoyed not being able to do what they wanted to do.

我多次推敲可用性和用户体验的差别。我知道，“用户体验”在过去五年已被微软弄死了。没有可用性就不可能有好的用户体验。毕竟，如果用户不能使用你的产品实现他们的目标，他们是否乐于有不能够做他们想做的事就更不是一回事了。

This all comes back to how versus why. When developers are working strictly for usability, they are still focusing nearly exclusively on how questions. “How can we let the user perform operation XYZ easiest?” When developers are working towards why, questions like “does the user even want to perform operation XYZ?” come up instead.

这完全转回到“如何”vs.“为什么”。当开发者严格为可用性效力时，他们依然专注于“如何”问题。“我们如何可以让用户执行XYZ操作最容易？”当开发者致力于“为什么”时，取而代之的就是像“用户是否恰好要执行XYZ操作？”之类的问题了。
《PurpleEndurer注：1。work for: 为...效力
2。work toward: 致力于....》

All too often, software and hardware is loaded down with the wrong features, or too many features. This hurts the overall user experience. The user quickly becomes lost, unable to figure out what they want to do, or even what they can do. Study after study has shown, the user is better off with ten operations or functions then fifty, if the ten choices cover 90% of their needs. On the other hand, power users need a way to easily unlock the full potential of the product. Nothing is more frustrating to an advanced user than being blocked by a “user friendly” interface that forces them to jump through step-by-step hoops, wizards, and so on to do an advanced task that they already are familiar with. This is one of my persistent frustrations with Microsoft Office. Every time it thinks that it is helping me, it is really hindering me.

软件和硬件时常被错误的特性或太多的功能压制。这伤害到总体用户体验。用户很快就迷失了，不能想出他们想做的，甚至他们可以做的。反复研究已表明，如果十个选择覆盖了90%的需要，给用户十个选项或功能比五十个情况更好。另一方面，高级用户需要一个方便地充分发挥产品潜力的途径。对于高级用户而言，没有什么比被“友好”界面强制通过循序渐进机制、向导之类来进行他们已经熟悉了的高级任务更不顺心的了。这是我在用微软Office时一再受到的挫折之一。每次它认为在帮助我，实际却打扰了我。

《PurpleEndurer注：1。All too often:时常
2。load down:使负担过重。I was loaded down with books.:这些书把我压得挺不起腰来。
3。figure out:算出(想出,理解,断定,解决)
4。better off:情况更好
5。power user:高级用户
6。user friendly:方便用户的
7。jump through a hoop:依命行事(服从命令)》

A good user experience meets and exceeds the user’s expectations. Unfortunately for developers and product engineers, there are only a few select products on the market which cannot be easily imitated and improved upon. This is how Google became such a successful search engine; they recognized that all of the existing search engines offered a poor user experience, and improved the entire workflow, from opening the search page faster with less clutter all the way through to displaying meaningful, accurate results. It was not that other search engines were not usable; every search engine had about the same syntax for advanced searches, basic search all worked the same, and everyone could find the box to type in the query. It was that the overall user experience was miserable.

一个好的用户体验满足并超越用户的期望。对开发者或产品工程师不幸地是，在市场上只有一些选择产品不能被轻易模仿或改进。这是Google如何变为如此成功的搜索引擎之所在；他们认识到所有已有搜索引擎提供了一个贫乏的用体体验，并改进了整个工作流程，从使打开搜索页更快，一直到显示有意义、精确的结果。其它搜索引擎不是不可用；每一个搜索引擎有大致相同的高级搜索语法，基本搜索表现一样，并且每一个都能发现输入查询的文本框。正是这种整体的用户体验是痛苦的。

《PurpleEndurer注：1。improve upon:改进
2。all the way:一路上,自始至终,远道而...
3。through to:直到》

The user experience is so much more than usability; it starts the moment the customer first hears about your product, carries through to the purchase process, the customer support, the installation and configuration, and all of the way through no longer using the product. For most products, the primary portion of the user experience is how it addresses their day-to-day why based goals. Does it help them do their job more effectively than other products or what they previously were doing?

用户体验甚于可用性；它始于顾客首次听说你的产品那一刻，持续于购买过程，客户支持，安装与配置，直至不再使用该产品。对大多数产品来说，用户体验的主要内容是如何处理他们基于目标的日常“为什么”。是否帮助他们把工作做得比其他产品或此前他们所做的更好，更有效？
《PurpleEndurer注：1。so much more:更加
2。carried through:进行(维持)》

And this is why it is so important to code towards the user’s why and not just the how. Usability focuses on making sure that the how is flawless; user experience is about ensuring a perfect why.

这就是为什么编写代码时致力于用户的“为什么”，并不仅仅是“如何”的原因了。可用性的重点是确保“如何”是天衣无缝；用户体验是确保完美的“为什么”。

What are you doing to give your users the best experience possible?

你们在做些什么来尽可能给用户最好的体验？

J.Ja