The Best Designs Receive Four Stars
By Paul Fallon
When you purchase a product online,
chances are you check its reviews. You might be
surprised to learn that the most popular spatula on
Amazon doesn’t have a five star review. Yet perhaps
this isn’t that unusual, because none of the users that
bought that conventional spatula are the same, while
those that purchased the five star Bamboo Baltique
Marrakesh spatula might have a little more in
common. With any design, its users are all different
which affects the ways in which they interact with
that design. The key to the most popular spatula is
that it incorporates the value of universal usability.
Universal usability refers to making all people
successful users of technology, emphasizing
diversity and excluded populations. The importance
of universal usability is particularly evident in
design, while a product may not be each user's
perfect solution, it could still be the best design for
that product and end up being the most successful.
In our usability testing sprint we explored
this value. Using household microwaves, our team
asked users, in this case our parents since we have
all been at home, to carry out three different tasks:
set the cooking timer to 1:37, open and close the
microwave door, and melt one tablespoon of butter.
One metric stood out. We asked users how satisfied
they felt with the experience of using the microwave
(high, medium, or low) for that task. With our
remote study, the three different participants used
three different microwaves that had been purchased
in part by these participants for their own household.
However, throughout the total nine tasks carried out,
we only recorded three total “high” satisfaction
ratings. So why would these users purchase a
product that they found only partially satisfying?
While there are many factors affecting our
results, none is more important than the microwave’s
emphasis on universal usability. These users in our
experiment are direct stakeholders of the microwave
design, and suffer the consequences of a mediocre
experience. That said, these devices are designed to be
used by many different people, and it’s common that
the aspects of a design that one person likes, another
may not. Therefore, while creating an unexpected
negative consequence of mediocrity, the universal
usability in its design offers a successful experience
for virtually all users, which is especially important
on a device used by many different people, such as a
household microwave. An indirect stakeholder of this
design is the companies that produce it. Universal
usability could be the golden feature of their design
that makes their product the most popular and
profitable version on the market. Even if it’s
imperfect, if it works for everyone like that Amazon
spatula, it could outsell competitors and generate
more sales. Then on the other hand, the company is
still faced with the negative consequence of producing
a product that they may also find mediocre, and may
not be as excited or proud of it
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because of that. Regardless, the consideration of
universal usability in the design of a product like a
microwave can be one of its most important features,
making many users successful with the technology,
but it can also restrict the design in other aspects and
remove the benefits of an excellent and emotionally
satisfying experience for the user that directly
impacts their personal welfare.
Still, there is a larger unintended negative
consequence of universal usability than a lack of
emotion and satisfaction. Some people may require
very specific design throughout their daily lives. For
example, a person without arms (or simply limited
mobility) may struggle to open your average
push/pull door, such as those that often are installed
in public bathrooms. A solution to this problem is a
foot handle, allowing the user to push and pull the
door with the bottom of their foot. Even though this
design is also intended for everyone to limit the
spread of germs in a public environment, it creates
an unexpected benefit for those with mobility
restrictions by offering another way to pull open the
door. Here, a direct stakeholder of the push/pull door
is a person without arms or limited movement.
Without technology such as these foot handles, they
face the unexpected negative consequence of not
being able to open a conventional handle and
therefore not being able to pull open the door
themselves. Once again, this negative consequence
can have drastic negative effects on a person's
psychological welfare and autonomy as they cannot
perform a simple task. Extending this example, an
indirect stakeholder of this door could be a person
around someone with mobility issues struggling to
open a door. They may be put in a situation they find
as a negative unexpected consequence in which they
are uncomfortable and unsure of whether to help the
person or not, as it could be seen as insulting to offer
help. Considering this foot handle, the more universal
usability creates a positive consequence for those
unable to open conventional push/pull doors, while
not hindering their effectiveness to the majority of
people. In this case, the foot handle creates another
positive consequence for all in that it helps everyone
stay healthy by reducing the spread of germs which is
especially important in times of a health crisis like
today. In this example, the push/pull door first seems
to hinder a specific group with mobility issues by
gearing a design towards the majority, but added
universal usability in the form of the foot handle can
create a beneficial and enhanced experience for all
users, offering alternative methods to those that need
them which is of the utmost importance for
one-for-all designs like doors in public spaces.
This brings up a common shortcoming of the
application of universal usability. It is extremely
difficult to create a design that works for everyone.
With so many differences in human ability and across
cultures, it is common for designers to design for the
majority. As shown, this can often provide positive
consequences in the form of more sales and greater
popularity of a design, but as in the case of a
push/pull door, this also means that groups outside the
majority are often left out. By the definition of
universal usability, the value emphasizes these groups
in an attempt to make everyone successful users of
technology. These designs that attempt to incorporate
universal usability can often struggle for novelty or
high satisfaction among users such as with the
microwave, but it is a trade off that every designer
must consider in their intentions of a design. Is it
more important for the design to be brilliant for a few,
or good enough for all?
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 Universal usability is a difficult value for Sources:
designers to incorporate and today is still often
imperfect. We can only strive to improve. Designing “Spatulas.” Amazon.com,
with universal usability places importance on www.amazon.com/s?k=spatulas&ref=n
success for all, coming at the cost of perfection for b_sb_noss.
some. These designs might only get rated with four
stars by each user, but they can become the best
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designs because they are usable by everyone. If that
is of paramount importance to the designer, then
perfection is not the goal of the design, the goal is
the progression towards success for all users.