Challenging Projects In Terms of Usability

Not so long ago during an internship interview I was asked what would be the most challenging project to do. I was stumped (this was my 1st interview). The first thing that came to mind was Last.fm, partly because I have been a member since August 2004 and I have seen many new users ask a whole variety of questions. The interviewer responded (rightly so) that Last.fm is a site used by many tech savvy users so you are afforded a bit more freedom to make mistakes or be a little creative with your Interaction Design.

The question made me think though, I still had 3 interviews lined up and the question might be asked again. Well, I think I have come to an conclusion that online banking is probably the toughest, most challenging project to do. Reason for that is simple. For starters, it is used by a broad range of the population. Most of us have a bank account and most banks offer some kind of online banking. It is usually cheaper and easier so it used by many clients. The second reason is it’s vulnerability. When you are using an online banking service it is much more important that things don’t go wrong than when you use a profile site. Must say that my bank, Rabobank did a pretty good job of their online banking service, the only feature I miss is the ability to filter my transactions by, for instance, amount being payed.

Other candidates are online airline ticket booking services. Once again, money plays a big role in this and if things go wrong, they do so spectaculairly. The sums being payed are usually large and the consequences of doing things wrong reach the “real” world. It is much harder to “undo” your payment than it is to “undo” deleting your inbox in Gmail.