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Silke Fett,
President
NavigAid |
Transatlantic usability
by Jesse Berkowitz
Question: What do Carnegie Hall, TV listings, and German real estate have in common?
Answer: Not much, unless you're Silke Fett.
Silke is the president of NavigAid, a usability and Web design consultancy in Germany. Yet before Silke founded NavigAid so she could work from home, her career involved many elements of user-centered design, even if they didn't go by that name.
| "It's easy to forget that the reason we create technology in the first place is to help people" |
"I'm a perfectionist," she confesses. "It bothers me if I go to Web sites and can't get things done." Hence, NavigAid's guiding principle is "People before technology."
"It's easy to forget that the reason we create technology in the first place is to help people," explains Silke. "On top of that, many corporate Web sites are full of 'internal speak' – terminology and phrases that normal people don't understand."
Silke took HFI's usability training courses in London and Utrecht and earned her CUA credential in 2004. But her usability roots trace back to the magazine industry and her work conducting consumer research in both Europe and the U.S. One memorable project used focus groups to create usable formats for TV listings (which were more complicated in Germany than in North America). Silke learned the importance of presenting information in a coherent, usable fashion and gained an understanding of how people react to different forms of static communication.
In the early days of the Web, Silke developed a strong fascination with this new medium, yet found many magazine publishers were losing readers to the Internet. She had already spearheaded the creation of a new entertainment magazine by this time and, based on her previous business experience, figured she'd be a natural fit with a .com start-up. But instead Silke took a position at Carnegie Hall and became the Web/New Media services manager. In this role she managed all aspects of the Carnegie Hall Web site, including the development of new content areas, and led a major site redesign effort.
"That was when I first saw the value of usability as a marketing tool," she says. "Since a Web site is the face of an organization, our content had to be in line with our positioning and artistic direction. Even just making sure the online ticketing process was smooth from a front- and back-end perspective was so important. The connection between user-centered design and marketing was very strong."
At NavigAid, Silke applies her expertise to a variety of corporate sites and has found a comfortable niche in the residential housing industry.
"There are many large residential housing companies in Germany looking to generate more site traffic and generate business through their Web sites," says Silke. "Historically though, many of these companies haven't been very marketing-oriented, particularly on the Web. That doesn't stop their customers from having high expectations of the Web sites, however."
Silke cites one recent example: a real estate company showed a map of the city on their Web site with lots of little dots on it. Users thought the dots represented properties available to rent and were always surprised to discover that the dots really signified the company's office locations.
"When I present my usability findings to clients, it usually opens people's eyes and begins a very interesting dialogue. User-centered design is never routine – I get surprised every time I conduct a usability test since there's always something I haven't thought of. But I'm also careful to make my results understandable and highlight which issues can be immediate fixes and those which represent longer-term improvements."
As to the receptivity in Germany: "Usability is definitely picking up here and more and more people appreciate its importance. Articles have begun appearing in more general magazines such as management journals, not just IT publications. I started my company at the perfect time!"
Ms. Fett was a contributor to H.P. Newquist's book "Yahoo! The ultimate desk reference to the Web." She is a member of the German Chapter of the Usability Professionals Association.
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