The effects of user interface design customization on usability part – 1

Since interface designers are usually creating websites or applications with the end users in mind, it is only natural for designers to want to offer users the opportunity to customize.  In theory, it should make interface designs more attractive to users if they can infuse them with their own flair, a bit of their personality.  Google offers users the ability to customize their homepage, and many other websites (Yahoo, Pageflakes) offer customization options, too.  But is this really good for usability? The answer is a definite “maybe”. It really depends on the circumstances.  User interface customization can benefit both businesses and users if it is feasible and implemented properly.  But user interface customization can also be disastrous if a lot of time, money, and resources are invested on it only to find that users are rarely, if ever, using it.  Disastrous is not meant to imply that users will abandon the web site altogether —the disaster is the amount of time and resources wasted in creating and implementing something that is not used.

Customization versus Personalization: High risk and low risk

If you plan to use user interface customization there are two main ways of doing so:

•    Customization: Customization means the user actively tells the computer what features it wants to customize.  The user chooses the settings. An example of this is when a user chooses to have the weather of their hometown displayed on a new website each time they visit that site. Or setting a persona on the user’s browser window.

•    Personalization: Personalization means that the computer customizes the interface design based on its predictions about the current user’s interests and behaviors.  An example of this is when an eCommerce site suggests products a user might be interested in based on the user’s previous purchases or adjusts certain contents within the interface design based on the user’s profile or actions.