"Cleary, Teresa" wrote:

> My group is looking for a new name.  "Usability" just doesn't seem to
> adequately convey what we do.

Well, what a question. That's quite a habit for us to ask ourselves, what's the
right "Name" for it. You see,  our competence is officially (in terms of
company communication) referred as HCI. But, of course, it's more than that.
Even worse, there is no good translation into german, so if a client want's to
know what HCI does mean, you've to use different words (e.g. _Usability_ in
german?... Gebrauchstauglichkeit and/or Benutzerfreundlichkeit...).
I like using the term "ergonomics" or "system ergonomics". To me, it's more
global, it covers the consulting-, research-, system-evaluation,
human-related-part in our business. And, by the way, it is some kind of common
understanding that ergonomics describes a significant part of system- and
communication-quality. Just compare the wording of the international standards.
They are talking about software-ergonomics. Ok, ok... it is maybe not that cOOl
or moDern, not crAZy enough... i don't care. The people can deal with that.
Ergonomics are Human Centred, Case Sensitive, Optimizing and not single minded.

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Clemens Lutsch / HCI Consultant
Icon Medialab  / Gasstr.4   /   22761 Hamburg
Tel.: ++49 (0)40 8979 8400
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