Over the Labor Day holiday weekend (U.S.) i had a house full of librarians.
That happens when you are married to a librarian, who has a first cousin who is a librarian and your child is also a librarian.
It’s no surprise they talked about library issues and information technology issues in libraries in particular.
One primary concern was how to define “usability” for a systems engineer.
Patrons could “request” items and would be assured that they request had been accepted. However, the “receiver” module for that message, used by circulation, had no way to retrieve the requests.
From a systems perspective, the system was accepting requests, as designed. While circulation (who fulfills the requests) could not retrieve the messages, that was also part of the system design.
The user’s expectation their request would be seen and acted was being disappointed.
Disappointment of a user expectation, even if within system design parameters, is by definition, failure of the UI.
The IT expectation users would, after enough silence, make in-person or phone requests was the one that should be disappointed.
Or to put it another way, IT systems do not exist to provide employment for people interested in IT.
They exist solely and proximity to assist users in tasks that may have very little to do with IT.
Users are interested in “real life” (a counter-part to “real world”) research, discovery, publication, invention, business, pleasure and social interaction.