User-centric Web Sites. From a practical standpoint, there really is not. The science of how humans interact with their environment and, in our case, with their computer systems, has taken on many names over the years. While this may be stating the obvious, these are good concepts for clients to be supporting. It s a Science.
Usability is a science.
Seasoned performance engineers bring an interesting mixture of academic and practical skills to the project team. And they are, most definitely, an integrated part of the project team. The usability practices they come up with are sound and measurable. First and foremost, usability should support the ROI of the e-commerce initiative with tangible benefits. Vendors who make subjective statements like, The site will be easier to use or your users will be happier reduce the value of usability to its lowest level.