How does Consistency play a part in Usability

How does Consistency play a part in Usability?
Of all the usability heuristics, there is one thing that never falls short of importance- Consistency. As designers, your creative minds may be bored of keeping consistency throughout but it is essential to make users feel acquainted with using your digital product.
Understanding human behaviour is the most important aspect of User Experience Design. To see how well your interface is faring by running a simple Usability test. In Usability test, you may call people to your lab and ask them to repeat a task multiple times. As each person keeps doing the task, the recorder will tap into the quantitative metrics for you to measure later. These metrics may be the time taken by the user to complete the task, the errors made whilst doing the process and the time spent on a particular aspect. As and when this testing is done, you can measure the pros and cons that your digital product has. If you notice that the metrics or parameters on which the test is run, has been improving consistently it means that people are learning from their earlier experiences.
There are plenty of ways in which a usability aspect of your digital product is measure and the main concern while doing so is to understand that psychology and the human behaviour around a digital asset. We all must have learnt the idiom called Practise makes a man perfect. When a task is repeated by the same user, it makes him efficient enough to use the product. Having said that, the same ideology is reflected when you introduce an app that has the same functionality as all the other apps which a user is currently using. But the question lies, should a product interface be a copy of something that already exists? Do interfaces demand innovation or will do best if kept consistent?
Users learn to navigate only after they repeat a certain process a multiple times. Human mind is able to retrieve same information if it is registered in their mind innumerably. Hence, we able to fluently use patterns, identify colours rather than remembering a complex math problem that we learnt in high school.
Users cannot handle change. So, does that mean innovation doesn't stand a chance? As far as Usability of your product is concerned, it is essential to creatively innovate something new in your interface without disturbing its consistency. A website's homepage is represented in multiple different ways but it will never really matter to the user as long it is easier to use. When you are revamping the design of your old digital product and replacing it with something new, let your users learn to use it.
Consistency is the pest when it comes to making design innovations. But, if you are confident enough that your users will come around and use your bold innovation, it will be a game changer! After all, User Experience is all about taking risks in favour of keeping your users enthralled.
Author: Rohan singh is a content writer at Techved consulting .