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www.userworks.com (301) 431-0500 Dick Horst User Focus 2012 October 19, 2012 Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
www.userworks.com
(301) 431-0500
Dick Horst
User Focus 2012
October 19, 2012
Usable Usability Reports
That Will Delight Your Customers
and Amaze Your Colleagues
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Usable Usability Reports – Who Cares?
Whether writing for clients or colleagues, the report communicates not only the substance of what you have to say but:
• Your style of communicating
• Your care in constructing deliverables
“Cobbler’s children have no shoes” problem?
• No time
• No budget
• That’s why we have technical writers and editors
Report design, format, style, quality of writing may influence reader’s view as much as the quality of thinking that went into the design recommendations that are the subject of the report
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
What I DON’T Want to Talk About
Writing composition
Grammar per se
Spelling
Visual document design; report’s look and feel
Tables and graphs
Specific business domains, particular types of user research reports
All of these are “givens,” they have to be well-done, and there are generic style guides and other resource materials readily available (e.g., new edition of APA Style Guide)
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
What I DO Want to Talk About
Issues that are largely specific to “usability” reports
Strategies, approaches, rules of thumb
Not only report structure and text, but tone
Not only report composition, but file naming
Issues that should apply to everyone on the team, not just the technical writer or editor
Issues that would apply not only to technical reports, but proposals, planning documents, research papers, etc.
Largely based on my pet peeves (and I’d like to hear yours)
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Pizazz-iness of the Title
Creating Usable Usability Reports (2011)
vs
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues (2012)
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
A Recurring Theme Here
Consistency is King!
Hard for the reader to accept your critiques of product design inconsistencies if the report itself is riddled with inconsistencies
Doesn’t much matter which of several alternative schemes you choose, but use it consistently
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
How to Refer to Web Pages, Menus, Menu Items, Links
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
How to Refer to Web Pages, Menus, Menu Items, Links
Some participants had difficulty beginning the customization process For this scenario, participants were brought to the home page of the site and asked to
modify the home page of the site to include highlights from NewsEdge and a link to the
Rapid Reduction Technology Office Web site. No other information was given, and
participants were free to explore whatever area of the site or process would accomplish
the task. Four participants (33%) had to be guided by the moderator to the “Customize
Your Home Page” box and/or category links in order to begin the customization
process. Had the moderator not drawn their attention to that section of the site, it is
likely that more participants would have abandoned this task.
Many participants were confused by the home page customization categories Five participants (42%) expressed confusion with the category options on the home
page for “Customize Your Home Page” and indicated that they were not sure which
box would be most appropriate for the resource for which they were looking. In fact,
two participants said that they would prefer to have a keyword search box to locate the
resources rather than having to scan through each category to determine which one was
correct.
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
How to Order and Prioritize the Issues Addressed
By tasks given the participants
By audience group
By severity of the problem (high, medium, low) (catastrophes, important, nice to have)
By nature of the problem (e.g., navigation, labeling, content, search, visual design, accessibility, system performance)
By nature of the solution (e.g., reorganize site architecture, streamline transactional workflow, create controlled vocabulary, rewrite content, introduce new content management, improve tagging of content for search, remediate accessibility non-compliance, improve online Help)
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Two Sample Organizational Schemes
Task 1
• High severity problems
Navigation
Labeling
…
• Medium severity problems
Navigation
Labeling
…
• Low severity problems
Navigation
Labeling
…
Task 2
• High severity problems
Navigation
Labeling
…
• Medium severity problems
• Navigation
Labeling
…
• Low severity problems
Navigation
Labeling
…
Navigation problems
• Home page High severity
Medium severity
Low severity
• Registration process High severity
Medium severity
Low severity
• Checkout process High severity
Medium severity
Low severity
Labeling problems
• Home page High severity
Medium severity
Low severity
• Registration process High severity
Medium severity
Low severity
• Checkout process High severity
Medium severity
Low severity
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Some Rules of Thumb
“Participants” rather than “Subjects” when talking about usability studies
“Participants” when referring to those individuals you observed in the study; “Users” when referring to the broader population of site visitors or product users
Past tense when discussing what happened in the study; present or future tense when referring to what users can do now or speculating about what they may do in the future
Write for your main point-of-contact’s boss, not your main point-of-contact. Who knows who all might see your report!
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Make it Easy to Navigate the Report
Include an Executive Summary, Table of Contents, Appendices
Accommodate both the casual reader who just wants the big picture and those who want the gory details
Embed video clips in report?
Hyperlink among related sections of the report?
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Make it Highly Visual
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
“A spoonful of sugar …”
Before delivering the bad news, write about some positive aspects of the design or test results
• What worked well
• Participants had no problems using the following
• Participants appreciated the following
• Overall user satisfaction was rated highly
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Naming the Electronic File That Contains the Report
Name the file so it is recognizable to the recipient, not to you; and not next week, but next year • “Usability test report for XXX” may not jog XXX’s memory when
they see it in their file system a year from now
• “UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test, 10-19-2012.pdf” would be better
It’s never “final” • UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test -- final.pdf
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test – final, v2.pdf
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test – final, v2b.pdf
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test – final, v2b2.pdf
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Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc.
Questions?
What are your pet peeves regarding usability reports?
What are some of your best practices in report writing?
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