From Here to Usability: Victorian Government presentation
(c) The Hiser Group 2009 1
Greg RalphPrincipal
19 October 2009
From Here to Usability
Overview
About The Hiser Group
Bad designs
General introduction to “usability”– What is it?
– Why should you care?
– How do you get it?
Usability strategy– How much does my project need?
– A few words about “institutionalising” usability90 mins
From Here to Usability: Victorian Government presentation
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Who is The Hiser Group?
Leaders in user-centred design & education(since 1991)
• Usability & customer experience– Over 5,000 sessions for more than 1,800 projects
• Breadth of expertise– Across technologies
• Websites, intranets, web/desktop applications, kiosks, forms, processes…
– Across industries• Public, private & NFP sectors
– Around the world• e.g. United Nations, Singapore Polytechnic
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Teaching the industryFor more than 15 years
Usability evaluation2 days
Learn quick and inexpensive methods to test whether your site or application meets the needs of its users.
Effective layout and design 1 day
Practical techniques to create user-friendly page and screen designs.
Information Architecture –Designing intuitive menus 1 day
Effective menu design to enable your users to navigate easily and achieve what they came to do.
Writing for the web1 day
Effectively convey messages to your users – by writing in a style that suits the online environment.
Designing with users 2 days
Learn to design intuitive interfaces collaboratively with users to achieve a usable system.
From Here to Usability: Victorian Government presentation
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You’ll know when it’s not usable
World Usability Day (2006)
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Hallmarks of poor usability (not designed for use in the real world)
• Poor task model
– What’s the real workflow?
– Who’s in control of the interaction?
• Clumsy navigation
– Can’t find things
– Poor orientation
• Unclear labels or layout
– Confusing, missing or excessive instructions
– Not my language
• Inconsistent behaviour
• Poor feedback or error handling
Microsoft standard warning message
“Yes” saves the document
A more idiosyncratic design (and less predictable to the user)
“Yes” loses the document
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“I just wanted to make the text larger so that the older voters could read it easily”
Wikipedia Commonshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Butterfly_Voters_View.jpg
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www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/lp22/CP303/case/atlanta.html
Atlanta Olympics bomb threat (July 1996)
• Call made to 911“There is a bomb in Centennial Park – you have 30 minutes”
• Dispatchers– Couldn’t dispatch till they had an address
– Were unable to find Centennial Park’s street address• How many N’s in “Centennial”?• Do I need to add “Park”?
• Can the phone number give me the address?
• It took 10 minutes to find the address(by ringing the phone number & asking for the address)
• Bomb went off 22 minutes after call– 1 killed + dozens injured
Good interfaces are “invisible”
Learnable“walk up and use”
Efficient to use“don’t waste my time”
Prevent errors & help you recover“don’t lead me into dumb mistakes”
User empowerment“make me smart at my job (without slowing me down)”
User acceptance & confidence“I’ll be back”
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Why does bad design happen?
We will fix it in We will fix it in the next release...the next release...
Theoretical, untested assumptions
Pheasant’s fundamental fallacies (1986)
• An ‘average’ user & task structure– Failing to support workflow
– Poor allocation of function
– “It works for me”
– “I think they will want…”
• Assumptions of user adaptability– Memory overload
– Inconsistency of design
Other reasons
• Project pressures
• Unthinking-ness
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Why should you care?
High ease of use
Predicts
User understanding & satisfaction
Task quality
IT value
Predicts
Improved uptake / sales
Allianz intranetOver 85% of staff rated it as Very Good or Excellent (up from 10%)
Wizard, Westpac & GSR websitesOnline sales doubled
Improved productivity
UCD approach typically increases user productivity by 25%
The Gartner Group (1992)
Amex bank authorisation systemTask time fell from 17 to 4 minutes
Telstra intranetProductivity targets in 3 months (not 9)
Melbourne Water approvalsTask time fell from <30 days to 1 day
Redesign of Macquarie intranet
Usage Approval Average clicks
Very low 3% 12
Very high 96% 3
Improved performance
NY Stock Exchange primary trading systemsError rates fell by a factor of 10 (despite doubled workloads)
Staples.com72% drop in registration drop-outs
Less support needed
Usability principles typically reduces training costs by 25%
Landauer (1995)
Redesign of insurance system Help desk calls dropped by 2/3
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Sites lose approx.• 50% potential sales – people can't find what they want• 40% repeat visits – first one was negative experience
Repeat customers can spend almost twice as much as new users of an e-commerce site
2006 study confirmed that consumers stop dealings when they have a negative service experience• 80% US• 65% UK
I haven’t enjoyed trying to find what I wanted to find on
this website. It’s just annoying me.
I’d probably just go to the next site and have a look at
that one – and come back to this one only if I had to.
A customer trying to select health insurance
Usage has business implications
If customers make one call, they are 90% more likely to make repeat calls
This often becomes part of the corporate cost structure (eating away at profit)
Over the long term, this is a no-win strategy
Mauro (2001)
In 2003, an Internet booking cost an airline 50 cents (but $6 through a travel agent or phone operator)
Gartner Group estimate: Average call cost is >20 times more expensive than a web self-service enquiry
The Net’s supposed to be quick, accessible and very
simple – that wasn’t and I was getting grumpy with it.
Sooner or later, I would actually stop all this,
close it down and ring them up.
Usage has business implications
From Here to Usability: Victorian Government presentation
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More credible websites
It’s usable when it’s “fit for purpose”
Donald Norman “The Design of Everyday Things”
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usableuseful engagingeffectiveefficient
Users achieve their goalswithout the tools getting in the way
Businesses achieve their desired outcomes
Broadening our focusUser Experience Honeycomb
These approaches are being applied to other things
– New technologies
– Customer experience
– Service design
– Process design
Peter Morvillewww.semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php
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Some aspects are easier to design
• Terminology– “Use my language”
• Predictability– Consistent appearance & behaviour
– Feedback
• Orientation– “Where am I?”
– “What can I do here?”
• Readable & clear layout
Some aspects are harder
• Obvious, efficient structure and navigation– Match workflow
• Support different user types/needs– Match expectations
– Understand their motivation
• User control
• Subjective user satisfaction– “The user experience”
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How do you “do” Usability?
Don’t assume people:• Work like you work• Think like you think• Talk like you talk• Like what you like• Understand the technology• Understand your organisation
You are not your user
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Collaboration&
Context
Usability through user-centred design (UCD)
• Users’ needs predominantly drive the design– Creates better products
– Focus on usage & context
– Developers & designers are not suitable user representatives
• Empirical and cyclic (iterative)
Involve Usability as early as possible
$1 $6 – $10 $80 – $100
RequirementsPhase
DevelopmentPhase
DeploymentPhase
No. Possible Design
Alternatives Cost o
f Cha
nges
80% of software costs occur after release (maintenance)
• 80% of that work is due to unmet / unforeseen user requirements
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Potential activities
Field studies
Usability testingCollaborative designMock-ups
ScenariosCard sortingFocus groups
Stakeholder workshops
Usability goals
Set the focus
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Creative CommonsMitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Visual design
Buttons ‘look like’ buttons
Effective & clean layout
Visual appeal & Branding (fonts, colours, icons, etc.)
Interaction design
Navigation & Flow
Style of ‘conversation’(“the experience”)
Information design
Structure of information & controls (“information architecture”)
Orientation & Feedback
Language & Style(labelling; online reading)
Users
Business
Call centre system design Not just about the agent
Agent
BusinessCustomer
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Goals
Provide good customer service
Meet targets for performance
Issues
Cognitive load in high-pressure environment
Unclear or rigid workflows
Agent
Design strategies
Build workflow into design (support)
Provide workflow flexibility
Use consistent language
In-built coaching
Goals
Reduce cost by 30%
Reduce training: 3 weeks to 2 days
Capture customer intelligence
Issues
Calls take too long to complete
Agents need significant systems training
System doesn’t encourage data capture
Business
Design strategies
Reduce task time (support workflow & reduce errors)
More intuitive screens with in-built coaching
Support easy information capture
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Goals
Personalised experience (remember me)
Have confidence in organisation (you know what you’re doing)
Issues
“I’ve already explained this!”
“I’m not being treated like a valued customer”
Call does not flow naturally
Customer
Design strategies
Customer snapshot
Flexible workflows
Customer-centric view of the world (e.g. time & location)
Interaction design to support flow(e-commerce website)
From Here to Usability: Victorian Government presentation
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Activity scenarios Provide the vision for the user experience (and why it’s like that)
Card sortingHelps to identify a user-centred information structure
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Information architecture (structure)
Commentary & rationale (e.g. changed labels, new content identified by users)
Lateral relationships (between topics)
© The Hiser Group 2009
Mock-ups(a.k.a. “wireframes”)
Make the design “real”(early & cheaply)
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Make sure it works for its intended audience
Usability testing
Collaborative design
Example Hiser style guide
© The Hiser Group 2009
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Example Hiser style guideSelect screen controls based on the user’s task
© The Hiser Group 2009
Visual designLead the user through each window or page
• Reading & chunking– Group boxes & separators
• Placement & spacing– Alignment & designing
with grids
– Assists with layout
– Aids readability
• Visual weight
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How much usability do I need?
Do you need lots & lots?
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Not necessarily…
Usability will need more attention, the more that…
• The system matters to your business
• Interactions are complex or new
• The user audience is large and/or diverse
• Users are outside your organisation
Should it be the same for all projects?
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• Apply your resources where you have the greatest need
• Integrated & planned for
– As early as possible
– At key points (based on project need)
– Budget set aside
• Everyone does at least something
– “Some Usability is better than no Usability”
– If you can do more, even better!
Prioritise projects for Usability input
Low -effort usability Medium -effort usability High -effort usability
Targeted at external users(affects the credibility)
Some (indirect?) use by people external to the
organisation
Only used by staff (who’ll receive training & support)
Used relatively often
Quite important to the organisation
Lots of users OR
Very frequently used
Fewer users OR
Less frequently used
Mission-criticalSomewhat important to the organisation
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Construction
Deployment
Testing
Analysis
Design
PlanningAnalyst
Analyst
Developer
Developer
Low
Analyst
Usability
Usability Analyst
Usability
Usability
High
Analyst
Usability
Usability Analyst
Analyst
Medium
Usability
Integration
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Usability should be strategic (not happenstance)
Beware the “Usability police” syndrome!
• Usability needs to be seen as helping– Create successful systems– A focus on adoption & outcomes
• Facilitators & supporters(with a mandate)
– Not the “cop with a truncheon”who beats you up at the gates…
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Greg RalphPrincipal
(03) 9648 [email protected]
The Hiser Group18 / 535 Bourke StreetMelbourne Vic 3000
www.hiser.com.au
Jeremy LewisonConsulting Manager
(03) 9648 [email protected]