What I Learned In Pr Writing

Design for Strangers: Effective User Experience Design When Your Users are on Another Continent Rashmi Sinha Jonathan Boutelle Uzanto Consulting

Structure of workshop
Introduction
Evaluating Systems (Morning session)
Overview of evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation
Usability Testing
GOMS
Understanding users (Afternoon session)
Personas and Scenarios
Mental Models and Information Architecture
Business of Usability (time permitting)

Evaluating systems: Available data streams
Different data streams yield different types of metrics
Usability Testing
Remote Usability Testing
Server Logs or Transaction Logs
Satisfaction Data
Page Level Ratings
GOMS

Using heuristics (or rules of thumb) for evaluating systems.
Expert analyze degree to which system complies with rules
Heuristics such as
Keep user informed of system status
Speak the user’s language

Usability Tests
Test with users
Very useful for design purposes
But software must be built before it can be tested
Difficult to use to convince management
Often conducted in artificial scenarios

Remote Usability Testing
Advantages
Large Sample Size
Disadvantages
Cost
Most of the usual disadvantages of usability testing

Server and Transaction Logs
Can give an accurate view of site activity
Can give detailed view of site activity – possible to drill down
Hard to relate to user experience and user goals
Hard to understand – massive reams of data
Often used by corporations to roughly track user experience

Satisfaction Ratings
Give an overall view of the site
Such ratings often have business buy-in
Very difficult to move such numbers
Might not relate to specific aspects of the site
Make effort not to let the satisfaction levels fall

GOMS
Can help track the complexity of an interface
How much work it will take to complete a task
Might not tell you what real users will do
Very helpful in comparing interfaces
Can be used with interfaces that have not been implemented yet

What Data Streams to Use
What does it measure
User Behavior (navigation paths, errors) or User Attitudes (user loyalty, satisfaction)?
Gap between reported and actual behavior.
Recommendation: Have at least one data stream of each.
How comprehensive is the coverage?
how much of the site is covered
the frequency of measurement
Sensitivity of measurement:
How sensitive is data stream to changes in the user experience

What Data Streams to Use continued
Sampling Bias: Every data stream comes with its own set of sampling biases.
The economics of measurement will determine what types of data are practical to collect.
Initial cost
Ongoing cost
Cost of increasing sample size

Introduction
Usability Testing
GOMS

Developed by Jakob Nielsen
Helps find usability problems in a UI design
Small set (3-5) of evaluators examine UI
independently check for compliance with usability principles (“heuristics”)
different evaluators will find different problems
evaluators only communicate afterwards
findings are then aggregated
Can perform on working UI or on prototypes or designs

What are heuristics?
Simple easy rules of thumbs for enhancing usability
For example:
Have simple and natural dialog
Speak the users’ language

Heuristic Evaluation Process
Evaluators go through UI several times
inspect various dialogue elements
compare with list of usability principles
consider other principles/results that come to mind
Usability principles
Nielsen’s “heuristics”
supplementary list of category-specific heuristics
competitive analysis & user testing of existing products
Use violations to redesign/fix problems
From Jakob Neilsen

Heuristic 1: Visibility of system status The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. searching database for matches

Visibility of system status (cont)
Response Time parameters
0.1 sec: no special indicators needed, why?
1.0 sec: user tends to lose track of data
10 sec: max. duration if user to stay focused on action
for longer delays, use percent-done progress bars

Heuristic 2: Match between system & real world
The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.
Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

There should be a match between system & real world
follow real world conventions
Use User’s language, not developer’s language

Provide ways for users to backtrack when they make mistakes.
Have clearly labeled exits allowing users to backtrack without an extended interaction.
Support undo and redo.
Heuristic 3: User Control and Freedom

User Freedom Heuristics (cont.)
H2-3: User control & freedom
“exits” for mistaken choices, undo, redo
don’t force down fixed paths
Wizards
must respond to Q before going to next
Should be easy to good for beginners
have 2 versions (WinZip)

Use a consistent look and feel.
Do not confuse users by changing platform conventions.
Heuristic 4: Consistency and Standards

Consistency (cont.)
Is this confusing?

Heuristic 5: Error Prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.
Example:
If user is asked to spell something, e.g. file names, it might be easier to give them a menu from which they can choose the files.
Example: Modes
When the same action leads to different consequences in different states. For example in older word processors, there was an insert and edit modes. The same key press in the different modes would lead to different outcomes.

Heuristic 6: Recognition rather than recall
Make objects, actions, and options visible.
The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another.
Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
Computers good at remembering things, human beings are not.
Computer should display dialog elements to the user, and have them make a choice.
During web navigation, remind users where they are currently.

Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
Heuristic 7: Flexibility & efficiency of use

Flexibility (cont.)
accelerators for experts (e.g., gestures, kb shortcuts)
allow users to tailor frequent actions (e.g., macros)
OR Ctrl-V Ctrl-C Ctrl-X Edit Cut Copy Paste

Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed.
Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
Heuristic 8: Aesthetic and minimalist design

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
Heuristic 9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

Heuristic 10: Help and documentation
It is better if the system can be used without documentation, but it may be necessary to provide help and documentation.
Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Phases of Heuristic Evaluation
Pre-evaluation training
give evaluators needed domain knowledge and information on the scenario
Evaluation
individuals evaluate and then aggregate results
Severity rating
determine how severe each problem is (priority)
can do this first individually and then as a group
Debriefing
discuss the outcome with design team

How to Perform Evaluation
At least two passes for each evaluator
first to get feel for flow and scope of system
second to focus on specific elements
If system is walk-up-and-use or evaluators are domain experts, no assistance needed
otherwise might supply evaluators with scenarios
Each evaluator produces list of problems
explain why with reference to heuristic or other information
be specific and list each problem separately

Examples
Can’t copy info from one window to another
violates “Minimize the users’ memory load” (H1-3)
fix: allow copying
Typography uses mix of upper/lower case formats and fonts
violates “Consistency and standards” (H2-4)
slows users down
probably wouldn’t be found by user testing
fix: pick a single format for entire interface

Severity Rating
Used to allocate resources to fix problems
Estimates of need for more usability efforts
Combination of
frequency
impact
persistence (one time or repeating)
Should be calculated after all evals. are in
Should be done independently by all judges
Severity Ratings
0 - don’t agree that this is a usability problem
1 - cosmetic problem
2 - minor usability problem
3 - major usability problem; important to fix
4 - usability catastrophe; imperative to fix

Debriefing
Conduct with evaluators, observers, and development team members
Discuss general characteristics of UI
Suggest potential improvements to address major usability problems
Dev. team rates how hard things are to fix
Make it a brainstorming session
little criticism until end of session

Results of Using HE
Single evaluator achieves poor results
only finds 35% of usability problems
5 evaluators find ~ 75% of usability problems
why not more evaluators???? 10? 20?
adding evaluators costs more
many evaluators won’t find many more problems

Summary
Heuristic evaluation is a discount method
Have evaluators go through the UI twice
Ask them to see if it complies with heuristics
note where it doesn’t and say why
Combine the findings from 3 to 5 evaluators
Have evaluators independently rate severity
Discuss problems with design team
Alternate with user testing

Heuristic Evaluation Exercise
Split into two groups
Conduct Heuristic Evaluation as a group (Create list of heuristic violation)
Each person within group provides a severity rating for each heuristic violation (eliminate redundancies)
Average severity for each group
Present back to larger group

Introduction
Usability Testing
GOMS

Overview of user testing
Why do user testing?
Choosing participants
Designing the test
Collecting data
Analyzing the data

Why do User Testing?
Can’t tell how good or bad UI is until
people use it!
Other methods are based on evaluators who?
may know too much
may not know enough (about tasks, etc.)
Summary: Hard to predict what real users will do

Choosing Participants
Representative of eventual users in terms of
job-specific vocabulary / knowledge
tasks
If you can’t get real users, get approximation
system intended for doctors
get medical students
system intended for electrical engineers
get engineering students
Use incentives to get participants

Ethical Considerations
Sometimes tests can be distressing
users have left in tears
users can be embarrassed by mistakes
You have a responsibility to alleviate this
make voluntary with informed consent
avoid pressure to participate
let them know they can stop at any time [Gomoll]
stress that you are testing the system, not them
make collected data as anonymous as possible

User Test Proposal
A report that contains
objective
description of system being testing
task environment & materials
participants
methodology
tasks
test measures

Selecting Tasks
Should reflect what real tasks will be like
Tasks from analysis & design can be used
may need to shorten if
they take too long
require background that test user won’t have
Avoid bending tasks in direction of what your design best supports
Don’t choose tasks that are too fragmented

Deciding on Data to Collect
Two types of data
process data
observations of what users are doing & thinking
bottom-line data
summary of what happened (time, errors, success…)
i.e., the dependent variables
Focus on process data first
gives good overview of where problems are
Bottom-line doesn’t tell you where to fix
just says: “too slow”, “too many errors”, etc.
Hard to get reliable bottom-line results
need many users for statistical significance (don’t bother unless needed)

The “Thinking Aloud” Method
Need to know what users are thinking, not just what they are doing
Ask users to talk while performing tasks
tell us what they are thinking
tell us what they are trying to do
tell us questions that arise as they work
tell us things they read
Make a recording or take good notes
make sure you can tell what they were doing

Thinking Aloud (cont.)
Prompt the user to keep talking
“tell me what you are thinking”
Only help on things you have pre-decided
keep track of anything you do give help on
Recording
use a digital watch/clock
take notes, plus if possible
record audio and video (or even event logs)

Using the Test Results
Summarize the data
make a list of all critical incidents (CI)
positive: something they liked or worked well
negative: difficulties with the UI
include references back to original data
try to judge why each difficulty occurred
What does data tell you?
UI work the way you thought it would?
consistent with heuristic evaluation
users take approaches you expected?

Using the Results (cont.)
Update task analysis and rethink design
rate severity & ease of fixing CI’s
fix both severe problems & make the easy fixes
Will thinking aloud give the right answers?
not always
if you ask a question, people will always give an answer, even it is has nothing to do with the facts
try to avoid specific questions

Measuring Bottom-Line Usability
Situations in which numbers are useful
time requirements for task completion
successful task completion
compare two designs on speed or # of errors
Do not combine with thinking-aloud
talking can affect speed and accuracy (neg. & pos.)
Time is easy to record
Error or successful completion is harder
define in advance what these mean

Analyzing the Numbers
Example: trying to get task time <=30 min.
test gives: 20, 15, 40, 90, 10, 5
mean (average) = 30
median (middle) = 17.5
looks good!
wrong answer, not certain of anything
Factors contributing to our uncertainty
small number of test users (n = 6)
results are very variable (standard deviation = 32)
std. dev. measures dispersal from the mean

Measuring User Preference
How much users like or dislike the system
can ask them to rate on a scale of 1 to 10
or have them choose among statements
“best UI I’ve ever…”, “better than average”…
hard to be sure what data will mean
novelty of UI, feelings, not realistic setting, etc.
If many give you low ratings, you are in trouble
Can get some useful data by asking
what they liked, disliked, where they had trouble, best part, worst part, etc. (redundant questions)

User Testing: Cultural Issues
Are users the same all over
Obviously not
Getting users that are as similar as possible to your real users is important
Can you test on users from another country?
Probably not for things that are culturally specific
Entertainment
marketing-ware
Generic business software
Yes for applications targeted at specialists with strong international work cultures
Doctors
Software engineers

Testing Details
Order of tasks
choose one simple order (simple -> complex)
Training
depends on how real system will be used
What if someone doesn’t finish
assign very large time & large # of errors
Pilot study
helps you fix problems with the study
do twice, first with colleagues, then with real users

Instructions to Participants
Describe the purpose of the evaluation
“I’m testing the product; I’m not testing you”
Tell them they can quit at any time
Demonstrate the equipment
Explain how to think aloud
Explain that you will not provide help
Describe the task
give written instructions

Details (cont.)
Keeping variability down
recruit test users with similar background
brief users to bring them to common level
perform the test the same way every time
don’t help some more than others (plan in advance)
make instructions clear
Debriefing test users
often don’t remember, so show video segments
ask for comments on specific features
show them screen (online or on paper)

Summary
User testing is important, but takes time & effort
Early testing can be done on a mock-ups (low-fi)
Use real tasks & representative participants
Be ethical & treat your participants well
Want to know what people are doing & why
i.e., collect process data
Using bottom line data requires more users to get statistically reliable results

User Testing Exercise
Divide into groups
Each group devise a test plan
2 tasks, where to get users from, who to test
Test someone from the other group
Note findings

Introduction
Usability Testing
GOMS

GOMS
Can help track the complexity of an interface
How much work it will take to complete a task
Might not tell you what real users will do
Very helpful in comparing interfaces
Can be used with interfaces that have not been implemented yet

GOMS Overview
Goals, Objects, Methods, Selection Rules
A way of measuring how much work it takes to do something using a given information system
System doesn’t have to exist yet
Many GOMS variants: most are quite complex and difficult to implement
A simplified version of Keystroke-Level GOMS will be presented today

GOMS Keystroke Actions
The actions
K (Click, Keying): .2 Seconds
M (mentally preparing): 1.35 Seconds
P (pointing): 1.1 Seconds
H (homing) (move hand between keyboard and pointing device) .4 Second
R (system responding): varies by system / action
Very approximate estimates of time to do task
Useless for predicting how much time a task will take
Thinking doesn’t always take 1.35 second
Pointing time varies with size of target and distance from current location (Fitt’s law)
Yet valid on a comparative basis if two designs / systems are analyzed using the same technique

EZ-GOMS Calculation
Explicitly specify a task
Typically many potential paths through a given design, optional fields etc: get explicit
Consider using ranges (minimum, maximum, typical) to get a better sense of best / worst case scenarios
Calculate all the actions that will be taken to perform that task
Add M (mental preparation) in using this rules
In front of all clicking
In front of all pointing
Remove “M”s using these rules (you’ll do this automatically after a little practice)
Remove anticipated “M”s (M P M K-> M P K)
Remove “M”s within cognitive units (“fred”-> MKMKMKMK->MKKKK)
Remove overlapping “M”s (adjacent to Rs)
Remove “M”s before consecutive terminators }}
Remove “M”s that are terminators of commands

EZ-GOMS Example
H M P K H (select name text box)
M K K K K K K (enter name)
H M P K H (select password text box)
M K K K K K K (enter password)
H M P K (click “sign in” button)
R (waiting for the server to respond)

Understanding User Needs Afternoon Session

Introduction
Usability Testing
GOMS

Problem with traditional user research methods
Long sessions of observing users or interviewing them or participatory design.
Appropriate in face to face interaction situations.
Methods work well in designing for easy to access audiences. Difficult to use for remote users.
Difficult to use when designing for global audiences.
Also difficult to use such methods to make business case since numbers are small and data is qualitative.
So what is the answer?

Semi-structured user research methods
Using mostly phone and online surveys
Complementary with, rather than an alternative to open-ended methods
Can work for information-rich domains
Help understand information representations in user’s minds. e.g. design of navigation for cell phone.
Work well in remote situations

Two types of user research methods
Part 1: User information needs
What user needs are important?
Can users be differentiated into groups on the basis of such needs? Can this grouping be used to form personas?
Part 2: User Categorizations
Scope & boundaries of information domain
Structure of information domain
Differences between groups of people (different user groups, different cultures, stakeholders)

Part 1: Understanding user needs, creating scenarios & personas remotely
Why persona based design
One of the problems in design is that it is very hard to visualize an abstract “USER” and what he / she might want
Develop one or two persona of the typical “user” from interviews with many users
Persona is made up person, your so called “typical user”.
Should be based on your experiences with actual users in the interview stage.
From Alan Cooper Many potential users One Persona

Persona based Design Process
Persona:
The archetypical user
Goals
Goals of the persona in using the software
Tasks
Specific steps needed to accomplish goal.
Scenario
The usage scenario, the whole incident of software usage
From Alan Cooper

Characteristics of Personas (from Cooper)
“Hypothetical Archetypes”
Archetype:
An original model after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype
A precise description of a user and what they want to accomplish
Imaginary, but precise
Specific, but stereotyped

Targeted Design with Personas
Describe a person in terms of their
Goals in life (especially relating to this project)
Capabilities , inclinations , and background
People have a “visceral” ability to generalize about real and fictional people
They won’t be 100% accurate, but it feels natural to think about people this way
Why use personas
If you try to satisfy everyone, you end up satisfying no one. A compromise design pleases no-one
From all your interviews etc.,
decide what is your typical user / users,
create a specific persona
then try to please that that persona 100% of the time.

Advantages of Personas
Targeted Design Works Better
Example: Roller suitcases
Was designed specifically for airline employees, pilots, airhostesses etc.
Has become popular with all classes of people
In order to do good design you need to have a specific person in mind, and think in terms of that person every time a design decision needs to be made
Puts an end to feature debates
Makes hypothetical arguments less hypothetical
Q: “What if the user wants to print this out?”
Typical discussion “The user will / wiil not want to print often.”
“ Given her tasks, and Emilee won’t want to print often.”

Case Study using Personas
Primary Persona
Joe, the executive
Make him happy 100% of the time
Secondary Persona
Dan, the traveler
Try to take care of his needs as well

Developing Personas cont.
Joe: The busy traveling executive from a multinational company. He is on the road about 10 days a month.
He is very fond of food but is afraid to explore in strange cities, and prefers restaurants which serve good , but not exotic food.
He is also fond of a beer with his meal.
He does not like to travel far for food, prefers to walk or hop into a cab for a short ride

Developing Personas cont.
Dan : Driving his car across the country after graduating. Gets to a different city every night and finds a hotel and a restaurant.
He wants to explore the town, find the local hangouts, understand the town’s culture.
He likes to try different kinds of food .
He prefers restaurant in the middle of the town.

Goals and Tasks of Users
Goals are larger functions that the user is hoping to satisfy
Get acquainted with the city, discover its special cuisine
Not have to travel too much for food
Relax after a hard day’s work / driving

Tasks of users
Tasks are the specific steps that the user has to go through in order to accomplish his goals. Asks include the usage of the software.
Find information about various restaurants
Decide on the one based on factors such as price, cuisine, serves alcohol or not/ distance from location
Get to the restaurant
Eat
Pay for meal

Development of Scenarios Primary Persona: Joe, the executive Make him happy 100% of the time
Scenario: Joe’s company has tied up with some Delhi IT company, and he is visiting Delhi for the first time.
He is staying somewhere near South Ex.
He needs to find a restaurant to eat at.
He is not feeling adventerous, so not Dosa! Just some safe Burger and Fries.
So Joe turns to his trusted Palm

Development of Scenarios Joe needs to input his location into his palm. Input what kind of food he wants or the program can use defaults The information returned: list of possible restaurants along with their relevant details, kinds of food etc. More details about each on request: details such as the availability of beer, if they take credit cards, links to reviews etc.

Development of Scenarios The information returned to Joe needs to be broad (offer a number of options) and deep (offer more details upon request) Location Information is another concern of Joe’s. Ideally he wants exact distance & directions to restaurant. Not possible, not live website

Development of Scenarios What else does Joe need? To mark restaurants that he liked. Lets think more… Compromise : Tag restaurants in terms of neighborhoods. Joe can give current neighborhood. Can be shown map with neighborhoods marked out & approximate distances.

Our secondary Persona Does this design make Dan happy? Designing for one specific user often makes other users happy as well.

Aspects of Scenarios
Daily Use
Fast to learn
Shortcuts and customization after more use
Necessary Use
Infrequent but required
Nothing fancy needed
Edge Cases
Ignore or save for version 2

Personas and Market Segmentation
Uses of Market Segmentation
Used to identify clusters of people product can appeal to.
Using demographics or using attitudinal/psychological/psychographic variables.
Questions focus on like / dislike of product concept
what do you think of vanilla coke or green Heinz ketchup?
Forecasts marketplace acceptance of products.
Helps convince executives to build product.
Not helpful for defining and designing product.

Reconciling personas and market segments
Build personas on top of segments
Ground the personas in reality.
Define a persona for each main segment
Focus on goals and behaviors of users.
Advantages:
Easy to get buy-in for personas from management, engineering etc.

Persona building method
Method
Conduct secondary research
Examine existing market segments
Conduct interviews with various stakeholders, including multiple users
Conduct online survey if users are remote.
Find patterns.
Pick nugget and interesting tidbit and build persona around it.

Conduct secondary research
Examine existing market segments
What type of user population is product/site targeting
How should you identify current segments?
Easier for demographic segments
More difficult for attitudinal segments
What type of population characteristics are useful for design purposes?
Example: Segments for Palm based restaurant finder

Stakeholder and user interviews
Can be in person or on phone
Semi-structured interviews:
Decide on few questions before-hand leaving room for change.
Ask about scenarios of usage: e.g., last time they used product.
Go through steps of usage, exact context, motivations etc.
Tape interview if possible or keep a phone log.
Interview people from each user segment.
Ask for a few ratings on a five-point scale.
Aggregate rating information for sake of comparison.

Online survey of user needs (optional)
Important for remote users or if there are many types of users
Example
Conduct online survey on factors used in finding restaurants for travelers.
Identified factors important in choosing restaurants. e.g., Food quality, décor, wine selection, cuisine, service.
Ask for importance ratings (on 5-point scale) of factors.
Tie response to behavior: Asked respondents to recall a specific incident of choosing a restaurant, rather than answer questions in an abstract fashion.
Option: Ask about several scenarios of usage from same person. e.g., One restaurant visit with business colleagues, another with friends.

Personas Exercise
Divide into groups
Craft a primary and secondary persona for your product
Think of all that you know about your users

Introduction
Usability Testing
GOMS

Understanding User categorizations
Overview
Why people categorize?
The structure of semantic memory
Is understanding user categorization important for design?
Methods
Free-listing.
Types of Card Sorting.
Testing information architecture.

Is understanding categorization useful for design?
Direct use: when user categorization informs design, such as that of menus or of navigation design. Often referred to as information architecture (IA).
Indirect use: good to have broad understanding how users think about product even when user categorization does not directly inform IA.
Important to remember:
Categorization is not static. People are good at learning new categories. If you provide the context and the right examples, they can learn new categories or alter boundaries of old categories.

Should interfaces always reflect user categories faithfully?
No.
Categorization is far too important to depend only on what user thinks.
Should also be influenced by business proposition, strategy, brand etc.
Different user groups might differ in their perception of domain. No one scheme can serve them all perfectly.
User research can provide several alternative categorization schemes, allowing designers the freedom to make choices.

Do categorizations work across culture
Research shows
the structure of categories can be similar across cultures, though content of categories might not be.
Enough similarity for successful design.
The net generation shares a lot of culture
Cross-cultural design has been happening anyway.
Japanese cars
Italian fashion
Swiss chocolates
Indian ???

Free-listing methods for understanding scope and boundary of domain

Free-listing to explore domain scope and boundaries
Goals
Explore boundaries and scope of domain across a group of people.
Gain familiarity with user vocabulary for the domain.
Use as a precursor to card-sorting, to define and limit the domain, and frame card items in the user’s language.
Method
Can be conducted as part of interview, or as written exercise
Ask respondent, “Name all the x's you know.” Give sufficient time to do so.
How many respondents?
Depends on how much agreement there is about the domain. more agreement > fewer respondents.

Free-listing menu for Mc Donald’s User No 1 French fries Cheese burger Shake Hamburger French fries Chicken sandwich Chicken Mcnuggets Fish sandwich Shake Hamburger User No 2 French fries Chicken Cheese burger Shake User No 4 Chicken Mcnuggets Cheese burger Bacon cheese burger French fries User No 5 Hamburger Quarter pounder Big mac Chicken fajita French fries Apple pie User No 3 Hamburger Cheese burger French fries Mc rib Chicken sandwich

Analyzing free-listing data
Create a list of all items, sorted by their average rank (of being listed by a respondent). Examine how that rank order changes with the addition of each new respondent. If the ranks are relatively stable, then you can stop adding new respondents.
60% 70% 40% 40% 100% 30% Cheese burger Chicken Mcnuggets Chicken sandwich Fish sandwich French fries Shake Listed by % participants Items

Concept structure
Plot items according to frequency of mention
Core Middle Periphery
Divide items into 3 concentric circles (use your own break points):

Other uses for free-listing
Comparing cultural or other group differences
How do two groups perceive the same domain?
Comparing two domains
How does perception of McDonald’s menu compare with Wendy’s?
Segment respondents into types based on familiarity:
Find respondents with greater domain familiarity or those who perceive domain in idiosyncratic fashion?

Card-sorting and other methods for designing information architecture

Case Study: Design of online travel guide
Example: Designing an online travel guide to help users plan trips.
Purpose of card sort:
to structure the website for helping users find travel information, and create personalized travel guides.
Items include
lodging, entertainment, local information, When to Go, Travel by Car/Air/Bus, Music Events, Hiking, Day Trips, Skiing, Diving, Golf, Emergency Info.

Open card-sorting
Goal: to understand the overall categorization scheme
Method: Open card sort
Users given items. Asked to create categories
Options:
Provide total number of categories to be created (avoid problems with splitters and lumpers)
Successive card sorts to create taxonomies
It is ok to put one card in multiple groups
Ask for labels for each grouping

Cluster Analysis for card-sorting data
Cluster Analysis
Suggests a structural solution. Easy to translate into design.
Challenge: How to reconcile multiple schemes?
Hotels Bed and Breakfast Restaurants Hostels Emergency Info Currency Camping Hiking Day Trips Skiing Diving Surfing Mountain Climbing Biking

Closed card-sorting to design an IA
Goal: to understand goodness of existing information architecture and labels
Method: Closed card sort
Users given items and category labels. Asked to place each item in a category.
Do not allow creation of a miscellaneous category.
Useful for:
Understanding user categorizations when category labels are a given
Refining existing categorization scheme.
Options:
Allowing items to belong to multiple categories.
Providing category descriptions rather than category labels.

Doing closed card-sorting online
User works with given categories
Each item (card) occupies a row
Each category is represented by a column
An “Other” category catches items that do not fit in

Comparing card-sorts for different user types
Very useful for understanding differences in mental maps of various groups
Can help understand differences between user groups, different cultures etc.
Try to create consensus maps to reconcile differences between different groups.

Practical exercise
Using the RUMM (Rapid User Mental Modeling) method.

Introduction
Usability Testing
GOMS

Swimming with Sharks: The Business of Usability

What we’ll cover
Stakeholder analysis for fun and profit
Making a business case for a User Experience project
Test out the ideas with a sample project

Stakeholder Analysis

Who are stakeholders and why should we analyze them?
Stakeholder: Anyone who is affected by, or can affect, your project
Goals of understanding stakeholders
Make your design better, by getting important information about the business context
Identify potential obstacles ahead of time so you can deal with them
Change design to address the issues raised by stakeholders
Marshal evidence to counter their objections
Neutralize resistance by making stakeholders feel heard

Putting Stakeholders into context
It does not matter how good the design is if it is not approved by management and actually put into operation
A given project isn’t necessarily in everybody’s best interest
This isn’t about playing politics: this is about the institutional decision making process.
People represent different organizations within an enterprise
If a project is seen as a big negative by various organizations, it should either address the concerns raised or justify itself strongly in order to be approved
Stakeholders as another class of users who design should satisfy
A real person you can talk to
Goals are typically very concrete and business-metrics oriented.

Understanding Who’s Who in an Organization
Org charts don’t tell the whole story
Detective work needed to sort out
Motive
Influence
How to do?
Indirect
Watch for “Influence Tells”
Direct
“What are the organizational challenges?”

The Interview
Ask semi-structured questions about the product in general
What group of users is least well-served?
What one change would impact profits the most?
Where do you see <<product>> in 5 years?
Find out what their conception of your project is
What might happen if this project went well?
What are some risks associated with this project?

Remote Interviews
Online Survey
Ask same questions as in face-to-face interview
Limit to 5 minutes of work
Phone Interviews
Follow-up on survey answers: clarify answers, try to get a sense of a concerns
Compared to face-to-face interview
Less emotional connection
Even more necessary (remoteness means you know even less about stakeholders and their concerns)

Recording your understanding

Prioritizing Stakeholders
High Influence / High Interest: Engage
Low Influence / High Interest: Use as Information Source
High Influence / Low Interest: Broadly Satisfy
Low Influence / Low Interest: Avoid
Low Interest High Interest Low Influence High Influence Andre Chris Sandeep Anu

An organizational dilemma
Usability often an Independent Business Unit
IBUs provide “accountability”, make measurement easier
Engineering is responsible for paying for usability services
Engineering measured on the basis of
Schedule
Feature checklists
# bugs
Marketing/Sales measured on the basis of
Sales
Engineering invests in usability
Money, Time
but Marketing / Sales reap the benefits!
Solution: tie engineering compensation to usability metrics
Good luck

Building a Business Case for Usability

ROI of Usability: Previous work
Cost – Justifying Usability (Bias & Mayhew)
Cost (employees,subjects,equipment)
Benefit (task speed, user errors, late design changes, increased sales)
Internal vs. external
Internal benefits increase with # users and frequency of use
External benefits increase with development budget, large base of sales
Usability Return on Investment (Nielson Norman Group)
“ Usability Projects have an ROI of 150 %”
Measured by
sales conversions
Traffic / Visitor Count
User performance / productivity

Myths of Usability ROI*
Generalizing ROI estimates
Assuming improvements are due to usability
Benefits to customer booked as benefits to software company
Support, training are profit centers in enterprise software!
How does usability increase revenue?
Win/loss reports for enterprise software sales
User research to determine buying reasons for shrink-wrap software
registration / shopping cart behavior for ecommerce
Ignores competitive landscape
Being the “overall best choice” in your niche wins you the sale
Usability may play a greater or lesser role in determining this
Ignores potential negative business impact of changes that enhance usability
Marketing vs. User Experience in ecommerce
Ignoring opportunity costs
“ Should the project be approved? Yes, because NPV is positive.”
*Rosenberg, BayCHI 2003

Building a Business Case *
Understand your business,
The financial levers for the company
The competitive environment that company operates in
Understand Project Approval Process
Who has say, what are the stages of project approval
What metrics the enterprise cares about
Understand threats and opportunities from UX perspective
User and Stakeholder Research
Find areas where user and business interests are in tandem
Try to frame UX projects such that
Risk low, payoff high (it is all about risk)
Chances of success are high
Estimate ROI
Estimate Costs: Development,Negative Revenue Impact, Opportunity Cost
Estimate Benefit (be conservative)
After the project
Follow up: track successes and failures. Be accountable.
*reference: Herman,J. CHI 2004

Key Points
Not every project will be justifiable
ROI for some projects will be huge
Ultimate proof is in “moving the needle”
Different companies care about different “financial levers” (business metrics)
Make your case on the basis of those numbers
For example, # Registrations, % successful registrations, support calls per customer, average sale size
Management doesn’t care about methodology
Don’t justify methodology

Key Points (cont.)
UX practitioners should understand business levers and incorporate them into design at a core level
Post-hoc justification is not enough
Project selection and design should be informed by business metrics
Some UX practitioners should learn about business analysis
Take a process oriented approach
Evolve a process that takes into account the various interests and goals within an organization

Example Situations: ROI in an ecommerce Context
Context: Online book seller is planning to improve the checkout process
Metrics:
Number of shopping cart bailouts
Performance on usability test
It is easy to justify ROI of shopping cart improvement since fewer bailouts means more sales.
Design should focus on reducing bailouts

Example Situations: ROI in a Customer Service Context
Context: Bank is planning to two projects to reduce call volume (a) let users look at their account balance, and (b) let users update their contact information.
Metrics
Call volume metrics (overall # of calls, per task # of calls)
# Online Transactions (that plausibly replaced calls)
Performance on usability test
It is easier to justify ROI of updating contact information than of looking at their account balance
Updating of contact information plausibly replaces a phone call
Looking at account balance does NOT plausibly replace a phone call.
Did they even care, or are they just browsing?
Even if they did care, benefit is more diffuse (customer convenience -> loyalty)

Crossing the Chasm
Where in the technology adoption life cycle does usability matter?
Early Adaptors Innovators Early Majority Late Majority Laggards

Revised technology life-cycle chasm main street tornado Early Adaptors Innovators Early Majority Late Majority Laggards bowling alley

ROI of UX in an Outsourcing context
Software Services -> Software Products
Product development requires understanding users on a deeper level
Good times ahead?
For Services
It depends on the situation of your customer
Your ROI of designing systems that satisfy your customer is huge (duh)
But your customer is hardly ever the user
So it depends on the business situation of your client
What kind of clients would care about usability?

What kind of clients care about usability?
Clients who’s customers have low switching costs
Money
Time
Expertise
Clients where the buyer=the user
Business success comes from making the buyer happy: if the buyer is the user, usability plays a bigger role
Clients operating in a fiercely competitive landscape
The better your competition is, the better you have to be to win a sale
Usability is one dimension by which products can be better
Clients making very high quality products
Trying to cross the chasm?
Four types of contexts
Content
Ecommerce
Desktop
Enterprise

What’s Next
Where do we go from here?
Can engineers do usability work on their own products?
Are usability specialists needed?
What kind of processes / corporate structures will facilitate usability work in software companies?

Thank you [email_address] [email_address] slides and other material will be posted at www.uzanto.com/papers/indiamar04

What I Learned In Pr Writing

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