Express Usability: Conduct Usability in 40 Hours or Less (Sarah Weise)

Express Usability >>Sarah Weise weise_sarah@bah.com Booz | Allen | Hamilton
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Can you really make a difference in 40 hours or less?
Yes you can! A little usability is better than no usability.
Booz | Allen | Hamilton

Usable government sites! Take a peek…

We all know that an investment in usability pays off. You’re at a UPA conference, so you must be a believer.
But that doesn’t mean your customers are. It’s possible they’ve never heard of usability before.
Maybe they’ve heard of it but think it’s an unnecessary expense.
In these instances, a quick study is a LOW RISK way for you to…
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Introduce your clients to usability
Make a difference in a short timeframe
Build repeat business

Other reasons for quick usability studies…
Projectwith an agile schedule
Project simply doesn’t have the time or budget
Emergency room usability
At the very last minute, you’ve been called to help fix a problem.

In any of these instances, you can not only make a difference
but also possibly…

Turn your clients into believers!
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So this presentation will introduce one methodology of express usability that includes:
Creating a menu of service offerings that your team can accomplish in 40 hours or less
Preparing templates in advance so that you’re ready to start a one-week study
At the end of this presentation, you should be able to immediately apply these concepts and start getting your menu and templates prepared for the next time you need to do a short-term study.
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So let’s get started!
Our methodology originated by looking at a Fixed Price menu at a restaurant. For a standard cost, you get to choose one appetizer, one main course, and one dessert.
The technique is as simple as 1 – 2 – 3…
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List your offerings
Group by Data Gathering, Analysis, & Deliverable
Choose one from each group
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PRIX FIXE MENU
Data Gathering :: choose one
Focus groupPlan and lead 6 hours worth of focus group sessions*
Usability testingCreate scenarios based on top tasks, craft post-test survey, and conduct 6 hours worth of one-on-one usability testing*
Web surveyCreate survey questions to solicit preference data and discover more about target audiences*
Existing dataEvaluate existing data such as help desk tickets, web analytics, and/or survey data
Analysis :: choose one
Heuristic reviewExpert evaluation of select screens from a website or application
Homepage analysisCoupled with a mockup displaying information more effectively
Visual evaluationAnalysis of branding strategy, colors, images, typography
Task analysis Evaluate paths to streamline information architecture
Persuasion, emotion, trust evaluationEvaluate how to more effectively move customers to take action
Stakeholder analysisBased on a web survey, focus group, or existing data if available
Pattern analysisIdentify trends in existing data
BenchmarkCompare my site to my competitors’
This is an example of my team’s fixed price menu. Our activities are listed by data gathering, analysis, or deliverable.
When you list all of your activities out in advance, it takes much less time to strategize and plan each time you get a new short-term project.
You’ll notice that none of the techniques in and of themselves are new. They are simply tailored to fit into a short timeframe.
* Recruiting/scheduling not included

PRIX FIXE MENU

PRIX FIXE MENU
Deliverable :: choose one
Recommendations reportDetails top recommendations based on our analysis in a finding-rationale-recommendation format
Screen-by-screen findings reportPoints out areas on each page that can be improved
Design conceptsPair with the visual evaluation: two alternate design concepts
Information architecture recommendationsNavigational outline or flow chart detailing enhancements to organization and page flow
Wireframe(s)Visually displays layout recommendations; interactive prototyping may be an option if time permits
Trend reportPair with the pattern analysis or benchmark; couple with stakeholder analysis if data is available and time permits

So in order to show you how selections from this menu help us to complete our analysis in 40 hours, I’ll tell you a couple stories of how we’ve selected different combinations of offerings.

My first story is about an intranet my team was called in to help fix. When we first met with the client, we were only 6 weeks away from the site’s launch, so we had very limited hours.

The homepage consisted of 3 screenfullsof information.

A news feed, one of the most helpful items on the site, only displayed when a user clicked one of the navigation tabs.

In a 40-hour project, there’s not enough time to fix everything.
So we needed to decide where to focus our efforts.

These screens are taken directly from a survey we often walk our clients through.

The final question about your client’s main goals is the most important because it helps you select your analysis technique, the main course from your fixed price menu.

PRIX FIXE MENU
Since our client’s main goal was to improve the look & feel of the site and create a more positive first impression, we spent our time improving the visual aspects of the homepage.
As the expert, you are going to be the one to make the menu choices for your client. You’re never going to give the menu directly to the client and let your client pick because they might pick something they don’t need, or don’t have data for.

PRIX FIXE MENU
After choosing our analysis technique, we paired it with an data gathering method. Our client did not allow us access to real users, so we opted to analyze existing help desk tickets to tell us what users struggled with in the existing application.

PRIX FIXE MENU
The deliverable you present will really depend on the analysis and data gathering technique you have selected, so choose it last. For this project, we chose to couple a recommendations report with a mockup of what the site could look like if they followed our recommendations.
So once you’ve chosen from your menu, you’re ready to get started!

Templates prepared in advance for some of these activities will help you:
Work faster
Ensure that you’re not missing anything
Aid in consistency between projects, even with
different analysts

Heuristic Review Template
One template our team often uses is a template for conducting heuristic reviews. Regardless of what heuristics you use, you can format them in a way that will make it quicker and easier to conduct a heuristic review.
This example template is in Excel, and for each heuristic details a Finding, Recommendation, Rationale with research findings, and the Sources cited in the rationale. By having this template all written out, you’ll know exactly what the statistics are and who to cite without having to spend time looking it up.

In a pinch, present recommendations in Excel
If you only have a day or two to conduct your review, you can even use this spreadsheet to present your recommendations. Go through your findings one by one and simply delete the ones that don’t apply; keep and customize the ones that do.

… Just add an introduction

… and best practices currently followed
We always like to add a section about what the existing site is doing right. It not only helps get your client in a good mood before they hear that their baby is ugly, but also shows that we’re not here to criticize; we’re here to help.
So getting back to the story of our intranet…

In just 40 hours, we…
Analyzed help desk tickets
Conducted expert review
Wrote recommendations report
Created 3 mockups for a phased approach to our recommendations

Our Deliverables
Recommendations Report
Mockups to Illustrate our Recommendations

My second story is about USAJobs.gov, a website where anyone can apply for a U.S. Government job.

By identifying our client’s goals, we chose to focus on:
Identifying users
Simplifying the navigation

PRIX FIXE MENU

We created our survey based on a template of standard questions we ask about the site.

PRIX FIXE MENU
We analyzed the top task of the site – applying for a job – to see how we could streamline the page flow. Because we only had a limited amount of time, this was the sole task we analyzed.

PRIX FIXE MENU

As Is…
We presented the “As Is” navigation as a series of screen shots to demonstrate how overwhelming it was to walk through over 30 screens.
This was a very quick slide to create, yet it made a BIG impact.

We then recommended how to streamline the site from 30 steps to 9 steps. We didn’t have time to mock up all the screens, so we wrote out what should go on them.
Could be…

For the most important pages, we pointed out with callout boxes the areas that could be improved.

Even though we did not have mockups for each page, the client still got the message.
Before enhancements…

After enhancements…
Even at first glance, you can tell that the site has been drastically simplified.

Even in 40 hours or less, you can show your clients a new perspective with tools like:
Fixed price menu
Questions to determine client goals
Heuristic review template
Web survey template
Recommendation report formats (finding-rationale-recommendation; information architecture; page callouts)
These tools will help you not only recommend enhancements quickly, but also engage your client in a discussion about usability and possibly build future business.
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Express Usability: Conduct Usability in 40 Hours or Less (Sarah Weise)

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