UXIowa Meetup discussing the RITE method for testing software, services and products.

1. UX Iowa Meetup
2nd Session – 11/4/2014
Topic: RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)

2. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
What it is/ what you gain by using it
-It is an iterative usability method used to rapidly identify “issues” failures and errors and
verify the effectiveness of the fixes in the shortest possible time.
-Differs from a “traditional” usability test by emphasizing extremely rapid changes and
verification of the effectiveness of them.
-Fast way to test medium fidelity (partly functional) prototypes.

3. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Example of application
Source: Medlock, M.C., Wixon, D., Terrano, M., Romero, R., and Fulton, B. (2002). [1] Using the RITE method to improve products: A definition and a case
study. Presented at the Usability Professionals Association 2002, Orlando Florida.

4. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
How to use it?
1)Identify:
Audience
Measures (failures, errors)
How to measure failures and errors
2) Prepare test script
3) Ask participants to “think aloud” (tell you what they think as they are doing the task)

5. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Practical Exercise
Goals:
-Complete the task
-Make a note of any point of confusion, frustration, trouble and/or inconsistencies
as mentioned by the “user of the system”

6. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Practical Exercise
Case Scenario:
Your nephew is graduating from University of Iowa and you will get some “customize m&m’s”
-Your cousin is going to pack the m&m’s into small bags
www.mymms.com
-You want to get 5 pounds of m&m’s
-University of Iowa Colors: Black and Gold
You want to customize them with:
-Congrats! (clipart)
-Football image
-Good Job! You did it!
-Image or message that you want.
***Add to cart and preview shopping cart (stop there)

7. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Do not go to the next page
until you do the exercise on previous page
Document your findings:
Confusion, Frustation/Troubles and Inconsistencies

8. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Findings from Exercise
We had 6 teams in the room (22 people total) doing the exercise.
Each team find some errors. Here it is the distribution of errors found by each team.
5
4
3
2
1
0
RITE Exercise Results
# of Issues Found per Team
1 2 3 4 5 6
# of
Issues
Team Number
Confusions:
-Image and clipart are the same thing (just coming from different sources), but they are not treated the same way on the
system. They are presented separately.
-Confusing main page… not able to find “graduation” occasion on the main page.

9. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Findings from Exercise
Frustration/Troubles:
-Trouble to select color due to the rotation of the m&m’s [but not an issue using an smart phone]
- Categorization of “clipart” images into themes is not intuitive. (e.g. an image of a football is not in the sports category)
- Images are not sorted in a good way = not good interaction.
- The drop box for images is just not a good way to preview images. [i.e.: cumbersome, small sizes, long list to scroll]
- Frustration with no printable colors,… not clear message… how are they saying those colors are not printable when there
is a M printed on them already?... The prints on dark colors could be presented on white color as the ‘m’ printed so… why
can’t print with white on a dark m&m?
color?,…you have good contrast

10. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Findings from Exercise
Frustration/Troubles [Continues]:
- No feedback on number of characters available. You do not know how many characters do you have per line. You do not
know which line you are at… You can’t
switch lines
- [Using a smart phone] If you continue writing a message on a m&m [beyond the number of characters permitted, it will
delete the last character written down]
- You can’t see the details of your confirmation displayed (as on the step two screen): not able to see messages/images on
m&ms. Instead you see colors of m&m’s and have to click on preview to see the details.
-Packaging categories were not well labeled. Huge opportunity to simplified.
Inconsistencies:
- The customize m&m area displays three lines of text that reads: “Add a photo, clipart or message” but in reality you can
only use two lines of text.

11. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Participants Findings:
- You do not buy or customize m&ms often. Therefore the process should be straightforward. If the user is frustrated he/she might not
complete the purchase, not come back again or not recommend to others.
- It is sometimes difficult to find problems with a product like this one, when you are an advanced user of technology [i.e. you can find
ways around it if the solution is not straightforward]. Recognize the need to test different targeted “personas” for the product.
- Finding more about the user mental model could help getting ideas on how to simplify/improve the process.(e.g. people use amazon
online shopping and are familiar with it, make the process similar to something people are used to and know how to use it).
- The system [tested] can be greatly improved to cater by testing different “personas” using this product using methodologies like RITE
- Unsure about which issues found are more important than others (which ones to fix first).
[Presenter note: Have the team together reviewing the results: Usability tester/developers/decision makers give their opinions and agree to
what to fix. If consenses are not reached, then, try different versions to see pros/cons of different options].

12. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Other General Learnings from Exercise
-Using RITE will help to discover issues per iteration. Fix the issues before going to the next test. During this exercise, we
were able to see that each team, discovered different issues. By applying RITE, all if not most of the issues found in the
exercise will be discovered and fixed in an iterative fashion. The final product will have a better user experience and a more
robust product with higher conversion rates.
- You are not your user.
- Observing and learning from users allows you to develop better products.
- Using the RITE method allows you to quickly remove failures and errors and evaluate their effectiveness.

13. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Best Practices to Apply RITE Successfully:
1. Identify and include “real decision makers”.
2. The decision makers must participate and commit to actually make changes during the time the test is being run.
3. The usability engineer must have experience with the domain and potential issues to be able to identify issues.
4. The design team and usability engineer must be able to interpret the results rapidly to make quick and effective decisions
regarding changes to the prototype or whatever is being tested. Brainstorm ideas on solutions.
5. There must be the ability to make changes to the system or prototype very rapidly, (before next participant, or before the
next day of testing depending on context). This means time/resources need to be available for this to happen.
6. There must be enough time between participants to make changes that have been decided upon.
Source: Based on Cost-Justifying Usability, Second Edition: An Update for the Internet Age, Second Edition (Interactive Technologies)
Randolph G. Bias (Editor), Deborah J. Mayhew (Editor), pp 489-518.

14. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Want to know more about RITE?
Here You Have Few References:
-Dennis Wixon, Evaluating usability methods: why the current literature fails the practitioner, interactions, v.10 n.4, July + August 2003
-Dumas J., and Redish J.C. (1993). A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Ablex, Norwood, N.J.
-Jakob Nielsen, Usability engineering at a discount, Proceedings of the third international conference on human-computer interaction
on Designing and using human-computer interfaces and knowledge based systems (2nd ed.), p.394-401, September 1989, Boston,
Massachusetts, United States
-Medlock, M.C., Wixon, D., McGee, M., & Welsh, D. (2005). The Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation Method: Better Products in Less
Time. In Bias, G., & Mayhew, D. (Eds.), Cost Justifying Usability (pp. 489-517). San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann
-Medlock, M.C., Wixon, D., Terrano, M., Romero, R., and Fulton, B. (2002). [1] Using the RITE method to improve products: A
definition and a case study. Presented at the Usability Professionals Association 2002, Orlando Florida.
-Cost-Justifying Usability, Second Edition: An Update for the Internet Age, Second Edition (Interactive Technologies) Randolph G.
Bias (Editor), Deborah J. Mayhew (Editor), pp 489-518 (Recommended)

15. RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation)
Please give us your comments and suggestions about this Meetup session
(Survey opened until 11/7/2014 midnight)
Answer a 5 minute survey at:
http://goo.gl/forms/aWIpr5q9Kb

16. Next Meetup Topic
TOPIC:
-Personas
Presenter: TBD
(First Tuesday of Month)
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014 6:30-7:30 pm Follow us on twitter