This document discusses three case studies from an Audi website redesign project done by Razorfish Germany:
1. Using Adobe GoLive for linking schematics and sitemaps improved traceability but was unstable and not ideal.
2. Automated layouts addressed variable browser sizes but was technically complex.
3. User testing found right-side navigation focused users on content more and was accepted, distinguishing Audi as innovative over competitors that used left navigation.
A brief presentation of what is doing AUDI in today's competitive luxury automotive market. Main markets, corporate culture, strategies, SWOT analysis, political - economical - environmental (PESTEL) analysis, leaders.
Razorfish - Michael Brito on Intel Digital Drag RaceRazorfish
Client case study: Intel Digital Drag Race was delivered by Intel Social Media Strategist Michael Brito on April 22, 2009, at the 9th Annual Razorfish Client Summit (#rzcs on Twitter).
To create rich, technologically enabled experiences, enterprises need close collaboration between marketing and IT. In this session, Razorfish's Ray Velez will explain how to companies need to organize for innovation by applying the principles of agile development. He will share his experiences working with global brands to solve business problems at the collision point between media, technology and marketing.
Presenter: Raymond Velez, global CTO, Razorfish @rvelez
Case Study: Ball Corporation Spurs Customer Experience and Staff Productivity...CA Technologies
In this session, Ball Corporation, a leading consumer packaging organization, will share how they improved customer experience and staff productivity by unifying IT monitoring through a single solution (CA Unified Infrastructure Management) and creating a central monitoring team. They will also share some of the advanced capabilities they have adopted to proactively manage their customers' experiences.
For more information, please visit http://cainc.to/Nv2VOe
A brief presentation of what is doing AUDI in today's competitive luxury automotive market. Main markets, corporate culture, strategies, SWOT analysis, political - economical - environmental (PESTEL) analysis, leaders.
Razorfish - Michael Brito on Intel Digital Drag RaceRazorfish
Client case study: Intel Digital Drag Race was delivered by Intel Social Media Strategist Michael Brito on April 22, 2009, at the 9th Annual Razorfish Client Summit (#rzcs on Twitter).
To create rich, technologically enabled experiences, enterprises need close collaboration between marketing and IT. In this session, Razorfish's Ray Velez will explain how to companies need to organize for innovation by applying the principles of agile development. He will share his experiences working with global brands to solve business problems at the collision point between media, technology and marketing.
Presenter: Raymond Velez, global CTO, Razorfish @rvelez
Case Study: Ball Corporation Spurs Customer Experience and Staff Productivity...CA Technologies
In this session, Ball Corporation, a leading consumer packaging organization, will share how they improved customer experience and staff productivity by unifying IT monitoring through a single solution (CA Unified Infrastructure Management) and creating a central monitoring team. They will also share some of the advanced capabilities they have adopted to proactively manage their customers' experiences.
For more information, please visit http://cainc.to/Nv2VOe
Revolutionizing JTBD Research: Evan Shore on AIJim Kalbach
Evan Shore, Senior Director of Product Management for Walmart Health & Wellness, shares his amazing exploration of using AI to assist in JTBD research.
Experience mapping serves as a perfect activity to bring into sprints. Diagrams allow you to pull together a wealth of information in a compact and compelling format that is efficient to use. They are well-suited for agile teams.
The key is to focus on engaging others in dialog. It’s not about the map (noun), it’s about mapping (verb). Turn customer insight in to action within the context of a sprint.
This talk will show you how to visualize the user experience quickly and leverage mapping in sprints. I’ll debunk the myth the mapping is a heavy, upfront activity. In fact, when done rapidly, mapping experiences becomes a springboard into creativity and solving real customer problems quickly.
The concept of jobs to be done (JTBD) provides a lens for understanding value creation. It’s straightforward principle: people “hire” products to fulfill a need.
For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good at a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends. You could also hire a chocolate bar to relieve stress.
Viewing customers in this way – as goal-driven actors in a given context – shifts focus from psycho-demographic aspects to needs and motivations.
Although the theory of JTBD is rich and has a long history, practical approaches to applying the approach are largely missing. In this presentation, Jim will highlight concrete ways to apply JTBD in your work. This will not only help you design better solutions, but also enable you to contribute to broader strategic conversations.
Businesses typically view UX design as a tactical activity. More and more, however, companies are turning to UX as a source of strategic growth. As they do so, creating a design strategy and aligning it with business goals becomes essential. For many UX designers this represents a new challenge requiring an expanded skill set.
This workshop provides a solid background for understanding, building and communicating an effective UX Strategy. Through many examples, hands-on activities, and references to relevant literature, you’ll learn about this emerging field that is critical to the future of UX.
In particular, we’ll be working with a tool I created based on combination of research and practical experience called the UX Strategy Blueprint.
This course is suited for information architects, interaction designers, visual designers, content strategists, and UX designers seeking to better understand strategy, as well as product managers and developers interested in UX strategy. It is geared towards practicioners with an intermediate to advance level of understanding of UX design, in general.
The concept of jobs to be done provides a lens through which we can understand value creation. The term was made popular by business leader Clayton Christensen in The Innovator’s Solution, the follow-up to his landmark book The Innovator’s Dilemma.
It’s a straightforward principle: people “hire” products and services to get a job done.
For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good for a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends on a daily basis. You could also hire a chocolate bar to reward yourself after work. These are all jobs to be done.
Although companies like Strategyn and The Rewired Group have been using the JTBD for many years, the framework has gotten a lot of attention recently. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with JTBD in various contexts in the past, and I included the topic in throughout my new book, Mapping Experiences.
Getting everyone on the same page is vital for the success of any agile effort. Systematic, visual representations – maps of the user experience -- help align team towards a common goal. You’re probably already familiar with mapping techniques already out there: journey maps, experience maps, user story mapping and more.
But how do we apply these techniques in remote teams? The shared understanding that visualizations offer seems to get lost when interacting through Slack, Skype and the like. For sure, better tools can help remote collaboration, but ultimately distributed UX design requires a new set of skills.
Building a better mousetrap does guarantee success anymore. Products and services are increasingly interconnected. Ecosystems are the new competitive advantage. The winners will be determined by how well their offerings fit with each other and how well they fit into people’s lives.
The use of systematic, visual representations exposes previously unseen opportunities for improvement and for growth across channels and touchpoints. Broadly, the term “mapping experiences” describes a range of such visualizations. You’ve probably already encountered one of the many approaches already in practice – customer journey mapping, service blueprints, experience maps, mental model diagrams, etc.
For sure, IAs are well-suited for architecting such complex diagrams. Creating them requires empathy, organization, and visual storytelling skills.
But our job as IAs goes beyond mapmaking. We have to also assume the role of facilitator and aspire to become grassroots strategic players. Engaging others in conversation and gaining strategic alignment are the ultimate goals. It’s not about the “map,” rather the activity of “mapping” that’s important.
Rapid Techniques for Mapping ExperiencesJim Kalbach
Understanding your customer's experience is the first step in creating solutions that provide value. The use of systematic, visual representations can expose previously unseen opportunities for growth. Called experience maps (among other related terms), these diagrams provides valuable business insight.
However, many people associate mapping experience with heavy upfront research. This need not be the case at all. In fact, diagrams can be co-created by team members in a matter of days.
Once complete, experience maps provide a big picture that you can align subsequent activities to, including user story mapping, design sprints, content planning, and more.
In this webcast you will learn:
The value of experience mapping and how you get results quick.
The key factors of a solid mapping effort, which still apply even in rapid creation situations.
Understanding the dynamics of the user’s experience is the first step in creating solutions that provide value. The use of systematic, visual representations exposes previously unseen opportunities for growth. Called “alignment diagrams,” this category of diagram gives businesses strategic clarity based on the user experience.
Alignment diagrams have two parts: one capturing human behaviour and the other reflecting relevant aspects of the organisation. The overlap of these parts reveals the interaction between the two. By visually aligning experiences, providers are better able to highlight the points where value is created.
This workshop will show you how to turn customer insight into actionable intelligence. Together, we’ll discuss the principles of value alignment and review many diagram examples. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll be able to apply some of the principles in practice. At the end of the session you should have the confidence to embark on a diagraming effort and be able to evangelise them.
Revolutionizing JTBD Research: Evan Shore on AIJim Kalbach
Evan Shore, Senior Director of Product Management for Walmart Health & Wellness, shares his amazing exploration of using AI to assist in JTBD research.
Experience mapping serves as a perfect activity to bring into sprints. Diagrams allow you to pull together a wealth of information in a compact and compelling format that is efficient to use. They are well-suited for agile teams.
The key is to focus on engaging others in dialog. It’s not about the map (noun), it’s about mapping (verb). Turn customer insight in to action within the context of a sprint.
This talk will show you how to visualize the user experience quickly and leverage mapping in sprints. I’ll debunk the myth the mapping is a heavy, upfront activity. In fact, when done rapidly, mapping experiences becomes a springboard into creativity and solving real customer problems quickly.
The concept of jobs to be done (JTBD) provides a lens for understanding value creation. It’s straightforward principle: people “hire” products to fulfill a need.
For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good at a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends. You could also hire a chocolate bar to relieve stress.
Viewing customers in this way – as goal-driven actors in a given context – shifts focus from psycho-demographic aspects to needs and motivations.
Although the theory of JTBD is rich and has a long history, practical approaches to applying the approach are largely missing. In this presentation, Jim will highlight concrete ways to apply JTBD in your work. This will not only help you design better solutions, but also enable you to contribute to broader strategic conversations.
Businesses typically view UX design as a tactical activity. More and more, however, companies are turning to UX as a source of strategic growth. As they do so, creating a design strategy and aligning it with business goals becomes essential. For many UX designers this represents a new challenge requiring an expanded skill set.
This workshop provides a solid background for understanding, building and communicating an effective UX Strategy. Through many examples, hands-on activities, and references to relevant literature, you’ll learn about this emerging field that is critical to the future of UX.
In particular, we’ll be working with a tool I created based on combination of research and practical experience called the UX Strategy Blueprint.
This course is suited for information architects, interaction designers, visual designers, content strategists, and UX designers seeking to better understand strategy, as well as product managers and developers interested in UX strategy. It is geared towards practicioners with an intermediate to advance level of understanding of UX design, in general.
The concept of jobs to be done provides a lens through which we can understand value creation. The term was made popular by business leader Clayton Christensen in The Innovator’s Solution, the follow-up to his landmark book The Innovator’s Dilemma.
It’s a straightforward principle: people “hire” products and services to get a job done.
For instance, you might hire a new suit to make you look good for a job interview. Or, you hire Facebook to stay in touch with friends on a daily basis. You could also hire a chocolate bar to reward yourself after work. These are all jobs to be done.
Although companies like Strategyn and The Rewired Group have been using the JTBD for many years, the framework has gotten a lot of attention recently. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with JTBD in various contexts in the past, and I included the topic in throughout my new book, Mapping Experiences.
Getting everyone on the same page is vital for the success of any agile effort. Systematic, visual representations – maps of the user experience -- help align team towards a common goal. You’re probably already familiar with mapping techniques already out there: journey maps, experience maps, user story mapping and more.
But how do we apply these techniques in remote teams? The shared understanding that visualizations offer seems to get lost when interacting through Slack, Skype and the like. For sure, better tools can help remote collaboration, but ultimately distributed UX design requires a new set of skills.
Building a better mousetrap does guarantee success anymore. Products and services are increasingly interconnected. Ecosystems are the new competitive advantage. The winners will be determined by how well their offerings fit with each other and how well they fit into people’s lives.
The use of systematic, visual representations exposes previously unseen opportunities for improvement and for growth across channels and touchpoints. Broadly, the term “mapping experiences” describes a range of such visualizations. You’ve probably already encountered one of the many approaches already in practice – customer journey mapping, service blueprints, experience maps, mental model diagrams, etc.
For sure, IAs are well-suited for architecting such complex diagrams. Creating them requires empathy, organization, and visual storytelling skills.
But our job as IAs goes beyond mapmaking. We have to also assume the role of facilitator and aspire to become grassroots strategic players. Engaging others in conversation and gaining strategic alignment are the ultimate goals. It’s not about the “map,” rather the activity of “mapping” that’s important.
Rapid Techniques for Mapping ExperiencesJim Kalbach
Understanding your customer's experience is the first step in creating solutions that provide value. The use of systematic, visual representations can expose previously unseen opportunities for growth. Called experience maps (among other related terms), these diagrams provides valuable business insight.
However, many people associate mapping experience with heavy upfront research. This need not be the case at all. In fact, diagrams can be co-created by team members in a matter of days.
Once complete, experience maps provide a big picture that you can align subsequent activities to, including user story mapping, design sprints, content planning, and more.
In this webcast you will learn:
The value of experience mapping and how you get results quick.
The key factors of a solid mapping effort, which still apply even in rapid creation situations.
Understanding the dynamics of the user’s experience is the first step in creating solutions that provide value. The use of systematic, visual representations exposes previously unseen opportunities for growth. Called “alignment diagrams,” this category of diagram gives businesses strategic clarity based on the user experience.
Alignment diagrams have two parts: one capturing human behaviour and the other reflecting relevant aspects of the organisation. The overlap of these parts reveals the interaction between the two. By visually aligning experiences, providers are better able to highlight the points where value is created.
This workshop will show you how to turn customer insight into actionable intelligence. Together, we’ll discuss the principles of value alignment and review many diagram examples. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll be able to apply some of the principles in practice. At the end of the session you should have the confidence to embark on a diagraming effort and be able to evangelise them.
Any kind of remote collaboration is hard. But it can seem nearly impossible when you are working with a design team. The visual interaction and open environment needed for great creative work can be tricky to achieve when your team doesn’t sit in the same room. But effective remote design and collaboration is possible.
Visualizing Value with Alignment DiagramsJim Kalbach
We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the way businesses create and capture value. Competing today requires a whole new mental model of how the world works. But we are stuck in obsolete practices of management that optimise short term gains to maximise shareholder prices at the expense of long term value shared by employees and society as whole.
Visualisations are a key tool that help organisations change their perspective and assume an outside-in view of their enterprise. Though no silver bullet, diagrams of various kinds seek to align people’s experiences with how businesses create and capture value.
Such visualisations are already an implicit part of design practices. Thus my position seeks to reframe the existing contributions of designers in a new and constructive way, highlighting their strategic value. Visualising value leverages our design skills to give us more awareness, competency, and that proverbial seat at the table.
This talk discusses some of the core principles of value alignment through visualisation, with examples from the field and practical advice offered throughout.
7 Alternatives to Bullet Points in PowerPointAlvis Oh
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You could be a professional graphic designer and still make mistakes. There is always the possibility of human error. On the other hand if you’re not a designer, the chances of making some common graphic design mistakes are even higher. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s where this blog comes in. To make your job easier and help you create better designs, we have put together a list of common graphic design mistakes that you need to avoid.
Can AI do good? at 'offtheCanvas' India HCI preludeAlan Dix
Invited talk at 'offtheCanvas' IndiaHCI prelude, 29th June 2024.
https://www.alandix.com/academic/talks/offtheCanvas-IndiaHCI2024/
The world is being changed fundamentally by AI and we are constantly faced with newspaper headlines about its harmful effects. However, there is also the potential to both ameliorate theses harms and use the new abilities of AI to transform society for the good. Can you make the difference?
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Ideal for homeowners, tech enthusiasts, and industry professionals, this presentation provides valuable insights into the trends, benefits, and future developments in smart garage technology. Stay ahead of the curve with our expert analysis and practical tips on implementing smart garage solutions.
Between Filth and Fortune- Urban Cattle Foraging Realities by Devi S Nair, An...Mansi Shah
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Book Formatting: Quality Control Checks for DesignersConfidence Ago
This presentation was made to help designers who work in publishing houses or format books for printing ensure quality.
Quality control is vital to every industry. This is why every department in a company need create a method they use in ensuring quality. This, perhaps, will not only improve the quality of products and bring errors to the barest minimum, but take it to a near perfect finish.
It is beyond a moot point that a good book will somewhat be judged by its cover, but the content of the book remains king. No matter how beautiful the cover, if the quality of writing or presentation is off, that will be a reason for readers not to come back to the book or recommend it.
So, this presentation points designers to some important things that may be missed by an editor that they could eventually discover and call the attention of the editor.
Expert Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Drafting ServicesResDraft
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White wonder, Work developed by Eva TschoppMansi Shah
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4. 4
Schematics
Solution: Adobe GoLive
Convergence of deliverables
Sitemap and schematics linked 1:1
Components = modular construction
WebDAV server
– concurrent work on schematics
– remote access by client
Cross Platform: PC and Mac; HTML
6. 6
Schematics
Disadvantages
Site file grew to 30+ mb
Unstable, crashed
Sitemap tool is suboptimal
Didn‘t get team buy-in
Overall GoLive met our expectations,
but is the wrong tool for the job
Underscores need for an IA tool
8. 8
Jumping Boxes
Problem: Variable Browser Sizes
Users surf with different window sizes
One screen size ≠ Web design
Right navigation must be visible
9. 9
Jumping Boxes
Automated Layout
Three page layouts offered – S, M, L
from 640x480 to 1024x768
Fulfilled CI constraints
Brand: “Vorsprung durch Technik”
11. 11
Jumping Boxes
Disadvantages
Technically difficult to implement
Usability problems?
Not needed for all page types
A complex solution for a simple problem
13. 13
Right vs. Left Navigation
Challenge: Competitive Difference
Right navigation = Audi as innovator
Smoother interaction with scrollbar
Greater focus on content
Subjectively accepted by users
14. 14
Right vs. Left Navigation
External Test: www.SirValuse.de
2 prototypes: 1 left & 1 right navigation
64 users: 2 groups
Part 1 – Six tasks were timed
Part 2 - Eye movement analysis
Part 3 - Interviews
15. 15
Right vs. Left Navigation
Part 1 - Hypothesis
Time
R
Significant
L
1 2 3 4 5 6
Tasks
16. 16
Right vs. Left Navigation
Part 1 - Results
Time
No R
Significance L
1 2 3 4 5 6
Tasks
17. 17
Right vs. Left Navigation
Part 2 – Eye movement
Method: www.MediaAnalyzer.com
User rapidly coordinate clicks with
where they look
Hypothesis:
right navigation > focus on content
19. 19
Right vs. Left Navigation
Part 3 – Interview
Do you like the right navigation?
7 23 2
:)
:(
:|
20. 20
Right vs. Left Navigation
Subsequent Usability Test
„Normal” methods with 25 participants
Corroborated findings of first test
No difficulties with a right navigation
Positive subjective response
Only 1 commented on right navigation
21. 21
Right vs. Left Navigation
Conclusions
Users are ambidextrous in terms of
navigation position
Consistency and learnability
People expect that websites vary
Interaction given by design and
layout, not prior expectations
(Affordance)
Hello My name is Jim Kalbach. I‘m an IA with Razorfish, Germany in the Hamburg office. I‘d like to talk to you today about the project we delivered for Audi, the German car manufacturer. The project encompasses Audi.com, their global brand portal, and Audi.de, the regional site for Germany.
I don‘t want to tell about the whole project from beginning to end. It was a large project that took over a year and had many ups and downs. Instead I want to focus on three aspects of the projects that are of interest to this community. Our approach to creating schematics Jumping boxes, or an automated layout technique that fits pages into various browser window sizes The results of a study conducted during the project that directly compared a right-hand navigation with a left-hand navigation.
We‘ve identified a problem with project work that I call Traceability . By this I mean the ability to trace a concept, idea, element, or artifact across a set of documents. We don‘t work with any all-encompassing document management tools (e-documentation) such as Rational or something similar. Documents and deliverables end up being separate and independent from one another: There are owned by different people, reside in different physical locations, and are in different formats. Often by the end of a project, updating something as simple as a navigation label requires updating half a dozen documents or more. From talking to many of you, I already know this is a typical problem common to the industry. This is in efficient and leads to version control problems .
We looked to Adobe GoLive to help us address this problem. Our ultimate goal was to achieve a true convergence of deliverables. The initial plan was to integrate IA, content, and design deliverables in one common format. We even wanted to write the page specifications directly in GoLive in HTML format . GoLive offers several advantages Sitemap and schematics are linked one to one Global updates are possible using components Working with a WebDAV server I A s could check schematics in and out, thus offering version control. The client was also able to see the schematics „live“ online through the project extranet GoLive is available for the PC and the MAC, and the output is simple HTML. No conversion to PDF, for example, is necessary – all you need a web browser to view the documents.
Here a screen shot of GoLive. You can see the sitemap and schematics are created in the same environment . Clicking on the „A4“ page in the site map opens the schematic for that page. Some information is shared between the sitemap and schematic: Page name File name Page number Updating one updates the other. [ Live demonstration ]
There were, of course, some disadvantages to GoLive : This .site file that controls the site got really big, really quick, which was hard to handle We experienced s ome crashes and loss of work The sitemap tool is simple and doesn't allow a great deal of control concerning the appearance of the sitemap. GoLive didn‘t get the buy-in from the whole team and was used primarly by IAs only. A key feature missing from GoLive 5 is a database to manage content and terns. From the IA perspective, however, GoLive worked well and met our expectations, but still isn‘t the right tool. Though no one software will solve our problems, an appropriate IA tool would help. Unfortunately this doesn't exist.
We needed to address the common web problem that users have different browser window sizes. There were two reasons for this: Developing pages for one fixed size is fundamentally inappropriate for web design that ignores the basic flexibility of the medium. Our pages have a right hand navigation that must be visible without horizontal scrolling. Therefore the layout had to expand and contract to fit variable browser sizes.
There are many ways to achieve flexible page layouts, but we went for what can be called an automated layout . Essentially we build „smart“ pages that are able to detect the size of the browser window and serve up the right layout size automatically. We essentially had three sizes – small, medium and large. This solution fulfilled CI constraints . The page designs have a grid that aligns all page elements horizontally and vertically. With an automated layout solution we were better able to control the alignment of page elements. The solution is highly technical and speaks to the Audi slogan „Vorsprung durch Technik“ or Advancement Through Technology. So, we were branding with layout and with this technical solution.
Three sizes: 640x480 800x600 1024x768 Show: http://www.audi.com/de/de/erlebniswelt/unterhaltung/audi_bildschirmschoner/audi_bildschirmschoner.jsp and other pages...
1. This proved to be more challenging to implement than initially thought. 2. It is unknown if there are any usability implications. We don‘t believe so, but have no proof. 3. The automated layout solution is not needed for all pages and page types. With an increase of alternative browsing devises on the horizon, the continuum of viewable browsing sizes will only expand. Never before has the demand for flexibility been greater. This was a valiant attempt to address this issue and we learned a great deal from it. However, it was very complex to implement and I would caution anyone considering such a technique.
We wanted to set Audi apart from its competitors, who general have conservative page layouts with the navigation on the left of top. The idea was to place the navigation the right side of the page. Again, we saw this as part of the Audi brand – that they are innovative While rationalizing this to ourselves and to Audi, we noticed that there are many (theoretical) advantages to a right navigation Fitts‘ Law suggests a better interaction between the navigation and the scrollbar In western cultures we read left to right . Therefore there should be a greater focus on content with a right navigation Finally, we simply believed that visitors to the Audi sites would not be annoyed or disturbed by a right-hand navigation in any way.
We tested extensively with our external testing partner Two clickable prototypes of about 10 pages each were constructed – one with a left navigation, the other with a right navigation 64 users were broken down into two groups of 32 each. This was a very large sample and not a sample of convenience: participants were recruited to fit our user scenarios and fit Audi‘s target group to a T. The test was divided into three parts : In a human performance test, completion time for six tasks were timed with a stopwatch. We also analyzed the eye movement of the participants to see where the tend to look on the page. Finally, we simply asked users directly what they thought about the right-hand navigation
Our hypothesis for Part 1 was that there would be a significant difference in task completion time for the first task; However by the last task there would be no significant difference. We expected that users would need to use the site a couple of times to learn the pattern of interaction. We were OK with this as well as Audi. If we could prove this to be true, we‘d go ahead and launch a site with a right-hand navigation.
What we observed was surprising : There was no significant difference in completion time between the two navigation types for ANY task! In fact, the right hand navigation started to perform faster than the left in later tasks. Note that the graphs shows actual times
Then we looked an the eye movement patterns of users. Instead of relying on the traditional method that makes use of expensive equipment and headgear, we used a method developed by a small start up in Hamburg. This method asks users to rapidly coordinate clicks with where they look. We expected that there would be more clicks – and therefore more attention – in the content portion of the screen with the right-hand test condition.
We found just that: people tended to focus more on the content side of the page with the right navigation than with the left navigation. The above screenshot shows the clicks of one test participant. You can also generate a „ heatmap “, which shows patterns across users.
At the end of the test we asked a series of questions that addressed the central question „do you like the right-hand navigation?“ Overall, users are apathetic towards the navigation position . Most didn‘t notice that the navigation was on the right and we directly asked, they didn‘t care. Seven people even preferred the right navigation, while only 2 disliked it. _________________________________________ From this test with the Audi site, users didn‘t show any problems using the site objectively and there were no major subjective problems as well. This does not mean that everyone should run out and a get a right-hand navigation. But it does show that we care more about such design details than our users. Using a navigation other than on the left is not a taboo, as we are lead to believe.
I should also mention that we conducted a usability test later in the project with a full, functional prototype. We saw no problems using the right-hand navigation and people responded positively to the visual design. Only 1 from 25 noticed the right-hand navigation and commented on it.
Here are some thoughts as to why we saw what we saw : Though there is research about expectations of the location of page elements in a layout, these researchers don‘t correlate breaking these expectations with actual usability (see: Michael Bernard and Jakob Nieslen). Don Norman‘s concept of affordance – the perceived properties of a thing that determine how it is to be used – seems to be more important in web layout than conforming to standards. With the Audi site it is clear what is navigation and what is not. Users can build a pattern of interaction with the site immediately. By „immediately“ I mean at the pre-attentive level or within a fraction of second. There is a large body of visual perception theory that supports this argument. Our findings clearly show users have no problem to distinguish the navigation and make generalizations about ist function. They then had no difficulties using the site.