Users have a choice - they can use or products or go elsewhere - in the words of the Clash - Should they stay or should they go? What if they do not have a choice? what happens to them then?

1. Quality in use:
why we need to understand
the user experience
Presentation for BCS SIGiST
June 2016
Isabel Evans (isabel.evans@bcs.org)
stay go

2. What do you test with?
Head

3. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO
CONSIDER THE USER EXPERIENCE?
The user has a choice – always…
stay go

4. 2016: the Apple lover’s choice?
“It was so beautiful I wanted to marry it
…
And then it lost my calendar entries and emails”

5. 2016: The silver emailer’s choice?
“…library is open again and – to my horror - have … up dated
their computers.
So everything is just slightly different which the old girl is finding
very confusing !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Am not sure what the improvement has been but it has left me
struggling a wee bit…”

6. AND THE USER IS NOT JUST THE
END-USER…
The user has a choice – always…
stay go

7. 2016: the service desk worker’s choice
http://blogs.ca.com/2016/01/27/moving-it-
service-management-to-the-21st-century/
“Moving IT Service Management to the 21st century
Ethnographic research paints a sad picture of the current state of
the ITSM market.
…vision is to build a solution designed for humans, not processes.”
CA

8. Think about the whole system
• Not just the software
– But the whole user experience
• The user is
– not just the person who uses the software
– the person who uses or is affected by the service
• IT -> employee-> customer- > family ->…

9. UX: failure or success?
• Where the users have a choice, and meet an
unfortunate experience, you lose a customer:
• they will go elsewhere.
• Where the users have no choice, and meet an
unfortunate experience, the affects can be
devastating:
• frustration, loss of productivity
• loss of motivation and morale
• rebellion and aggression
• even death.

10. 2016: The consultant doctor’s choice?
“This is the clunkiest piece of technology I have ever had to use
….
I will have to ask my secretary to print your test results”

11. 2005 onward: The hill farmer’s choice?
In the U.K. one farmer a week commits suicide
“… farmers … took their lives because the person who used to
complete paperwork, … livestock passports or single farm
payment applications, had died or moved away.”
farmer, quoted on subsidy forms:
“I usually leave it to the last minute with the paper forms because
it only takes about three hours to do, but so far I have spent three
days doing the online version and I am only halfway through it.”
“another eye-watering sum has been
paid to technology suppliers and
consultants: £154m.”
https://corporatewatch.org/content/rough-guide-uk-farming-crisis-3-uk-farming-crisis-which-crisis-do-you-mean-0
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31976230
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terezia-farkas/why-farmer-suicide-rates-_1_b_5610279.html
http://www.fwi.co.uk/farm-life/suicide-investigating-a-farming-taboo.htm

12. 1987: The manual workers’ choice?
Manual workers: Expect to be paid on Friday at lunchtime in cash
Work remotely from headquarters
IT Staff: Monthly salary into bank accounts
Performance of the payroll batch – did it matter?
Does it matter in 2016?
People without bank accounts:
http://www.poverty.org.uk/73/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10277151
http://www.moneymagpie.com/manage-your-money/the-shocking-
number-of-people-without-bank-accounts

14. We are all connected…?
“Of the 49.4 million adults living within Great Britain, 1.1% have
poor internet access
This equates to 530,000 adults with limited internet speed, of
which 330,000 say they would be willing to bank online
These 530,000 adults have:
– Average download speeds of 1.4Mbit/s – 15 times slower than
average.
– Superfast broadband is available to just 3% of these people, but
uptake is low.
– Mobile provides an alternative for 470,000 of the 530,000 people
(88%).
– However, 63,000 people in parts of Wales and Scotland, and small
pockets of England, still have no acceptable digital access at all
(63,000 adults in total).”
https://www.bba.org.uk/news/press-releases/mobile-phone-apps-become-the-
uks-number-one-way-to-bank/#.V0Q0UTUrLMw

15. HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND
THE USER EXPERIENCE?
The user has a choice – always…
stay go

16. Functionality
Performance
Security
Maintainability
Interoperability
Portability
Compatibility
Etc.
Usability
Flexibility
Safety
Etc.
Seductiveness
Excitement
Flow
Trust
Usefulness
Etc.
Internal
quality
Quality in
Use
UX-D

17. What do you test with,
when you test UX?
Head
Heart
Gut
Soul

18. Empathy and thought experiments
• You need questions
– Who? Why? Where? When? How?
– What mood? What emotion?
• You don’t need a specification, user stories, or
the software
• You just need intelligence and empathy

19. Context and bias defining user experience
“us and them” or “we”?

20. How do we see ourselves and others?
How simple is it to change perceptions?
https://itwasneveradress.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Kblliis1s

21. WHEN DO WE TEST
THE USER EXPERIENCE?
The user has a choice – always…
stay go

22. You know the answer
to this question

23. Start as early as possible
Continue to after live
Test ideas
Test
personas
Test
context
Test
stories
Test
design
Test build
Test
rollout
Test use
Test
follow up

24. The tester’s choice
stay go
What impact can a tester
have on the user
experience?

25. The Tester’s choice?
• Narrow scope
• Do what you asked to do
• Work alone
• Deliver functionality
• Think of “them and us”
• Use your head
• Broad scope
• Ask questions
• Work with the Dev’s, BA’s & UXD’s
• Deliver services
• Think of “we”
• Use your head, heart, guts and soul
• So let’s broaden UX…

26. 2016: What about TX: Test Experience?
• Test Experience, or UX for the testers who will request,
design, and review the results of the automated tests and
monitoring.
• The customers for automation and the user of automation
– May be non-technical system testers, user acceptance testers,
product owners, business sponsors, managers or end users.
– Need to maximise their productivity, their motivation and their
ability to get the most from the test automation.
• Test automation requires consideration of the UX for the
tool and the tests;
• People who use automation may not be technical;
• The lessons from UXD and UXT may be applied to test
automation.

27. 2016: what about…?
• DX: how easy is it for the developers to
understand your fault reports?
• PMX: how easy is to for the PMs to
understand your risk and progress reports?
TUSK

28. The tech expert’s choice?
“…I was confused by the
'Don't Save'
option…”

29. Isabel’s choice
It took an hour and 15 minutes to get
Apple iTunes to sell & download to me
“Should I stay or should I go?”
It took 3 minutes on Amazon,
including listening to the song sample.

30. Three key take-aways
• Your users have a choice
– And so do you
• What they require is not just functionality
– And that’s only part of what you provide
• Big picture (emotions via thought experiments)
– Versus the detail (this tab order is wrong)
stay go
Internal
quality
Quality
in Use
UX-D

31. Quality in use:
why we need to understand
the user experience
Thank you for listening
BCS SIGiST June 2016
Isabel Evans (isabel.evans@bcs.org)
stay go