Usability essentials

Usability Essentials
Sid B. Dane, CUA
Online / Front End Development
November 29, 2010


Who am I?

• 1990: Application Developer
• 1994: Network Engineer
• 1997: Internet and Multi Media Developer
• 2006: Rich Internet Developer
• 2008: Certified Usability Analyst
• 2012: Scrum Master / Agile Project Lead / Coach

To: appendix

Usability Essentials, Sid B. Dane, November 29, 2010 2


Bad usability?



Why is usability important?

You are not
your user
(No matter how good you think you are)

To: appendix



Usability is about…

• Effectiveness
– Can users achieve what they need by using the product?
• Ease of learning
– How fast can a user who has never seen the interface learn to use it?
• Efficiency of use
– How fast can the user complete tasks?
• Memorability
– Can users remember enough to reuse the interface effectively?
• Error prevention
– The best way to deal with errors is to design the interface so users do
not make errors
• Satisfaction
– How much does the user like using the system?

To: appendix



User Centered Design: playground

Design
Technology
What will the
end user gain? What can it
do?
User
Experience Goal
A successful
product

Business
What will the
business gain?

To: appendix



User Centered Design: methodology
Product Analysis
User Performance
Strategic Planning Expert Review
Tests

Research+Planning
Product
User Needs Strategy Brand
Assessment Guidelines

Conceptual Design
Task Design Information
Architecture

Navigation Design
High-level UI
Structure

Detailed Design
Detailed
User Interface

Presentation Interaction
Design Content Design
Design

Live Product
Strategic Objectives Contrast Product Redesign
Review Studies Performance Opportunities
To: appendix



Research
• Discover: • Collect data on…
– Who the users are – User profiles
(Personas) – Work environment
– How they think and work – Scenarios of how users will
(Scenarios and tasks) use the interface
– The stakeholder goals and – Task analysis
objectives

To: appendix



Mental models

• People come with mental models
• Usually come from past experience
• Mental models don’t always match reality
• Mental models set expectations, which drive and shape behavior

People are “very active problem solvers who always have a current general model in mind
that drives their behavior in a very systematic way, but who are also constantly refining
and revising this model in response to feedback.” - Deborah Mayhew

To: appendix



Mental models:
what are the
rules for turning
left?

To: appendix



Mental models:
what are the rules
for turning left?

To: appendix



It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4&feature=player_embedded

To: appendix



VIMM: Things that impact Usability

• Visual Clutter

• Intellectual
Complexity

• Memory load (short
& long term)

• Motor load (and
inconsistency)

To: appendix



80%
of Usability is
determined
by the
interface
structure or
navigational
container
To: appendix



Usability guidelines

A bit more practical…



Usability guidelines, example 1: faces

Attracting attention: Users focus
on faces

We’re instinctively drawn to
faces, but if that face is
looking somewhere other
than at us, we’ll also look in
that direction.
To: appendix



Usability guidelines, example 2: whitespace
White space makes content more
readable.

A study (Lin, 2004) found that
good use of white space between
paragraphs and in the left and
right margins increases
comprehension by almost 20%.

Readers find it easier to focus on
and process generously spaced
content.

To: appendix



Usability guidelines, example 3: advertising
Jakob Nielsen reports that most
users are essentially blind to ad
banners.

The implication of this is not only
that users will avoid ads but that
they’ll avoid anything that
looks like an ad, even if it’s
not an ad.

Some heavily styled navigation
items may look like banners, so
be careful with these elements.



Usability guidelines, example 4: text

• According to classic typographic books, the optimal number of
characters per line is between 55 and 75, but between 75 and 85
characters per line is more popular in practice.

• Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75,
or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed
that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed.

• People with a higher education prefer more characters per line. Thos
with lower education prefer columns and less characters per line.

To: appendix



Usability guidelines, example 4: text

• According to • Twenty college-age • People with a
classic typographic students read news higher education
books, the optimal articles displayed in prefer more
number of 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line.
characters per line characters per line Thos with lower
is between 55 and (cpl) from a education prefer
75, but between 75 computer monitor. columns and less
and 85 characters Results showed characters per line.
per line is more that passages
popular in practice. formatted with 95
cpl resulted in
faster reading
speed.

To: appendix



Usability principles change: “above the fold”
• Jakob Nielsen’s study on how much • However, users’ habits have
users scroll revealed that only 23% of significantly changed since then.
visitors scroll on their first visit to a Recent studies prove that users are
website. quite comfortable with scrolling and in
some situations they are willing to
• This means that 77% of visitors scroll to the bottom of the page. Many
won’t scroll; they’ll just view the users are more comfortable with
content above the fold (i.e. the area scrolling than with a pagination, and
of the page that is visible on the for many users the most important
screen without scrolling down). information of the page isn’t
necessarily placed “above the fold”
• This data highlights just how important (which is because of the variety of
it is to place your key content on a available display resolutions a quite
prominent position, especially on outdated, deprecated term). So it is a
landing pages good idea to divide your layout into
sections for easy scanning, separating
them with a lot of white space.

• See: unfolding the fold

To: appendix



Usability testing

Image: useit.com

The ideal number of users in a usability test has been a
source of discussion for the past ten years. Five users are
sufficient to discover most of the problems. More users could be
helpful, but you will achieve better results by retesting when you have tried to solve the
problems discovered in the first test. More on badusability.com To: appendix



More information
• HFI courses:
– User Centered Analysis and Conceptual Design
– The Science and Art of Effective Web and Application Design
– Practical Usability Testing
– Putting Research into Practice
– Courses in NL: http://academy.capgemini.nl/clusters/website-
usability.aspx

• Online:
– Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: www.useit.com
– Usability.gov (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services):
www.usability.gov
– What makes them click: www.whatmakesthemclick.net
– UX magazine: uxmag.com
– UX matters: www.uxmatters.com
– How to experience the internet: www.siddane.com
– Bad usability: badusability.com/
To: appendix



Questions?

Any questions?

sid.dane@capgemini.com



Appendix

• Persona example

To: appendix



Persona example

To: appendix


Usability essentials

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