Archive for the ‘HCI’ Category
Telling Tales – Stories for promoting user experience.
Stories have long been an important way of recording and imparting information, as evident through the survival of folklore, myths and songs from our past. As a tool for communicating, and retaining information, they are highly valuable, and the principles of this can be applied to the promotion of User Experience.
Why do teams need to understand UX?
When working within a team, whether it’s a small web development company, or a large multi-national company, it’s impossible for one person to oversee every aspect of development. That is why it’s important for everyone to understand the principles of user experience, due to the large variety, and span of tasks that it encompasses. A good user experience designer is not the one who works longer hours, or has more creative control over the final product, instead they are the one who makes sure everyone understands UX goals, and works towards them.
It is this reason that books such as Krug’s Rocket Surgery Made Easy heavily promote the idea of getting everyone, from the CEO to a junior developer, involved when testing with real user’s, as it is these people who will be able to implement user experience ‘fixes’. The solution Krug suggests involves inviting these people to view the user testing sessions, and bribing them with snacks.
Because encouraging successful user experiences requires everyone’s involvement, it’s important that everyone understands the goals of user experience, and can incorporate them into their work. The problem is making them understand what those goals are.
Pictured: not a goal
What are stories good for?
Homer’s Odyssey was composed in the 8th century BC, and yet a canonical written version wasn’t produced for another 300 years. Before this, the tale was remembered, and shared orally, through song. Considering that the Odyssey contains over 12,000 lines, this is no small feat. That’d be like remembering, and reciting on demand, every blog post I’ve done so far… So how was it possible?
The answer lies in the power of stories. Stories, like Homer’s Odyssey, are memorable, due to the plot and the events contained within, and hence easily form visual images within the mind, and aid memory. Plots make stories interesting, and hence easier to remember than non-fictional texts (such as remembering all of my blog posts).
Stories can also be used to impart useful information. These be obvious life lessons (The Three Little Pigs teaching the benefit of putting adequate effort into your tasks), or life saving, such as Ring a Ring o’ Roses imparting symptoms of the Black Death (although this may not be true)
or Cinderella teaching us the dangers of stepmothers
Using stories for UX
So, stories are memorable, can be used to impart useful information, and are easily transferred, as made evident by the 300 years that Homer’s Odyssey lasted without being written down. Hence they seem ideal for the promotion of UX within teams, as they can be used to quickly impart the benefits of UX, and what each individual needs to do to aid a user centred design process, in a memorable and transferable fashion. By bringing the whole team onboard with the principles and goals of UX, a greater degree of coherence can be achieved across the team. Therefore to get better results without manually verifying everything the team does, a User Experience Designer needs to champion user experience principles with all members of the team, and stories are an easy way to do this.
Some examples of UX stories
Many authors have understood how stories help to impart information in a memorable fashion.
- In The Design of Every Day Things, Don Norman uses stories of real world examples to emphasise the dangers of ignoring user centred design, with examples including nuclear accidents and plane crashes.
- Stories based on metaphors are also used by Alan Cooper in The Inmates Are Running the Asylum to emphasise the importance of designing for the end user, by comparing the software design process to film making.
Also of interest, Sam Nixon shared a short story by David Travis called “The Fable of User Centered Design”, which aims to bring clients and team members on board with the benefits of a user centred design approach. Definitely worth the read, and should be shared. The book is available to download from his website.
If anyone has other examples of stories that help define the importance of user experience, remember to leave a comment below!
Watching ‘average users’: Word
It’s easy to forget how useful it is to watch less technical people use some common programs, and how helpful observation is as a tool to understand the ‘average’ user. I recently watched someone using MS Word (2003 I think), and it was…enlightening. They made a large number of ‘errors’ when using MS Word, but as we know as usability specialists, its not the the user that creates errors – the software does.
The task was relatively simple – design some worksheets, including textboxes, and pictures, and lay them out in an eye-pleasing manner. I’m sure there are many more appropriate packages to make this in than Word, but it was the user’s software of choice, due to familiarity, and the task shouldn’t be beyond MS Word. I observed, and let them lead the interaction, but advised when they asked for help (naughty I know, but it wasn’t a formal lab setting!)
The lab was busy that day anyway...
How my ‘less-technical user’ used Word:
I noted down (obviously away from the user) some of the more ‘interesting’ characteristics of how they used Word.
- Used the ‘cut’ function as a ‘delete’ (with no understanding of how it links to paste). Taken out of context from “cut and paste”, ‘cut’ would more likely imply removing or ending something, and so this mistake is understandable. Incidentally this method has some pluses. I still don’t know how to remove a table easily (not just the information within it), and cut seems to do this.
- No knowledge of the alignment tools, and so using spaces as a method to align text to the center or right. Obviously ran into problems when editing the text later, as changes would make the text run over the end of the line, ruining the formatting.
- Drew horizontal lines, across the page (i.e. a space to write in your own answer) with –‘s. Seems a pretty effective method, even though I’m sure Word has its own way of doing this. Is there a better way of doing it?
- Displayed difficulty moving images in Word. Is it right that you have to click on an image twice to move it? The first click just gives you resize options, which confused the user.
- Had difficulty with resizing objects. What happens if you make an image so big that it falls off the edge of the paper, and you cannot see the border to make it small again? I guess you could format picture, and manually change the size, but this is an entirely different method of resizing, and isn’t cognitively related to the standard way.
- Constant (constant!) rewriting of words, when word autocapitalised/auto formatted them in an undesired way (which was seemingly every autoformat). User had to delete the word, and re-write each time.
What could word do to improve?
This immediately throws up some questions about how Word was developed. It’s clear that the tools available, such as the alignment, or horizontal lines, are not making their functionality transparent to new users. It wasn’t clear to my user that they existed, or how they should be functioning. Obviously just having the icon on the toolbar isn’t enough, and this should be rethought.
This was also the case with image manipulation. The functions that the user needed do exist in Word (i.e. resizing, moving), but are modal in nature, and so are difficult to find, and don’t offer a consistent user experience to someone who is not familiar with Word’s nuances.
It’s also clear with auto format in particular that the system isn’t adapting to the user’s needs. The constant changes that Word was making to the user’s document, which were then undone each time only created a large degree of frustration in the user. The software should be learning how the user wants auto format to work, and adjust to their preference. In this user’s case, it was causing trouble, and should have turned itself off (or at least given the option)
What they need is some sort of helpful assistant
What should we learn from this?
It occurred to me that these issues were not unique to the user I watched since I encounter similar problems with Word. The difference is I’ve had enough familiarity to learn the workarounds, or solutions to these problems that Word throws at you. For example, it’s an unthinking reaction to press Ctrl+Z after Word incorrectly auto-formats things incorrectly. My user just hadn’t used the program for long enough to train that reaction, and so word’s error became more of a big deal.
Its important when considered usability to realise that users aren’t just like you. If you are in a position to make a difference with usability, it’s very likely you are not an ‘average user’, and as such its difficult to comprehend how ‘average users’ use software.
‘Average users’ are not stupid. They are your mum, and just don’t have the time, or effort to put into learning these workarounds, or making them second nature. The solution, rather than ‘educating’ users, is to make the programs better; make programmers understand who their users are, and how they use the programs. And make them program for the ‘average’ users, rather than the power users. And that is the point of usability.
A Terrible User Experience & how to fix it– Zoomerang.com
When running a website, its important to make sure that the user can achieve their goal with the minimal fuss. This is especially important if you are selling, or trying to sell, a commercial service. I recently had to use Zoomerang.com, a survey site, and had a few notes about the user experience. As you’ll remember, I don’t rant often…
I’m in the process of designing a GPS game, and am currently discovering the functional requirements for the project. As UX practitioners, we know that involving the user is of critical importance at this stage, hence we designed a questionnaire to establish peoples experience, and perception of GPS games, and what they’d like a GPS game to be like. (linked here)
When at university, our internet access goes through a proxy server, which blocks unsuitable content. For some reason, this includes surveymonkey.com, a site I’ve used a few times in the past to construct online surveys. Interestingly, the ‘site blocked’ dialogue said “for survey sites, try zoomerang.com”. However, when I search for some hardcore action, it never gives me alternate suggestions for that. Have I uncovered a conspiracy? Nonetheless, I followed the link.
And so I ended up on zoomerang.com. Being fair, there is one key advantage to zoomerang which immediately put me in a good mood. On surveymonkey, for a free account, you are limited to ten questions. On Zoomerang, you can ask 30 questions before you have to pay. This meant we didn’t have to redo, or concatenate our questions, and made me smile inside
Pictured: an inside smile
Problems with Zoomerang.com
This goodwill was shortlived, when I tried to use the site to implement my questionnaire. Heres why:
- The workflow isn’t clear when making a survey, and so I entirely missed the step where you add your questions. Clicking through the process actually caused me publish a blank questionnaire. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except…
- …You can’t edit an existing survey. Once its published, you cannot add/remove/change questions. Surveymonkey allows this. So I was stuck with my blank survey, and had to start again from scratch.
- Having figured out how to add questions, I got started, and selected “insert question”. It added a header, which then had to be changed to type question. I guessed that was because it was my first item, but no, it always defaults to inserting a header (odd, since you’d only need 1 per page, whereas you’d need multiple questions).
- So I finally got to add a question, and this is when the terribleness of the design struck me. I selected a question where a radio button would select from a number of answers, and typed in my list of 15 or so alternative answers into a rich text field. I hit submit, and … got an error, saying “answers can only be 1000 characters, including HTML”, and even worse…
- …It deleted the data I had entered in that field. All 15 answers. This is a critical failure of any system, since the data a user inputs should be considered sacred.
- There was no counter telling me how many characters I had entered, so I had to retry a few times. Eventually I realised that I could only enter 5 potential one word answers before it’d error that I was over 1000 characters. That had to be a mistake? I investigated further…
- …Looking at the HTML, it turned out that the rich text editor was writing rubbish html. At the start of each answer, it’d add needless style tags, often multiple times. Heres an example of the HTML it generated for my one word answer “complicated”
<p><span style=”font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size: small;”><span style=”font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size: small;”><span style=”font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size: small;”>Complicated</span></span></span></p> - …no wonder it was hitting the character limit after 4 or 5 words. I had to manually enter the html for all the possible answers, just so I could get round this.
- My last fault with zoomerang.com is just a suspicion. I look after my email accounts, and so have never received spam in my current primary address. After signing up for zoomerang last week, I received my first random spam email. Might just be a coincidence, but I didn’t sign up for anything else that week!
I had to call this guy to fix my survey
How to fix zoomerang.com
To improve their user experience, they should look at red-routing the goals the user needs to achieve:
- Make the progression through survey design clearer, highlighting which step questions are added in
- Also make it clear how far through the design process you are, and what steps remain
- Restrict what the user can do, so they cannot post a blank questionnaire. Its obvious if they are about to do this that they’ve made a mistake, tell them!
- Don’t make question types default to “header”. Surely users will only use this type once at most, whereas they’re going to have more than one question on the questionnaire. Make it default to that!
- Fix the WYSIWYG code generator, so that the user doesn’t have to manually code the answers in HTML. A lot of user’s would get stuck at this point!
- Don’t send me spam!
And what can you do, until these fixes are made? Use surveymonkey.com. Or, if you’ve found anything better, leave a comment and let me know!
No user testing? Oops! – The Digiscent iSmell
User testing is important in every aspect of the design process. Too often it’s thought of as a stage, near the end of design, to help make a product look nice. But it should be much more than that. Not only can it tell you what a product should look like, or how it should work, but it should be considered when designing what a product should do, and whether users need your product. We’re going to look at a product where the lack of user testing lead to a failed project – the Digiscent iSmell!
The Digiscent iSmell
Have you ever been on the internet, perhaps visiting your favourite Star Trek fan-fiction forums, and thought “yeah, this is pretty good – but I wonder what it would smell like?”. Well Digiscent heard your cries, and created a device that allowed you to smell the many scents of the internet.
...mostly tears and sweat
The idea was that the iSmell would combine its 128 ‘primary scents’ to create a custom smell for your webpage, advert or email. iSmell owners who visited your page would then have the custom made smell wafted to them through the power of USB, so they could enjoy it in their own home. The possibilities were endless; you could enjoy the scent of roses when receiving email from your favourite online-florist (what? we all have one!), or enjoy an endless supply of the ‘new car smell’ from your local car dealership. To say nothing about our ideas for the adult site i-like-feet.com
Unsurprisingly the product failed (I was shocked too!). Why? They never asked users what they wanted. If they had, they may have realised that “what does it smell like” was a question almost never heard on the internet.
well thats proved me wrong
Instead of using user testing as a way of determining what colour the device should be, they should have asked users, before even starting designing the product, what they would use it for. From lo-fi prototypes, and attempts to create scenarios of use, or personae of people who may need to use this product, they would have realised that the product wasn’t needed by their users, and didn’t give a noticeable improvement to their internet use. Since they didn’t use a user centred design methodology, they created a product that was useful for no-one. Oops!
So keep in mind, when you start your next project, that the user’s needs, the usability of a device, and the user experience should be a consideration from the start, and not just an afterthought. And the most obvious evidence that Digiscent failed to ask users about their product? They called it the ‘iSmell’.
Five essential iPhone apps for usability professionals
As you may have noticed, I like my iPhone. But the iPhone is not just for playing games, or twitter, but can also be a useful tool for every stage of usability testing, from the discovery of customer needs to the iterative testing of potential designs and implementation. I’ve tried to compile five essential apps for usability professionals, available on the iPhone now. If anyone has any suggestions/additions, or disagrees with the choices I’ve made, please add your comments!
Working with usability requires a wide range of abilities, and hence these tools reflect the wide range of roles a usability professional may be performing. When talking about each app, I’ll try to cover where in the usability process it may come in useful, and how it can help you to increase efficiency and get better results.
but don't forget lo-fi alternatives
1. Pidoco°
Starting off, this isn’t strictly an iPhone app, but Pidoco’s software has been developed to be compatible with mobile browsers and the iPhone. I saw them demo the software at a recent UX Brighton event, and they impressed upon me that it was built with usability in mind. Pidoco offers a quick way to collaborate on the design of wire frames, and quickly show these to the user or client, without the need to be in the same geographic location as them. The easy to use nature of the system means it’d be ideal when iteratively testing an interface with users, and is a mid-fi alternative to paper prototyping. Currently offering a month’s free trial, there’s no excuse not to give it a go!
Pidoco°’s website: https://pidoco.com/en/
2. Mocha VNC
Need to mock up a mid-fi prototype of an iPhone App? You obviously don’t have time to make the app in Xcode, buy the iPhone developers license, link the customer’s phone to the computer and copy the app over. Instead, how about making a prototype on your Mac, or PC and using a VNC client to make the iPhone look at the prototype. The user will still be able to interact with the prototype by clicking, or navigating around, and the ‘controller’ sat at the server can display the correct pages to the user. Easy mid-fi prototyping, on an iPhone, without the long set up costs and investments required to actually have the app running on the iPhone.
Mocha VNC’s website: http://www.mochasoft.dk/iphone_vnc.htm
3. Camera
Watching someone perform a task is an important part qualitative usability testing. What about those moments where you weren’t looking, or noticed something that you wanted to ask about later, but forgot about? Looks like you need to be recording your user tests. Camera comes with all iPhones, but is only available for video recording on the 3GS. Since you are always likely to have your phone with you, it’s a handy mobile solution that allows you to record your usability sessions without requiring any additional equipment, so that they can be analysed later. Maybe buy a stand for it though!
4. exZact Data Collection
Quantitative research is also an important part of establishing user requirements, and working towards a design that meets their goals. The Data Collection iPhone app aims to allow you to create, and answer, custom surveys on the iPhone, collecting information like geographic location, and responses in a variety of forms (1-10 ratings, drop down lists, yes/no responses, and comment boxes). They then offer real time analysis, so you can see the results as they come in, and claim to be massively scalable. Offering a month’s free trial, it seems an effective solution if you require your data collection method to be mobile, and accessible anywhere.
exZact’s website: http://www.iformbuilder.com
5. Insight – Basecamp on iPhone
You’ve seen from the diversity of the apps above that a usability specialist has to be experienced in a lot of areas, and its often hard to keep on top of these. A tool that I have found invaluable in project management is Basecamp, which allows you to collaborate on projects, assign tasks and see what everyone is up to. Insight is a mobile version of Basecamp, and will allow you to keep up to date with how everyone working with you on the usability project is progressing from one easy interface, and keep on top of projects. As a busy person, it’s likely to be an invaluable tool to any usability specialist or contractor!
Insight’s website: http://www.encampapp.com/
Conclusion
Its clear from looking for the most useful usability apps for the iPhone that this is a largely untapped market – although there are tools available to help with the individual steps in the process, there is no one ‘go-to’ app for usability and UX professionals. What is needed is a more holistic solution, one that can work with a usability professional in every step of the process, from the initial requirement gathering stage, through building up personas of the customers, to the iterative design process and beyond. Until then we’ll have to make use of the wide range of apps covered today to achieve these tasks.
