{"id":102,"date":"2009-10-19T14:02:43","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T13:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=102"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:45:04","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:45:04","slug":"hci-learning-a-day-analyzing-user-experience-and-thoughts-about-remote-usability-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/19\/hci-learning-a-day-analyzing-user-experience-and-thoughts-about-remote-usability-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"HCI learning, a day analyzing user experience, and thoughts about remote usability testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0My membership to the Usability Professional\u2019s Association <\/a>went through this week (although disappointingly I have to wait a whole 4-5 weeks for my Designing The User Experience poster), and to celebrate I went to the UX Brighton event (\u2018Remote User Research \u2013 A 360\u02da View\u2019<\/a> ), and met the head of the UK Chapter of the UPA, Claire Mitchell (small world!). \u00a0I\u2019ve written more about this at the end of this blog post, but it\u2019s a bit epic, so I\u2019ll cover everything else first!<\/p>\n

\"a

a paper mockup of the T1000<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0This week in HCCS, we\u2019ve been learning about the process making of paper mockups (mostly scissors and sticky back plastic!), and the advantages (quick, manages user\u2019s expectations, gives the opportunity to hide in a box and pretend to be a robot).<\/p>\n

This has been supplemented by the (rather dull) course text book by Dix \u2018Human Computer Interaction\u2019. Dix tells us about the ways to input information into a human (sight, touch, sound, smell etc. ), how it\u2019s stored (sensory input, short and long term memory \u2013 needs more ram!), and our limitations (we can only remember around 7 chunks at a time \u2013 a factor in Tetris\u2019s success!). When amazon can be bothered to deliver it, I\u2019ve ordered Alan Cooper\u2019s (The Inmates are Running the Asylum<\/a>), which should be a more interesting read.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0The design complaint I contributed this week was Amazon\u2019s log in link being \u201cSign in to get personalised recommendations<\/span>\u201d (with the sign in link being on the personalized recommendations text).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"a

a design mistake?<\/p><\/div>\n

As documented in Krug\u2019s Don\u2019t Make Me Think<\/a> most users will \u2018scan\u2019 a page rather than read the full text, looking for buttons or links which do the task they are looking for. As someone looking to sign in, my \u2018scan\u2019 would reject this link as a) \u2018Sign In\u2019 isn\u2019t the link and b) You\u2019d assume the link would take you to personalised recommendations, not the sign in page. However, as we discussed in class, Amazon do a lot of A&B testing (running two versions of the page concurrently with slight differences, to see which ones get the most successful \u2018goal completion\u2019 rate). Therefore we have to imagine that this has been a conscious choice by amazon, either because more people are looking for personalized recommendations that to log in, or because it increases customer\u2019s awareness of this feature.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We\u2019ve been given the task of logging our experiences with technology through a day, and considering them from a design point of view. That\u2019s what you lucky people are in for now! (hold on tight, its ranty!)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Waking up:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Alarm Clock<\/strong> \u2013 Hit snooze (big button on top, good design feature). Turned it off by turning the radio on and off. Design fail<\/strong> – I imagine there\u2019s an \u2018official\u2019 way to turn the alarm off, but in ten years of use, I\u2019ve never found it.<\/p>\n

\n
\"design

design success - you wont fall asleep with this alarm clock near you!<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

iPhone<\/strong> \u2013 ran out of battery last night, and I left the plug of the charger at my parents, so has to charge off USB. Plugged it into my work laptop to charge, but the USB only charges when the laptop is open (not in standby!) Design fail<\/strong> \u2013 annoying that I have to have the laptop open to charge my phone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0TV<\/strong> \u2013 is quite old, and turns on to the analogue channels, rather than the scart input. We have cable, so it only ever uses scart. I guess it should auto detect whether theres analogue or scart data being fed in, and select which to show automatically. Design fail <\/strong>– It doesn\u2019t though.<\/p>\n

Employment fun:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Laptop<\/strong> \u2013 Backlights failed on the screen, so have to take it into work to get it replaced. Replacement has no battery life, so won\u2019t survive unplugged. Design fail<\/strong> \u2013 Laptops too frail for my clumsy ways.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Successfully got to my desk with the new laptop, and charged my phone with no design issues!<\/p>\n

\u00a0IP Phone<\/strong> \u2013 I don\u2019t understand it. It says I have a missed call, but no details of when\/who\/what. Red light is lit up on handset, I cant recall whether its always been like that. Later in the day it tells me I have a voicemail, with a flashing envelope icon. I lift up the receiver, and press the button next to the flashing icon. Nothing happens. I try again with the receiver down, the phone beeps at me. I lift up the receiver, and try other things. The button marked messages does it. It asks for a pin. I have no idea, but am logged into the phone, so it should know its me already, right? Eventually find my registration email with a voicemail pin. Successfully retrieve voicemail. Design fail<\/strong> \u2013 too many to count.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Coffee machine<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019ve worked this out now, but it took a short amount of observation when I joined. Its next to a pile of cups. Do you need to put the cup in the machine before selecting the drink? If so, where? (turns out, for all of you who are worrying, that it doesn\u2019t need any cups, it automatically gives you one) Design fail \u2013<\/strong> Not clear how to load\/use initially.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Home time:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Sky+<\/strong> – I\u2019m not particularly familiar with Sky+, so it\u2019s a learning experience\u2026 Design fail<\/strong> – Everytime you return to the TV guide, it goes to the start of the list!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Book<\/strong> \u2013 papercut! Ow! Design fail \u2013 <\/strong>paper should be replaced with some sort of foam.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What a busy day!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My impressions of the UX Brighton event<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Remote User Research \u2013 A 360\u02da View event was in the Old Music Library, which although lacking in heating and lighting, does have a lot more scary art than most venues. Free beer was generously supplied by the sponsors, which starts the night off on a good foot. The topic of the evening was performing remote usability testing, with talks given by Feralabs<\/a>, Ethnolabs<\/a>, Pidoco<\/a>, and Flow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first three talks were presentations of technology the companies had developed. Ethnolabs have produced an API which collects data on specifically tagged topics from feeds such as twitter, social network sites and email correspondents, which can then be used to correlate user experiences. The example they used to demonstrate this was people\u2019s impressions of a new digital camera. Although their API technology seemed functional, I was under whelmed by their product \u2013 although the piecemeal opinions of users aren\u2019t useless, I think that without specific tasks to try to achieve, or interview questions being asked, it\u2019d be hard to achieve any standardized conclusions from the data.\u00a0 Also I\u2019d question what incentives would be offered to the user\u2019s to bother to tweet their opinions \u2013 surely without an incentive causing every user to tweet, the data retrieved will be rather biased to the polarized views (\u201cI hate this!\u201d).<\/p>\n

The second talk was by pidoco, and was about their collaborative wireframing tool. The technology here did impress me, and I can see the use in immediately being able to adjust and present new wireframes to a client remotely (the system also logged voice, so longer suggestions could be reviewed later). The artistic style of the wireframes imitated pencil sketches, rather than the precise lines you\u2019d get in omnigraffle, which is also helpful in managing client\u2019s expectations. I know before I\u2019ve presented wireframes that look precise, and the client has spent along time reviewing minor items like the text within it. Pidoco\u2019s tools\u2019 emphasis on a rough sketch aesthetic would help manage situations like this!<\/p>\n

The last two talks were slightly linked – a presentation of a remote data logging tool by Feralabs, which gives users tasks to complete and logs their precise experience in doing this, and a report by Flow on their experiences using this tool. The tool seemed effective, logging the user\u2019s navigation, mouse clicks, and asking them questions after, and Flow\u2019s review was interesting, and sold the idea to me. I would defiantly consider using a logging technology like this in performing certain kinds of usability testing. In the heated Q&A session after, it was discussed at length that this should be used in conjunction, and not instead of face to face interviews, for it was agreed that remote usability studies cannot log or reproduce every element of a close personal study, you fail to see the emotions and reactions of the participant involved, and it\u2019s harder to adapt the test to study interesting emerging behaviour variants. However, it is cheaper, and I know the business side of most organisations will like the sound of that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0My membership to the Usability Professional\u2019s Association went through this week (although disappointingly I have to wait a whole 4-5 weeks for my Designing The User Experience poster), and to celebrate I went to the UX Brighton event (\u2018Remote User Research \u2013 A 360\u02da View\u2019 ), and met the head of the UK Chapter of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-user-research","grve-entry-item","grve-blog-item"],"yoast_head":"\nHCI learning, a day analyzing user experience, and thoughts about remote usability testing - Steve Bromley - User Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/19\/hci-learning-a-day-analyzing-user-experience-and-thoughts-about-remote-usability-testing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"HCI learning, a day analyzing user experience, and thoughts about remote usability testing - 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