Balancing Theoretical and Practical Applications of Usability Testing

The readings this week were helpful in that Quesenbury’s article “What Does Usability Mean” identifies the fundamental goals for usability testing and reasons why it is warranted. Through a series of fictional business examples, this author helps testers understand the characteristics of usability by explaining concrete definitions, showing them how to apply the definition, and teaching them how to make systems work from a user’s perspective.

Barnum’s article “What’s in a Number” offers readers a glimpse of how the “magic number,” in this case – the number “five,” can have an effect on usability testing. Barnum’s studies are helpful in that they identify case studies conducted by some of the leading experts in the field. Barnum asserts that testers who familiarized themselves with “numbers” used in such studies are more likely to grasp the goals of usability and, thus, are those who are more likely to meet the needs of users.

David Dick’s article “Usability Interface: Getting Started with Usability” gives readers a glimpse into his personal experience employing usability as a technical writer. Dick learned that real users would have better represented real world users than the employees he chose to use in testing. I do not necessarily agree with Dick on this. I think it all depends on the product, system, or service being tested. Some employees happen to be their employers best customers.

I found the readings this week helpful, but I would not consider any of them to be an equal balance between theory and practice. I'm still a huge fan of the number one guru for web usability – Jacob Nielsen. For me, the Jacob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger book Prioritizing Usability offers usability testers a clear view of how they can balance theory and practice when it comes to web development.

Usability - getting there from here

I am discovering that when you build a large complicated site with numerous applications that you need to give users a number of ways to get to the same place. For example, a button to a high frequency page, a list of it on the index page, and the ability to find it using the site search engine. Suppose you discover, via site stats, that users usually visit the search or index page after visiting a certain page of your site. For example, suppose you are administrating the NIU site. You discover that people who visit the COMS department page often next visit a page where you can sign up for lab time. A link to the labtime page isn't on the coms main page - users are going back to the search engine or index and typing of hitting the "lab signup" link. Is there a way to create a window or frame on the COMS page that would take notice of this trend and automatically create a link to the lab signup page? It would be similar to the "most emailed stories" link we see on the new york times web site, but would be relative to the particular page you are on. It would take note of where users usually go from here...

usability.com

I was also part of the Usability Testing and Management class, a.k.a. Making Technical Writing Products that Work for People, at the Institute that Ruth mentioned in her blog. Though the course was jam-packed with information and a hefty assignment over two-day, in-class sessions, the information was invaluable.

My takeaway from "Getting Started" is the importance of winning advocates for your cause. If you are committed to doing excellent work for your group of end users--no matter how small the number--you work will be noticed. Eventually, you will have an opportunity to make a greater impact.

The readings and blog entries this week mentioned several of the references from the usability class (e.g., Nielsen's AlertBox and STC Usability SIG), so I thought I'd share a few others:

The Usability Group - the managing partner of this business, Jeff Rubin, is the author of the textbook, Handbook of Usability Testing, that used in the class. It was very easy reading.
www.usability.com

Usability Professionals Association
www.upassoc.org

Association for Computing Machinery - SIG on Computers and Human Interaction)
www.acm.org

(We were discussing job titles and roles in an earlier class discussion remember? Well, a human factors engineer is right up there with an information architect as far as fancy titles go. Don't you think?)

Usability evaluation

I found myself feeling sympathy for any and all of you who are creating or updating websites for "real, live" organizations or corporations. The evaluation of usability seems daunting enough under the most controlled circumstances. I'd love to hear from those who are doing larger websites for larger organizations. Were you able to witness real users in action as the articles suggest is necessary? How did you set this up? What were your numbers?

A second thought I had was related to Blockbuster Online. About 6 months ago, users began receiving e-mails offering a sneak-peek at the new format for Blockbuster's online services. It was only through this link that one could reach the newly formatted pages. At the time I thought it was odd, but in the context of usability, it makes perfect sense. Give your current users on opportunity to peruse the new format before you thrust it upon them. I'm not sure how much feedback they received from users, nor how much consideration their designers gave, but it does seem like the most logical way for companies with a significant Web presence to minimize the pain associated with change.

See you tomorrow,

Jake

The Net Generation

Wonderful posts on usability! Good questions and discussions, all. Tira's post adds the dimension of gender to the equation, and John's makes us all wonder "what's the use of usability?"

If gender and education level are important axes of audience consideration, is age another, or should we consider audiences/users in terms of network experience? The authors of the articles in Innovate seem to assume that members of the Net Generation are all the same, and that students will come to school with similar computer/network experiences. Is this an assumption we need to problematize, and if so, how?

Lots to talk about on Wednesday; I hope we can focus on the important issues. I'll have more focused questions up Wednesday afternoon.

Thanks,

M. Day

Net Generation issues, Innovate
Journal of Online Education, April/May 2007
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?

The April/May issue of Innovate focuses on the
Net Generation, a generation that grew up with
video games, computers, and the Internet. The
expectations, attitudes, and fluency with
technology of this new generation present both a
challenge and an opportunity for educators. In
this special issue of Innovate, guest edited by
Chris Davis, we examine how educators and
educational systems can respond to the challenge
and leverage the opportunity. A selected number
of articles will be accompanied by an
Innovate‑Live webcasts, offering an opportunity
to synchronously interact with the authors. More
information about registering for the webcasts
can be found here: http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/

"The Ideology of Ease"

This ideology is fascinating. I can't help but relate everything I read to my first year teaching experiences, and the author of this article that Dr. Day posted is commenting on his experiences with students. I do note a slight difference in gender; Mr. Dilger says: "ease is heavily gendered. In the simplest sense, the connection is expressed as 'Women can't handle difficulty.' Women are expected to identify with ease; men are expected either not to need it or to use it in passing on their way to superior ability." I have noticed, at least, a difference in the attitude of students based on gender, (or somehow, I don't know how to explain, but a different look on their faces in the lab), when going through new "technology" lessons. Truly, the young ladies have more questions! (and I, a female, trying to lead the pack--yikes!) But, I wonder if this is just an outward appearance of the way we, as different genders, process information; I know that I don't shrug from learning something new, and the female students in my class don't either. Dilger goes on to say,"an uncritical turn toward making computer interfaces and software easy to use has replaced the various metaphorical schemes, disrupting the GUI's relationship to spatial representation." I guess I just wonder how every program/application can use the same metaphors, and what then would occur? As I think John blogged about, at some point the excitement of creating something new rests somehow on thinking that "I can do it better; I can make it more understandable/usable for everyone." I guess we can't really ever do this completely, based upon the extreme differences found in subcultural language, etc. Dilger blames the students' lack of file structure manageability on the phenomenon of not having standardized metaphors throughout technology and he says "the culturally constructed desirability of 'making it easy' [or] an...uncritical drive toward ease is arguably the most influential force in desktop computing today...as ease becomes the end, rather than the means to the end, many things are set aside..." It seems like there can just be no easy solution for usability.

Usability & Our Project Websites

In this article, David Dick tells us that "employees are not representative of actual users," encouraging us to let our audience dictate how we present information, rather than us--the soon-to-be-experts.

Carol M. Barnum's "What's in a Number?" examines the Magic Number 5 as applied to usability testing, and her observation that in both of the web studies she analyzed, "the user profile was not clearly defined, resulting in users with, perhaps, widely varying levels of experience."

So I'm left wondering how our class usability testing is going to work out, especially considering we all come from such different backgrounds and have different interests. Are the 5 E's of Usability standards that everyone will be able to pick up on, or do we need to tailor everything specifically to our audience?

This issue came up in both the proposal process and in the card-sorting exercise. I'm designing a band website and thought of using "Merch" as a label for a potential online store. In the rock and roll nomenclature, "Merch" is short for merchandise: stickers, buttons, t-shirts, etc. And when crafting this website, labeling it as a "Store" risks sounding corporate and out of the loop. I realize this is more of a labeling issue, but it applies to the overall usability of the site.

And so I'm left with "usability" acting as this catch-all phrase like "information architecture" -- essentially: "how easy is it to find stuff?" I realize this sets me at odds with Quesenbery and her 4-part meaning of usability . . .

I'm sorry to go on about this, but the more I read about usability/IA, the less likely I am to want to push the envelope and innovate. Anyone else feel this way?

Usability; crowd sourcing

Anyone who has ever tried to follow instructions for putting something together, installing something, or even using modern technology can attest to the fact that usability studies are extremely useful and not done often enough.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. I took the Professional Development Seminar on usability studies this semester, and the way usability studies are conducted by "professionals" in that field are expensive and time-consuming. They involve video taping, think-aloud protocols, encoding, and statistical data analysis. They were really hot in the late 1990s, according to the U of Chicago prof who taught the seminar, but they've fallen out of favor.

I think some companies might have thrown out the baby with the bath. Sure, encoding video and audio tapes can provide a great deal of useful information, but there's no reason not conduct basic usability studies that can be completed inexpensively and relatively easily. How much would it have cost Apple to have a few young and a few older secretaries or others who were not familiar with the equipment try to turn figure out how to maneuver an iPod (especially how to shut the darn thing off)? How much would it have cost them to ask a few middle aged people to read the serial number off the back of the thing? (It's small and white against a chrome surface; it's basically illegible for anyone over 20)? Look at the usability study for the Purdue OWL. I dare say they got quite a bit of useful material without video cameras and think-aloud protocols. People need to approach these issues in a manner of "How can we do this most productively?" instead of "How can I turn this concept into a six-figure salaried position?" Consumers would be better off.

Another factor is the increasing lack of interest in providing any kind of support or customer service in American corporations. Try getting answers or help from ANYONE these days. The 800-number system is saving companies a bundle, I'm sure, but how much longer are we as consumers going to put up with not being able to get reliable information or talk to anyone who knows anything about what we're asking? I honestly don't know why we tolerate it, and it's only a matter of time before some enterprising company recognizes the discontent and sweeps in and offers service. What Japan did to the US auto industry in the 1989s will be NOTHING compared to that, and I can't wait for it to happen!

The crowdsourcing concept is, of course, running creatives out of jobs. It was inevitable. If it becomes possible to do something technologically, it's only a matter of time before employers demand it. Companies want the latest thing as quickly and inexpensively as they can get it. Why WOULD anyone go to the hassle of hiring a photographer, setting up a location, hiring a model or models, getting the processing done, etc. when they can dowload a stock photo from Microsoft for free? With the magic of Photoshop, you can download a photo and alter it to add your product in about an hour, compared to the week and half you need to have a professional photographer shoot a photo, and it costs NOTHING compared to the hundreds of dollars a professional shot would cost. When I think of all the time and money the last company I was marketing manager for wasted on photos for direct-mail ads and compare it to how fast and easy it would be to do that stuff on desktop with Photoshop now, it makes me laugh.

I recently learned about something else that someone with savvy can offer a small company in order to get a marketing position. There are FREE communication management systems that a marketing person can use to set up various kinds of forms. Engineers and product designers can type in the product specs, the marketing person can write up some copy and -- again with FREE software -- it can be incorporated into a C or reverse C Web layout in nothing flat.

With some practice with various computer programs, an enterprising person who really needs a job could walk into a small company and say, "Let me show you how I can replace your entire marketing department for a fraction of the cost." Of course, it would be great if that savings would be passed on to consumers or used to increase the wages and benefits of the line workers, but that's not going to happen in THIS culture.

The more technology can do, the less we need people to do. That's the culture we've created and are perpetrating.

Ah, that's what I like: the KISS method ("keep it simple, stupid"). All you need to remember in usability testing are 5 users/analysts and the 5 E's. If you want more on this or a different perspective, your taxes at work produce www.usability.gov.
By the way, the links you set up on this site will go on and on if you set them up right away. As you can see from the first one, I set it up immediately after typing the characters and every character after that became part of the link. So, you have to jump to another part of the text after setting up a link which means you have to type the whole blog then go back and set up the links. A usability issue.
Here goes with another link. The STC sig (special interest group) has a website devoted exclusively to usability: www.stcsig.org/usability/. Now, as I type, I'll finish then go back and establish that as a link. I just set it up and it worked.