Fundamentals of Information Science G0534 Usability and UserCentered Design

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Fundamentals of Information Science
G053/4Usability and User-Centered Design

• Andy Dawson
• (with acknowledgment to Jon Rimmer)
• Department of Information Studies, UCL

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What were going to be looking at

• What is Usability
• User-centered design
• Interaction design
• How to evaluate usability
• Heuristic evaluation
• Prototyping (esp rapid prototyping)
• Post-break, lo-fi prototyping exercise

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What is usability?

• How would you define it?
• Why is it important?
• How would you measure it?

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What is usability?

• http//uk.youtube.com/watch?vY8BqHjbyoio

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Usability

• Often overlooked or not understood?
• Hard to measure
• In itself
• In terms of value/cost/effectiveness
• Shortage of experts?
• Time pressure often an issue

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How can we achieve usability?

• Many things relate to usability
• HCI, HIP
• Interaction design
• User-centred design
• General and specific considerations

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ISO standards (!)

• ISO 9241Ergonomics of human-system interaction
  (many parts!)
• Originally about VDU usage
• ISO 13407 Human-centered design processes for
  interactive systems
• ISO 18529 Human-centered lifecycle process
  descriptions

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Whats involved in User-Centered Design

• Indentifying needs and establishing requirements
• Developing alternative designs
• Building interactive versions
• Evaluating throughout
• Identifying usability and user experience goals

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Usability goals

• Effective to use
• Efficient to use
• Safe to use
• Have good utility
• Easy to learn
• Easy to remember how to use

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User experience goals

• Satisfying
• Enjoyable
• Fun
• Entertaining
• Helpful
• Motivating

• Aesthetically pleasing
• Supportive of creativity
• Rewarding
• Emotionally fulfilling

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General examples of poor design

• (pics!)

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Human-machine interaction Success or failure?

• Aeroplane cockpits
• Nuclear power plants
• Air traffic control
• Virtual reality
• WAP phones ( http//WAP.ITV.com )
• Ticket machines
• Video recorders

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Interaction Design

• Rise of technologies in everyday life
• Shift away from traditional user as expert
• Defines the behavior of products and systems that
  a user can interact with
• Focused on complex/IT systems
• Takes knowledge from various disciplines and
  applies it to the design process (e.g.
  psychology, HIP)

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Interaction Design methodology

• Design research
• Research analysis and concept generation
• Alternative design and evaluation
• Prototyping and usability testing
• Implementation
• System testing

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Interaction Design

• Social interaction design
• Dynamics of personal intercommunication
• Increasingly relevant with networking
• Affective interaction design
• How key aspects of design influence emotive
  responses in target users

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Design and usability principles

• Don Norman Design of Everyday Things
• Visibility
• Feedback
• Constraints
• Mapping
• Consistency
• Affordance

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Normans seven stages of action
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User-centered systems design

• Key to effective usability design is in
  establishing true user requirements
• Getting it right first time saves money and
  improves customer satisfaction

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IT Failure rates

• The Standish Group CHAOS report (365 companies,
  8380 projects) noted
• 31.1 of projects cancelled
• 52.7 were performed with changed plans
• 16.2 were performed according to plan
• On average the costs for changing plans increased
  189. 81 billion spent that didnt lead to
  results.

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IT Failure rates

• Eighty percent of software lifecycle costs occur
  after the product is released, in the maintenance
  phase. Of that work, 80 is due to unmet or
  unseen user requirements only 20 of this is due
  to bugs or reliability problems. (Karat)

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Failure of corporate websites

• 62 of web shoppers gave up looking for something
  they wanted to buy
• 40 of people never return to a website after bad
  experience
• 75 of all large companies are operating failures
  that either do not function as intended or are
  not used at all
• 63 of large software projects significantly
  overrun the estimate(Rimmer)

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UCD for the web

• Move away from Web as print paradigm, moving
  towards Web as software
• Increased complexity, not just content but
  allowing manipulation like traditional software
• Web projects increasing in size and budget (some
  over 1million)

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UK Disability Discrimination Act Demographics
of Age

• World adults over 60
• 1996 550 million
• 2025 1.2 billion (20 population)
• Little attention has been placed on older users
  needs for organising and understanding

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Universal access older users

• Older users have more problems with fine
  manipulation mouse, touch screens a problem
• Older users perform less well on multiple task
  concurrent processing
• Older users improve with practice
• Interface development that benefits older users
  also benefits younger users

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Usability benefits

• Improved customer focus
• Greater client retention
• Reduction of error and user frustration
• Lower support costs
• Less expensive redesigns
• Faster development cycles
• Reach wider audience

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User-Centered Design

• Phases of
• Analysis
• Iterative Design
• Build and test
• Deployment

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Analysis phase

• Identify and establish contact with users
• Develop usability goals, objectives and
  priorities
• Conduct field studies
• Interviews
• Create user profiles
• Look at competitive products
• Task analysis
• Document user requirements

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In a web context Defining the users website

• What is the purpose of the site?
• What are the problems that the site addresses or
  the goals it sets to achieve?
• Brainstorm start with common ideas e.g. what
  people dont want to see
• Check other sites and resources

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Iterative design phase

• Brainstorming of design
• Navigation, layout, functionality, information
  architecture
• Lo-Fidelity prototyping
• Walkthrough tests
• Create design specification

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Initial designs

• PAPER!

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Information architecture

• Web design tradition, social forces,
  technology, common sense and random chance
• Comnbine visual display and programming to create
  organisation of content
• Site should be mapped out so that from the user
  perspective the site has a natural flow

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Conventions of design

• User expectations other sites and software
• GUI design conventions (WIMPs) why?
• File/Menu/View Help OK X top right
• Web design not the same, but
• Home menus logo top left and home link text
  links at the footer site map for larger sites
  printer friendly version etc
• Make sure your site meets your users expectations

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Traditional web usability

• Advocates of simplicity e.g. Nielsen
• Usability gurus sites boring?
• Simplicity /LCD may alienate advanced users?
• Be adaptive think of skins or multiple
  entries
• Looks do matter peoples perception of the site
  is important
• Branding, corporate image, trust
• What makes a good site good?
• Examine classic sites e.g. Amazon, BBC
• Needs to be memorable, not unusual

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Designing for error

• We are human, we do make mistakes!
• Prevent them where we can
• Repair them if possible
• Page filenames obvious
• Spell checker (e.g. on search terms)
• Better error pages (eg 404)

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Design principles for customer messages

• Informative diagnosis
• Non-technical language
• Non-threatening terms
• Allow easy recoverability
• Designing for error
• Customised message page

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Build and test phase

• Hi-fidelity prototypes
• User testing again user observation,
  questionnaires
• Heuristic evaluation
• Designing and testing for errors
• Iterative building and testing
• Check usability goals and objectives

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Heuristic evaluation

• Most popular usability inspection method best
  done by a small team of usability specialists as
  part of an expert evaluation
• Method can be used by most people in order to
  critique a design (as well as expert
  evaluation) at any stage
• Needs a set of Heuristics (general design
  guidelines) to compare to

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Heuristic evaluation criteria (after Nielsen)

• Visibility of system status
• Match between system and real world
• User control and freedom
• Consistency and standards
• Error prevention

• Recognition rather than recall
• Flexibility and efficiency of use
• Aethetic and minimalist design
• Help users recognise, diagnose and recover from
  errors
• Help and documentation

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Deployment phase

• User surveys, questionnaires
• Observe users
• Feedback forms
• Check usability goals and objectives
• NB again - usability should not be an
  afterthought, it is something that is important
  throughout the design process!

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User experience

• Take away value of a system or site
• Successful visit feeling /- or neutral
• The content, visuals, and the ease of use
• Affective qualities (emotion)
• Dissatisfied users will dump the trolley
• so understand your user audiences and
  preferences!

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Websites to visit

• www.useit.org
• www.usabilitynews.com
• www.baddesigns.com
• www.design-emotion.com/2004/12/15/
  getting-emotional-with-donald-norman
• uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000019.php

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Practical exercise

• First - Teabreak! ?
• Then Lo-Fidelity prototyping exercise(in groups)
• Create a lo-fi prototype and present it!