UIA Sighting: Beta Testing

Beta testing only focus on what a developer did. It doesn't test what a "Customer" expects to see. That information is only found during load testing after an application has gone live.

UIA Sighting: Blackberry Software

I heard of a cool software called "Zebra Crossing." But the person that was demoing it was on Google Android software and I have a Blackberry. I did a search on my computer find it and eureka! After several searches I found it. Ok now how to I get the information on my Blackberry to test it? Humm...this is a problem for anyone with a smart phone. I had to do more searching to find the picture of the link above. iTunes found a way to solve this by creating the app store. Blackberry created an app store butf ocuses more on getting money by featuring apps for money instead of having a one stop shop.

If I need software, I can go to iTunes. But Blackberry software is still scattered all over the web. When you find one you want to use, their isn't a clear and elegant way to install it test on a Blackberry. This is easy to change, let's see how long it takes.

Full Definition of Usability.

What you see on the top of the blog is the first paragraph of how Wikipedia explains what usability is. View the entire page here:

Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. Usability can also refer to the methods of measuring usability and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance.

In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability usually refers to the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a web site is designed. The term is also used often in the context of products like consumer electronics, or in the areas of communication, and knowledge transfer objects (such as a cookbook, a document or online help). It can also refer to the efficient design of mechanical objects such as a door handle or a hammer

Introduction

The primary notion of usability is that an object designed with a generalized users' psychology and physiology in mind is, for example:

• More efficient to use—it takes less time to accomplish a particular task
• Easier to learn—operation can be learned by observing the object
• More satisfying to use

Complex computer systems are finding their way into everyday life, and at the same time the market is becoming saturated with competing brands. This has led to usability becoming more popular and widely recognized in recent years as companies see the benefits of researching and developing their products with user-oriented instead of technology-oriented methods. By understanding and researching the interaction between product and user, the usability expert can also provide insight that is unattainable by traditional company-oriented market research. For example, after observing and interviewing users, the usability expert may identify needed functionality or design flaws that were not anticipated. A method called "contextual inquiry" does this in the naturally occurring context of the users own environment.

In the user-centered design paradigm, the product is designed with its intended users in mind at all times. In the user-driven or participatory design paradigm, some of the users become actual or de facto members of the design team.^[1]

The term user friendly is often used as a synonym for usable, though it may also refer to accessibility.

There is no consensus about the relation of the terms ergonomics (or human factors) and usability. Some think of usability as the software specialization of the larger topic of ergonomics. Others view these topics as tangential, with ergonomics focusing on physiological matters (e.g., turning a door handle) and usability focusing on psychological matters (e.g., recognizing that a door can be opened by turning its handle).

Usability is also very important in website development. According to Jakob Nielsen, "Studies of user behavior on the Web find a low tolerance for difficult designs or slow sites. People don't want to wait. And they don't want to learn how to use a home page. There's no such thing as a training class or a manual for a Web site. People have to be able to grasp the functioning of the site immediately after scanning the home page—for a few seconds at most."^[2] Otherwise, most casual users will simply leave the site and continue browsing—or shopping—somewhere else.

Definition

Usability is a qualitative attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process. Usability consultant Jakob Nielsen and computer science professor Ben Shneiderman have written (separately) about a framework of system acceptability, where usability is a part of "usefulness" and is composed of:

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they re establish proficiency?
• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

Usability is often associated with the functionalities of the product (cf. ISO definition, below), in addition to being solely a characteristic of the user interface (cf. framework of system acceptability, also below, which separates usefulness into utility and usability). For example, in the context of mainstream consumer products, an automobile lacking a reverse gear could be considered unusable according to the former view, and lacking in utility according to the latter view.

When evaluating user interfaces for usability, the definition can be as simple as "the perception of a target user of the effectiveness (fit for purpose) and efficiency (work or time required to use) of the Interface". Each component may be measured subjectively against criteria e.g. Principles of User Interface Design, to provide a metric, often expressed as a percentage.

It is important to distinguish between usability testing and usability engineering. Usability testing is the measurement of ease of use of a product or piece of software. In contrast, usability engineering (UE) is the research and design process that ensures a product with good usability.

Usability is an example of a non-functional requirement. As with other non-functional requirements, usability cannot be directly measured but must be quantified by means of indirect measures or attributes such as, for example, the number of reported problems with ease-of-use of a system.

UIA Sighting: Fax Machines

Page up, page down. Confirmation, need confirmation. Why is every fax machine different? After all of these years the fax machine has never adjusted to the user. Standards between on brand of machine and another has never materialized. It is a tool that is control by technology and is not customer focused. I am so glad email has replaced fax machines. It would be completely gone if their wasn't a better way to handle signatures and receipts.

Exact Change

Picture found on the web from Joan Gentry of http://www.santafephotogallery.com

I was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. I have taken more buses than I can count. Thinking back.....the thing I remember the most is seeing exact change signs.

Fare 55 cents. EXACT CHANGE ONLY."(Yeah that was a long time ago.)

They made sure it was the first thing you saw when entering the bus.

I didn't realize how long these signs have been around till I saw this photo."EXACT FARE" is written on the right of the door. Amazing. This is one of the oldest form of recorded usability I've seen in the US. Why?? Ok, I'm going to drop some Sociology on you.

The difference between a person from a city and from a rural environment is stimulus. A person from rural America comes from a low stimulus environment. They get to know names of their mailmen, neighbors, and people at the grocery store because the amount of people they see is low. So the majority of people become more welcoming and helpful to strangers. A sign for "Exact Change" is unnecessary and passing thousands of people a day is not plausible.

A person who grew up in a city is from a high stimulus environment. To stay alive and not get over loaded, we have a smaller group of friends, and we do not remember names well ...especially a mailman or bus driver. We do not look into the face of everyone that we pass by or show concern. Things like the bystander effect happen.

Public transportation during rush hour is one of the highest point of stimulus in a city. In a matter of minutes the variance of time, bus driver, bus, and customers change. In this extremely high stimulus activity, it is unreasonable for a bus driver to give change to every customer. It would make the entire trip unusable. Energy and time would be focus around collecting money instead of getting you to your designation in a timely matter. This is the ultimate purpose of public transportation.

This is where usability comes into play. To make the bus usable, a process had to be created and applied. Enforcing this process made the trip faster, and allow a viable option for people to take a bus.

Seeing this work so well is a main reason why I started this blog. Why not find a ways to apply usability to our daily lives. To focus on the core reason why a system exist, we need to find ways to make high stimulus activities, low stimulus. One of usability major strengths, is to clarify purpose and existence of a product.

UIA(Usability in Action) Sighting: Street Phones

The disappearance of the street phone.

UIA(Usability in Action) Sighting: OJ

The choice to have Orange Juice without pulp.

Pick a number

If we can figure out why this works. It would be amazing. Why? Joining this with intuition is the highest form of usability.

http://www.pcd-innovations.com/infosite/pickno1.htm

Newbie vs Purest

I really hate purest in technology world. They attack any confidence a newbie is using to try a product. It is just like freshman initiation. For you to respect the people that have been around, we had freshman go through some embarrassing stuff for force a type of "right to passage." This is how purest try to control newbies. A purest believes that only hard work and effort to figure out a product is just fine and necessary. If the person doesn't "get it," they are just not trying hard enough or didn't read the instructions. Then when people are having trouble, "Why change." "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," "No risk is always the best choice." "If we change, it will only cause more headaches for everyone.

I believe a focus on usability can fix this. It forces our actions to make newbie's a customer.

Definition of a Purest:

1. Having a homogeneous or uniform composition; not mixed: pure oxygen.
2. Free from adulterants or impurities: pure chocolate.
3. Free of dirt, defilement, or pollution: "A memory without blot or contamination must be . . . an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment" Charlotte Brontë.
4. Free of foreign elements.
5. Containing nothing inappropriate or extraneous: a pure literary style.
6. Complete; utter: pure folly.
7. Having no faults; sinless: "I felt pure and sweet as a new baby" Sylvia Plath.
8. Chaste; virgin.
9. Of unmixed blood or ancestry.
10. Genetics Produced by self-fertilization or continual inbreeding; homozygous: a pure line.
11. Music Free from discordant qualities: pure tones.
12. Linguistics Articulated with a single unchanging speech sound; monophthongal: a pure vowel.
13. Theoretical: pure science.
14. Philosophy Free of empirical elements: pure reason.

Definition of a newbie:

Newbie is a slang term for a newcomer to an Internet activity, for example online gaming. It can also be used for any other activity in whose context a somewhat clueless newcomer could exist. It can have derogatory connotations, but is also often used for descriptive purposes only, without a value judgment.

I hope you can see how one will conflict with the other.

invisible

picture from here.

I strongly believe that the best technology is the one that is invisible to the user. A book, a pencil, a knife, a toaster, all of these are a form of technology. They all help us do a job. They do not need a manual, they are intuitive and only need directions on how take care of it.

Usability success: Making a technology invisible allows the core to operate.

Too many times we believe we need to explain, document, or train for the use of a technology. Their are exceptions, but many times things can be intuitive enough for a person to figure out for themselves. Creating a tool that self teaches is the fastest way to reach usability success. This is done by giving a person simple routines to accomplish a goal without needing to think about the technology.

Many people wrongly let technology lead usability. Doing this only creates frustration and angst due to lack of control. It is a major problem many people in technology falls into and goes directly against invisibility. (See Need Documentation Blog entry.)

Workflows are the best balance of technology and a business process. It naturally puts the business process ahead of any technology and creates a quick win due to the clear ROI of process elimination.

Usability Charter

I signed this today. Would you sign it?

http://www.worldusabilityday.org/charter

The first paragraph says....

Human error is a misnomer. Technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy-to-use as a doorknob. In order to humanize a world that uses technology as an infrastructure for education, healthcare, government, communication, entertainment, work, and other areas, we must agree to develop technologies in a way that serves people first.

10 Usability Principles to guide you through the Web Design Maze

Web design is the leading group implementing usability today. Here is some information that I believe all technology needs to use to help focus on a target population:

1. Motivate
Design your site to meet specific user needs and goals. Use motivators to draw different user "personae" into specific parts of your site.

2. User task flow
Who are your users? What are their tasks and online environment? For a site to be usable, page flow must match workflow.

3. Architecture – it's 80% of usability
Build an efficient navigational structure. Remember – if they can't find it in 3 clicks, they're gone.

4. Affordance means obvious
Make controls understandable. Avoid confusion between emblems, banners, and buttons.

5. Replicate
Why reinvent the wheel? Use ergonomically designed templates for the most common 8-12 pages.

6. Usability test along the way
Test early in design using low-fidelity prototypes. Don't wait until the end when it's too late.Know the technology limitations Identify and optimize for target browsers and user hardware. Test HTML, JavaScript, etc. for compatibility.

7. Know the technology limitations
Identify and optimize for target browsers and user hardware.Test HTML, JavaScript, etc for compatibility.

8. Know user tolerances
Users are impatient. Design for a 2-10 second maximum download. Reuse header graphics so they can load from cache. Avoid excessive scrolling.

9. Multimedia – be discriminating
Good animation attracts attention to specific information, then stops. Too much movement distracts, slowing reading and comprehension.

10. Use a stats package
Monitor traffic through your site. Which pages pique user interest? Which pages make users leave? Adjust your site accordingly.

• Information gathered from: http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/10tips.asp
• PDF: Download

What is wrong this picture?

I hate stuff like this. What were people thinking when they created this? This is when usablility becomes laughable. Like today, I was typing this very message to go with the picture above. But when I typed in the text, it showed up as a hyperlink color of the text.

"I just wanted the text normal," I thought in my head.

So I hovered over the eraser icon on the edit menu. "Remove formatting from selection." Yeah! That's what I want. But when I pressed the button I got this error message:What in the world are they saying????

Ok I guess I have to think and do some problem solving. So I put on my tech hat.

Hummmm.

The facts

1. I am using a Google web app.
2. I am on a Mac.
3. I am using a Safari browser on my Mac to get to the Blogger Google App.

My experience

1. Google web apps are usually very good. But I found they play better with Windows than they do on Macs.
2. Mac's still believe the world evolves around them. So they are not going to adjust to using internet apps, instead they will base there actions on their perceived "superior" OS.
3. Because of #2. They will think the same way with their apps. So I cannot assume that Web Apps will always work flawlessly with a browser such as Safari. Actually, I have found tons of bugs like this one in using Safari.

My theory

• The problem is caused by my Mac Safari browser conflicting with a Google web app.

My test

• I will test the same window and page of the Google App in the Firefox browser on my Mac.

My result

• I proved my theory. While using Firefox at the same location in the Google Web App, I had no error message or problems with typing in the text I wanted. I went back to Safari after the test, and yes I received the same error message.

This usability issue is very similar to the escalator in the first picture. When you deal with a perceived problem and not consider the big picture(Or as they say, you don't see the forest thru the trees.) You will always waste effort, time, and money. These are the ironic results seen in the picture above.

The technology world it is even worst. Lack of usability in a product will be interpreted as condescending, create confusion, and will ultimately lose trust by making everything a company does look foolish.

The error message, how we communicate, and how we give opportunity for feedback will always be vital to successful usability implemention.

How is Microsoft going to fight back into prominence?

A: Usability.

Did you see the final line?

The only experience you need, is life experience.

Now that's usability.

UIA(Usability in Action) Sighting: Urinals???

Ok.....how are you going to link urinals to usability? I know you must be wondering. First I see usability directly linked with sustainability. (I will explain this in a later blog.) One of the foundations of sustainabilty is learning to work with ones environment.

I realized today that urinals are a part of sustainabulity. If the mens room had all toilets like the woman bathroom. It would be a waste of water. To do a "number 1" does not need as much water as a "number 2." So urinals were created not just for this reason, but for convience and saving money. These factors together are a strong force in pushing sustainability and usability.

So the existence of urinals is a demonstration that sustainability and usability existed a long time before we ever came up with the terms.

Understanding how urinals are in almost all mens bathrooms across the nation is a power which both need to tap in to.