Product Experience

2011 Mobile Trends

2011-03-07T16:49:00.001-06:00

Most of our clients are trying to find ways to engage their customers through mobile channels. Mobile strategy professionals are helping clients understand what their customer's need from them in the mobile enviroment. We define mobile strategies with prioritized feature offerings that scale from the simplest smartphone to the rich interfaces of tablet devices using the most appropriate technology solutions for the client's business and technology infrastructure.

Don't build what you can re-use and don't build something you can't re-use! Companies are beginning to take the mobile channel seriously and dedicating multi-million dollar projects to enable content and features for this ever-present customer connection.

If you are serious about understanding what is happening with mobile and what is next on the horizon, I recommend the Forrester article published in January on 2011 Mobile Trends by Thomas Husson and Julie A. Ask with Mark Mulligan, Charles S. Golvin, Ian Fogg, and Annie E. Corbett.

Mobile Web will be bigger than IVR

2011-01-23T20:09:00.001-06:00

Recent History of Customer Service:
Call centers handle customers virtually --> call centers employed IVR to reduce the number of agent assisted calls to reduce high call center costs --> Customer self-service was added to company websites to reduce IVR calls to reduce user experience complaints that resulted in the IVR calls rolling to the call center

The first user interface I worked on in my user experience career was an application for call center representatives. I have a special fondness for the customer service profession, since it was there that I first researched, designed and tested an application with end users who were generous with their time and patient with my questions as I sought to understand how to tune the application to meet their needs.

Now customer self service is moving to the mobile web on smart phones. Astonishingly, more people will have smartphone web access than those who have traditional web access by 2012 or so. While companies needed to retain IVR because they couldn't count on their customer to have web access, now your customer will expect you to get where they are. Companies will need to get their services mobilized or lose their customer to the company who is. People won't blunder along in an IVR system and they won't wait in the Queue at your call center. They want to do business with you company and they want to do it while waiting for their Tall Americano with room for cream.

Mobile Design Strategies

2011-01-23T19:29:00.000-06:00

For those interested in Best Practices for Mobile Web Design, the white paper is available at Perficient.

Mobile Web Design Best Practices

2010-11-16T12:13:00.002-06:00

I am co-publishing a paper on Mobile Web Design Best Practices. It should be available in PDF form in the next week or so.
Comment or send me an email if you would like a copy.

Abstract

Businesses know their customers are using mobile devices, but many businesses don‟t realize how many and how extraordinary the usage trend is. Savvy businesses want to connect with customers in new mobile channels and will take the time to develop a mobile strategy before doing so. The best practices and design patterns present in traditional web sites are mature and often repeatable across industries, where as, the best practices and design patterns in mobile web are in their infancy and patterns are only beginning to emerge.

The mobile strategy will need to be executed by product designers and developers that understand the business objectives, user goals and context of use. This paper, "Mobile Web Design Best Practices", encourages discovering business and user needs, then applying common interaction design principles when creating a mobile website.

Ultimate Experience

2010-03-25T19:22:00.000-05:00

My customers often ask me to help them create a user experience that meets the needs of all their audiences at the same time.

I have created personalized UI based on user types, roles and profiles. I have created efficient task flows, a multi step process that can be manipulated and entered from anywhere for frequent users, as well as a wizard with helpful text that guides an inexperienced user. Coming up with all these options, views and personalizable experiences costs time and money, causing strains on IT budgets and resources.

SCS Interactive has figured it out.

Ultimate Experience
SCS Interactive Ultimate Experience Products are designed to create one of a kind family experiences. These products bring together the smallest toddlers, their older siblings, parents and even grandparents for a splashing good time.

OK, so maybe they have figured out how to create individual experiences within the concept of a suite of products that work seamlessly together. Oh yeah, we have the same thing in IT. It is called a PORTAL!

SMS Interaction Design Standards (Cont'd)

2009-11-29T18:16:00.000-06:00

Continuing the SMS Design Standards...
One Way Messaging
User agrees to let the company send them messages, typically based on some parameter the user has chosen.

Number of Messages
The user should be able to determine how many messages a day they receive from the company. You might want to set some expectation of how many messages will be sent per day, week, or month. (MMA: CCS-09, Mobile Marketing Association Guidelines, 2009)

Two Way Messaging
User sends a request to the system and the system replies with a response. Messages are both received from and sent to members, creating interactivity and a conversation between the user and the company. The best SMS applications promote this interactive experience.

Message Length
160 Characters or less for English language.
Recommendation: Take advantage of short hand when ever necessary, but remain professional. Some media and entertainment sites can get away with using 2 for to, too or two; but most businesses can’t. Other short hands are universally acceptable though. (example SMS syntax will be covered in the full paper, contact me if you would like a copy)

Create a text message glossary specifically for your company that complies with your corporate branding tone of voice.

Longer SMS Messages
Sometimes 160 characters are not enough. If you know the message is going to be multiple messages than number your messages. (1/3): really long message…., (2/3): continuation of really long message…, (3/3): final message. You can’t control the order that users will receive these messages – so they MUST be numbered in a human readable format. Also use a convention at the end of every message, like ellipses (…) to communicate that more messages are coming.

Synchronizing Communication Channels
The most frequent channels used while mobile are phone, IVR, and SMS. Mobile web is starting to be more common but has not become main stream yet. Many companies have tried to create a consistent interaction with users across all channels but specifically focused on Phone, IVR and SMS.

User Privacy and Protection
You need to let the user know:
- They could end up being charged for something. You need to communicate if standard or premium rates apply.
- They can opt-out or stop receiving messages at any time. You need to provide easy ways for people to stop receiving messages and you need to communicate this frequently.
- Their personal information could be at risk. You need to be clear about how secure the information channel is or is not.
- The message has to be clear enough to prevent user confusion or misinterpretation.
- That SMS is not a guaranteed communication channel and that message delivery can not be guaranteed.

Always seek legal counsel to ensure that you comply with user privacy and protection laws. (MMA: CCS-07)

All companies must comply with FCC/FTC regulations and must consider how they could harm the user of the service.

The Healthcare industry must comply with those above while also following additional privacy rules per HIPAA | Title II | Privacy Rule for Protected Health Information (PHI). Each Healthcare industry needs to determine which, if any Personal Health Information (PHI) elements have been deemed acceptable to share via the SMS channel. Some companies have deemed that some words are ok to use; like surgery, appointment, No food or drink after Midnight, etc; but they don’t include the surgery or appointment type. They direct members to the web channel to see their personal health details.

Authentication Methods will be covered next time.

SMS Interaction Design Standards

2009-11-02T07:52:00.004-06:00

Your SMS (Text Messaging) channel is just one part of your overall communication strategy and must be coordinated with your other channels. Mobile interaction does not stand alone; rather it leverages other forms of communication including print, email, and web. It is important to understand that SMS is not a guaranteed delivery channel and that critical messages should not use the SMS channel alone. SMS should be used as a redundant or additive service.

The first hurdle is to provide awareness of SMS service to users. Second is to provide education of how to gain access to the service. Third you need to explain to users what they can do with the service and how to use the service.

Your SMS project should include
- creating awareness of the offering (How is it being campaigned?)
- strong call to action that inspires users to use the offering (What's in it for them?)
- education of how to use the SMS channel (Adjunctive and Supportive materials)

The user needs to be provided the company short code to send messages to; this is typically through the web or a mailing. They may also need to be a registered website user if they can manage their SMS service from the web.

As Interaction designers, we need to follow the interaction design patterns present in a command line interface rather than a browser based interface. SMS is a “call and response” dialogue that restricts both dialog components to 160 characters or less. (Asian languages are only 70 chars)

The command line interface expects users to learn the short code and commands to be able to access features as well as the syntax the system is expecting. This creates an efficient interchange but not a highly intuitive one. To aid in this non-intuitive interaction, using patterns and standards will help create a consistent interaction that is more learnable and supportive to the user. Understanding that SMS’s key use error conditions are typographical errors and misspellings, will help you plan for ways to support the user as these conditions are encountered.

I will be publishing a white-paper on this topic. Contact me if you would like a downloadable copy.

The Truth about Design

2009-10-14T13:42:00.003-05:00

Who would have thought that I would be finding inspiration and a message I believe in at Xero, an Accounting Software Blog site?

Matt Vickers, designer/developer, blogs three ideas that I have found to be true as I have worked for and with companies over the last 20 years or so.

1) Applying skins, themes and visual treatments to software is not design.
Slapping lipstick on the pig only makes the pig more appealing at first glance, but it quickly turns to bacon grease when you try to use a poorly designed software application.

2) Inspiration is seen not heard.
People can't tell you what they need. You have to figure out how the current process forces them to compensate for bad software by watching what it takes for them to get their goals accomplished when using the product, software or technology.

3) User stories need to be engaging and tellable.
The scenarios you capture have to eloquently capture user needs and be detailed enough to know when or which of your design ideas will fulfill them.

Mobile Web UI

2009-09-15T14:58:00.006-05:00

There are 3 common business realities for the mobile web:

You haven’t even looked at your site on a mobile device.

Even if you haven’t created a version of your website for mobile devices, your users are accessing your website from their mobile device. You better find out.

You have looked and it’s not pretty. You want to do something about it.

It’s not too late to start putting together a plan and apply some tactics right away.

You have a mobile web strategy, but your not consistent or optimized.

Get some fresh ideas and inspiration by staying curious and exploring the mobile web. Get physical fast, by designing and testing in mulitiple emulations.

I am working on a white paper that categorizes the 60 Mobile Web Practices into 10 Principles with examples of sites in three formats: web, iPhone and Blackberry. I will post a link to the paper when I get it published early in 2010.

Something for Nothing

2009-09-09T15:31:00.006-05:00

In this economy, everyone is asking for more while expecting to pay less. With many of my clients (large corporations) struggling, my clients have taken to squeezing us vendors. They know we will comply or risk losing them as top customer before it all turns around. Being a business woman, I understand and accept this. I am grateful to still have my clients!

But would you ask your hairstylist to give you a full cut and color for the price of just a cut? Would you do this on the grounds that the stylist needs you to come back to her again in the future and she would rather get a little money than none at all from you? This video shows just how ridiculous that would seem.

I wonder if my customers realize that if they devalue my business, they may also be devauluing their own.

Designing for Touchscreen

2009-05-12T21:22:00.005-05:00

I am working on a handheld medical device that patients use to manage the therapy they recieve from their implantable device. We explored the designs of other commercial products on the market to set the bar for the types of new technologies, interaction paradigms and gee whiz factors we should include in the new handheld device. We came up with a short list of desirable products and chose to emmulate the interaction paradigms of two well known handhelds: iTouch and Blackberry.

Since this is a medical appliance and not a cell phone we needed to have some key goals/rules that are unique to the medical device domain.

Rule #1: Don't kill, maim or hurt anyone

To accomplish this goal we needed to prevent user error. The key use error identified was unintended actuation or prevent the user from activating features without their intent. We needed to prevent the accidental modification of the patient's therapy when they weren't using it, like when they put it in their pocket or carried it around in their purse. We applied the following design mitigations to prevent the use errors. I call them mitigations because they each have a usability draw back.

Locking mechnasim - the patient can lock the handheld when they are finished or the system will automatically lock after a period on non-activity, but this means you will need to unlock the handheld each time you want to use it.

Resistive touchscreen rather than a capacitive touchscreen - the patient uses their finger or other fleshy protruberance to activate onscreen targets, just bumping your handheld into other hard surfaces won't activate the targets, but this also means you need to take your gloves off to make an onscreen request.

Multi-modal interactions for therapy modifications - the patient makes a therapy adjustment request onscreen and then confirms it with a hardware button keypress. This protects the patient, but may cause interaction confusion when switching between touchscreen and hardware interaction combinations.

Use target size and target spacing appropriate for patients with movement disorders - we used a 1/2" target with 1/2" spacing, but this reduced the navigation options and information space available on the screen.

Some other great guidelines for you to use on your touchscreen are available at the Information and Communication Technology (ICT)Accessibility site.

Surgical Task Flows

2009-04-20T15:44:00.015-05:00

I am trying to define a best practice for a surgical procedure to implant a medical device. Here's my approach:

Step 1: Who?
What kinds of surgeons and surgical support staff are involved in this procedure?

What kinds of surgical techniques are they familiar and comfortable with and what will be new or different to what they currently do?

Step 2: What?
What products need to be supplied by the medical device company?

What products would be commonly available for these clinicians, but not supplied?

Step 3: Where?
OR or Clinic setting?

What needs to be present in the environment? (sterile, xray, other tools or equipment needed)

What might be present that could pose a hazard? (magnetic or other emissions)

Step 4: How?
What are the primary activites during the surgical procedure?
ex: Assess patient condition

What are the functions within activity?
ex: Intake patient

What are the tasks within each function?
ex: Obtain patient record

What are the steps within each task?
ex: Review patient progress

Note who is involved and where it is done for each task.

Step 5: Document and Review
I start all of this in a spreadsheet with the first column being the Activity (high level of what is being done), the second column the Function (sub-activities that may have different goals), the third column Tasks (Short, 1 to 8 words that describe something that has a clear start and end point; performed by only one user/doer), the fourth column Steps(the precise description of how this is performed and the order of how to do it.) The spreadsheet has a bunch of other columns to capture who is performing the Task, what environment the user is in when performing the Task and some other info and notes columns.

Once I have completed all of the Task Analysis research in the spreadsheet, I create a visio diagram of the draft surgical flow. This is very similiar to the diagrams clinicians use when triaging or diagnosing patients, so I have found this to be a good way to get the clinician involved in helping me to refine the flow and steps when we review and iterate on the recommended surgical procedure. For complex procedures, the flow is per task with each step in it's own box. For simpler procedures, the flow is per function with each task in it's own box. It really depends on where I have the questions and where I think there will be disagreement in surgical approach.

The National Istitute of Health; MedLine provides videos of surgical procedures. I have viewed many of them in their entirety, but squeamish beware!

Products fulfill needs, Experience fulfill desires

2009-03-01T13:27:00.004-06:00

From Marc Gobe, The 10 Commandments of Emotional Branding

“Products fufill needs, experiences fufill desires. A product or shopping experience, such as REI stores’ rock climbing walls or the Discovery Channel stores’ myriad of “sound zones” has added value and will remain in the consumer’s emotional memory as a connection made on a level far beyond need.”

Thanks to Kyle for the post that led me to Marc Gobe.

Experience Days - A unique product/service

2009-03-01T13:12:00.002-06:00

Whether you are looking for an exciting extreme experience like free falling or 4 wheel driving or something more tranquil like spa treatments or cooking classes the Experience Days offereded at Gizoo were fun to browse through when looking for fun vacation ideas.

Designing for Poor Motor Control

2008-12-30T21:08:00.004-06:00

I am working on the design of a hand held device for patients that suffer the hypertonicity or spasticity caused by cerebral palsy, multiple scelrosis, brain injury or stroke. I have thinking about the disability consequences that result from these conditions. I have been researching assistive devices these patients might be using to accomplish common daily tasks like bathing, eating, walking and so forth.

I found this great site that listed the variety of assitive devices that people with motor control use to get through their day. From this list, I have been able to explore what tools people use and would be familiar with, I am hoping to understand why the designs of these devices help a person cope and apply those same principles into the device I am designing.

I am not an accessibility expert, but I am hoping to design something that will fit seamlessly into the lives of these patients and their caregivers.

Online Gaming and Medical Device Design

2008-12-29T22:45:00.002-06:00

Some of my close friends know that I am totally addicted to COD5. It is important to recognize that I am using this immersively interactive experience to help me think of new ways to approach design problems. I may even be patenting one of my more promising ideas for a medical device soon. Since I plan on patenting this idea, I can't talk about it yet. I am listed a a co-inventor for two patent applications, one for deep brain stimulation and another for an indoor air comfort system, so maybe all this game playing is paying off.

I would like to share a Game Research site I stumbled on with a link to a good article: http://game-research.com/index.php/articles/making-sense-of-software-computer-games-as-interactive-textuality/

Spend time having fun and ideas will come!

Touchscreen UI for Handheld Devices

2008-12-17T21:29:00.002-06:00

I am designing a User Interface for a handheld device with a touchscreen.

One of the first engineering things I needed to learn about was resistive vs capacitive touchscreens.

Synaptics had a white paper at Control Design that helped me understand the technology behind these options.

I am taking a look at several different products available in the market today including: iTouch, Garmin, Blackberry Storm, HP iPaq and other handheld devices I have designed recently that haven't been released to the market yet. I am constantly learning new things about what works and what doesn't work well with regular folks during usability studies.

There hasn't been much research on touchscreens yet, but the article on Evaluation of One Handed Thumb Tapping on Mobile Touchscreen Devices was helpful and it has helped me while planning for a formative study of the prototype early next year. In the referenced study, they found that preferred hand motions were quicker, that it didn't matter if you were walking or just standing while using the device, and that on-screen buttons on the edge had higher accuracy, but on-screen buttons in the center were deemed more comfortable to press. You will need to be an ACM member to download the full paper.

Web Page Tabs and Accordions

2008-10-12T18:22:00.000-05:00

After having worked on medical devices for the last four years, I am coming back to my roots and picking up some web design projects. My approach for preparing for this re-entry to the web world was to visit as many sites as possible, taking a look at each from the user's perspective to see what kinds of features and interaction patterns were now routine parts of websites. My second step is to find out how the web producers "do it". Which of these things are technologically practical and useful and which aren't based on my client's technology choices, business needs and target audience.

It has been fun to refresh my HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills, all of which are very limited.
Here are two sources I think you might want to check out if you are doing any website design:

warehouse of JavaScript tutorials, examples and code by Jason Bartholme
animated examples of a wide variety of tab styles at DzineBlog

Customer Informed Design

2008-10-06T09:21:00.001-05:00

I just downloaded the Harvard Business Review article, "Turn Customer Input into Innovation" for $6.50 because I thought it would help me think about User Research and what to do with the data in a whole new way. Were there techniques I wasn't tapping? Were there analysis trends that I wasn't familiar with?

The teaser on this article was:
"Lots of companies ask customers what they’d like to see in new products and services—but they go about it all wrong. A new methodology for capturing customer input promises to galvanize the innovation process."
and it definetly got my attention.

This article does support my general approach and I did learn a couple of nuggets, and a new algorithm I would like to use on my next data gathering. My peers in product mangement have talked about Opportunity Assessments and I never really knew how they came up with their numbers. This article describes how to ask questions, group responses and apply the algorithm for another view of the outcome. I was all over how to ask questions and group responses, but never applied this algorithm. So the article was just what I was looking for, taking my tried and true techniques and looking at the data in a new way.

I can't wait to try it!

Design View #50 - Digg's Designer Divulges Design Details

2008-09-30T21:09:00.000-05:00

I love it when techies teach others about user centered design.

SP: So does user-centred design impact or restrict your vision for the site?
User-centred design is the only thing I think about--that's the critical aspect for designing Digg or Pownce, or any of the web sites I work on. All I care about is how people use the site currently, and how they will use it, depending on what I do.

SP: Do we need ideas any more then? Or should we just let our users tell us what we should be doing entirely?
No, no, our users don't tell us what we should be doing. Our users guide us to what the problems are. They'll sometimes make good suggestions, but usually they're suggesting a specific thing when they really mean a problem. An it's up to us to find solutions to the problems--like the Henry Ford maxim that I mentioned in my talk today: "If I had have asked my users, they would have told me they wanted a faster horse." Anticipating beyond what our users can imagine. Having the feel to make that logical jump to the next level. That's where the real genius is.

SP: In your presentation you spoke a lot about metrics, and about using information about how people really use your site to influence design. So what do you think about surveys? Should we be running them? What should we do with the results? And how much weight should we give the responses?
A certain type of person is going to fill out a survey, so automatically put that into your weighting. But surveys can be quite useful. We did one on the recommendation engine on Digg, and it resulted in some good data. But I wouldn't use surveys as your sole means of getting feedback from people. Surveys come across as quite tainted, so there's a lot of deciphering to be done with a survey. I think doing user testing, task-based analysis, and focus groups; bringing in a more targeted set of users is probably more beneficial. But it's more work than a survey too.

Get the whole article at SitePoint Design View.

Product Experience combined with Product Performance Creates a Winner

2008-01-07T23:35:00.000-06:00

I have always said that first the thing has to work well, THEN you can knock their socks off with a great experience. I have had the pleasure to do some work with P&G but not on the Gain product profiled in this article at AdWeek.

I love being involved in the design of new products, but I always like to do field research to make sure I understand how people are using similiar products today. P&G also does user research. "We use a lot of ethnography, watching how people use a product and why they don't use it," observes Kotchka.

What a great job!

Customer Feedback while using the product

2007-10-22T22:54:00.000-05:00

I have always told people outside our profession that having a user use the product while giving us feedback is oh so much more valuable than performing a survey or focus group. The Journal of Consumer Research published by The University of Chicago Press has an article I must have.

"Is There a Substitute for Direct Experience? Comparing Consumers' Preferences after Direct and Indirect Product Experiences" by Rebecca W. Hamilton and Debora Viana Thompson.

Abstract:
We show that direct product experiences (e.g., product trials) and indirect product experiences (e.g., reading a product description) result in different levels of mental construal and product preferences. Study 1 demonstrates that increasing experiential contact with a product triggers more concrete mental construal and increases preferences for products that are easy to use relative to those that are more desirable but difficult to use. Studies 2 and 3 show that the effect of product experience can be attenuated by encouraging consumers to think concretely prior to product exposure and by asking consumers to choose products for others instead of themselves.

If you have a subscription, please let me know if the article is worth the subscription cost. I am looking for some metrics that show the benefit of product use versus recall or perception studies.

Customer Demographics, Behaviors and Motivations

2007-08-20T20:27:00.000-05:00

I went searching for the lastest buzz on product experience, but didn't find any new sites or online references of note, well except for that Fast Company article about the 22 year old CEO of FaceBook. I have a Fast Company subscription and read that in the magazine. It is always a good read.

So I searched for Customer Needs Summary since I am in the middle of creating one for one of my projects. I found an interesting site I had never seen before and I found references to where they got their data and I followed the trail, losing track of time in the process. I was looking for demographics, behaviors and motivations of the target users for the product I am researching and designing. I found some of this data, plus a great PPT at Educause Connect. What interested me most was the generational motivation information.

I also found some interesting articles on AJAX, Social Computing and Web 2.0.

UPA2007 EP Rodeo Topic: Integrating UCD with other Methodologies

2007-06-18T10:40:00.000-05:00

I was able to participate in the Experienced Practioners Rodeo at UPA 2007 on Tuesday afternoon. We covered four topics in depth and I happened to be the note-taker for one of the topics. We created a simple slide deck to summarize our Integrating UCD discussion.

Other topics included Agile & UCD, Accessibility and Hand-Held Usability. I hope to see those discussions posted as well.

UPA 2007 Contextual Inquiry Examples

2007-06-14T16:37:00.000-05:00

Debbie McConnell and I presented at the UPA 2007 conference. Our first talk was about making the transition from web design to small screen design, "Designing for Small Screens: Crossing from Web to Product Design."

Our second talk, "Contextual Inquiry: Get Out of Your Cube!", was about using the skills you have acquired doing studies in an office setting and some tricks we have found for preparing to study in non-office settings like warehouses, manufacturing facilities, medical settings, high security environments and other environments that have potential safety issues.

I promised to make sure that the examples I displayed would be made available in several ways, one of them was on this blog. So, if you were able to find the blog, even though I could not remember the URL, please feel free to get a copy of the presentation, checklist and observer log.

A Great User Experience Definition

2007-06-07T19:37:00.000-05:00

I have served many roles in my professional career and my title and self-affiliation has changed over time to be more inclusive of all the types of skills I have mastered over the years. From quality assurance anlayst, business analyst, systems analyst, data analyst, usability analyst to UI designer, interaction designer, product designer to my current self appointed title: User Experience Designer. I feel like this is the best fit now, since I incorporate user research, design and evaluation on all the projects I juggle.

Kimmy Paluch wrote a great article, take a read.

Design Process with Measurable Results

2007-03-18T19:20:00.000-05:00

A designer is often called upon to support their design choices, especially those that lead to a higher cost of manufacturing cost. The designer will need to be able to help the accountants understand how the design will influence the return on investment. The design process should include qualitative and quantitative unbiased evaluation techniques that will either support or deny the additional costs. The new product design needs to be compared to previous product benchmarks as well as against leading competitors.

Chuck Jones, Cheif Designer, Whirlpool has instituted a standardized company-wide design process that produces measureable results by putting design prototypes in front of customer focus groups and takes detailed measurements of their preferences about aesthetics, craftsmanship, technical performance, ergonomics, and usability. "Whirlpool charts the results against both competing products and its own previous iterations, giving it a baseline of objective evidence from which to make investment decisions." See the full article at Fast Company.

Identifying potential user errors

2007-02-08T20:09:00.000-06:00

Gathering Information
Collecting data during field observation is greatly facilitated by having a protocol of what you will be looking for with an outline of what you know of the users, procedures, tools and techniques they might employ during the session.

Analyzing Information
Once you have the data collated, grouped and categorized you can more easily see trends, best practices, and potential user errors. Identifying and mitigating these potential issues during the design phase is one of the key outcomes of a successful site visit.

Issue identification
The Medical Device Reporting arm of the FDA describes user error to be any error a user might make while using the product. If a product has been found to have instances of user error, they feel the product may be incorrectly branded, not have clear enough directions for use or not provide adequate warnings. If a product is found to have these issues, the FDA may require additional labeling to mitigate the potential use errors.

While doing site observations we often see many things we couldn't imagine because the context of use is not the same as the conditions we anticipated.

Here are some areas to keenly observe while in the field:

How is the product held, positioned, manuevered and carried by the user?
Where is the product in relation to the user?
Where is the product placed when in use and not in use?
How is the process, procedure, or task flow different than we anticipated or advised?
How are the techniques or task steps evolving in the field?
What supplementary tools or aids are used in addition to the product?
What does the user need to "tell" the product?
What does the product need to "tell" the user?

And most importantly:

At any time, could some get hurt? Financial loss, pain, security, embarrassment, etc.

At any site visit, you will see something unexpected and you can imagine many more potential issues than you actually see occur. People will find a way do anything more effeciently and they will find ways to use the product that we never imagined. This is why it is so important to continue to do field studies on products, even well established products.

Clearly identify all the things you think might go wrong and try to design them out. Potential user errors are much like potential risk or potential side effects. Just because you identify it, doesn't mean it will happen, but it is better to know what you might want to avoid or what you might do to mitigate a error before it happens.

UX as change agents

2007-02-06T15:40:00.000-06:00

User Experience professionals are the bridge, the glue, the change agent of product development projects. They help to create a vision that is verifiable by the users the product is intended for. Read more from Paul Sherman at UX Matters.

Audibility - Decibles and Frequency

2006-12-18T09:55:00.000-06:00

I am doing some research to help define a standard for the audible interactions of a handheld device. The sound is used to create a confirmation of an action, to remind the patient of an action they are or should perform or a warning that they need to take action. I have reviewed what similiar products are doing and also what normal everyday things sound like.
Here is a list from of the approx. decibel rating of common sounds from Answer.com:

30 Soft whisper
35 Noise may prevent the listener from falling asleep
40 Quiet office noise level
50 Quiet conversation
60 Average television volume, sewing machine, lively conversation
70 Busy traffic, noisy restaurant, alarms of medical equipment
80 Heavy city traffic, factory noise, alarm clock
90 Cocktail party, lawn mower
100 Pneumatic drill
120 Sandblasting, thunder
140 Jet airplane
180 Rocket launching pad

Above 110 decibels, hearing may become painful
Above 120 decibels is considered deafening
Above 135 decibels, hearing will become extremely painful and hearing loss may result if exposure is prolonged
Above 180 decibels, hearing loss is almost certain with any exposure

It is important to understand that sound is measured in both decibles and frequency. Decibles(dB) is the strength of the sound, while frequency(Hz) is the cycles per second of the sound. Each person will respond to the combinations of dBa + Hz with the perception of some being louder than others. You can test your hearing at The University of New South Wales - Music Accoustics site.

Features a user may not have thought to ask for

2006-11-19T17:44:00.000-06:00

My family and I have been fascinated by the videos you can find at YouTube.
My Jeep Liberty lease is coming up in 2007 and I have my eye on a Lexus. Lexus came up with a car that parallel parks by itself. I wonder if market research data determined that someone like me is often a terrible parallel parker. I can't imagine saying in a user interview, "I stink at parallel parking." But, if you had time to do some contextual inquiry and you went for a drive with me downtown where we had to park, you again would not see me struggle to parallel park, I would rather pay to park in a ramp than to make the attempt. The point is that interviews and contextual inquiry get a good glimpse of a user's reality, but there is always so much more to discover and design sometimes needs to back away from what we see users doing and be inspired by the problems that have not been solved yet.

Lexus LS460 Parallel Parking

Process Research via Focus Groups

2006-11-16T13:18:00.000-06:00

I don't recommend using focus groups to gather your user research, but I do recommend using them to provide clarification and expansion of the data you have gathered during site visits. After conducting a site visit study at a handful of sites in your target population, hosting a focus group will help you to validate what you observed and be able to define patterns of behaviour across the wider audience.

If you are designing a product for a process that may have a variety of users and protocols when using the product, you will never be able to see the scope of that variation by doing site visits alone. This is when a focus group of subject matter experts may help you validate, while further defining, and describing the processes that will have the most predictable and successful results with the product.

This kind of focus group will generate the best results when you do some upfront planning and make sure you have a support team with you when facilitating.

FOCUS GROUP PLANNING

Invite the right people (leaders, practioners, researchers)

Provide the proper incentive (status, cash, opportunity to influence and learn)

Provide enough information for them to come prepared. (schedules, agendas, notes)

Location, facility and materials (near attendees, comfort and AV/whiteboards)

Create a facilitation team (product leader/expert, facilitator, notetakers)

Roles and responsibility assignments for the facilitation team

FOCUS GROUP PREPARATION

Record the session objectives. Ensures capturing data needed to make design decisions

Structure the agenda of the session around meeting the objectives

Remember that we are human and need frequent breaks to stay engaged

FOCUS GROUP FACILITATION

Make sure the group understands what you hope to learn during the session

Always start the session by introducing everyone and their role

Begin with what you currently know about the process and product

Ask them to challenge any of these assumption and clarify anything that isn't quite right or may be different in their experience

Next ask them to help you fill in the blanks of your knowledge. What don't we know about the process, what are we missing?

Lastly, allow them to describe their likes and dislikes of the product.

If you already have some early concepts, you might want to share them and ask the team to help you fix or refine these concepts, now that you have a deeper and more accurate understanding of the complexity of the project

The most important factor in getting good data from a focus group is having a facilitator the understands and acheives the objectives of the session. The facilitator must also be very good at introducing the agenda segments and facilitating the conversation to keep it moving, keep it on track and to engage all attendeees.

If the process and product are very complex, I have heard of having multiple notetakers that focus their attention on one or two of attendees. This way none of the conversation is missed. I haven't tried this yet, but I intend to soon.

Augmented Reality

2006-10-30T21:02:00.000-06:00

While watching Monday Night Football with my family, I realize how much I like the yellow first down marker that is digitally overlaid over the video feed. I wonder what technology makes that happen and what do you call that?

They do it by combing an image of the real environment with an image that is virtually created but intended to give the user more perceptive understanding of the real image. You call it Augmented Reality and J. Vallino has written about it extensively during his PhD research. Anytime you combine virtual reality with true reality you get this augmentation, a combination of truth with embelishments.

A good example of this is when a MRI image of your knee is annotated by the radiologist directly onto the image. The doctor might circle the area of interest and indicate their diagnosis. The surgeon may than take a look at the MRI image with and without the annotation. The surgeon may add their own annotation to indicate the angle at which they intend to reattach an injured ligament. The intention of augmenting the image is to provide more perceptive detail that improves the performance or understanding by all of those who view the augmented image, not only can you see the injury, but you can see the surgical repair intention. It will be much easier for the next person to recognize the injury and suggested treatment than just looking at the original MRI image alone.

Find ways to augment your reality!

Interactive Web TV

2006-10-14T13:55:00.000-05:00

Have you played along with a game that is being televised? My teenage boys like to watch the Game Show Network (GSN)and I was intrigued by the variety of interactive play formats.

My son played along with Playmania with his cell phone. He texted a message to a number displayed on the screen and then waited for the gameshow to call him back. I wasn't too impressed at 0.99 cents a text and no one called him back to play.

The other interactive formats have more appeal and no cost. The two games I tried to play along with were Lingo and Chain Reaction. They both were modifications to the games on screen, but you are solving the puzzles televised on screen at the same time. The response time was quite good, but you could only use your mouse as an input device for the words games. It would have been a lot more efficient for me to type my 5 letter responses for LINGO.

I am always pleased to see the gaming industry push the envelope and taking advantage of new technology techniques. It gives us a chance to dream of how we might apply it to productivity gains in non-entertainment products.

Web Technology Trends

2006-09-20T20:54:00.000-05:00

I enjoy randomly surfing the web to stay on top of how new technologies are being used successfully on sites and new technologies that are still in exploratory phase.

Successful use of AJAX
I like the new design of the SimonDelivers online grocery store. They have made their shopping cart and recommended items present on every page while shopping in a very clean and streamlined manner. Probably not 508 compliant, but the design intention is good.

Interesting new technology with Blaze
Take a look at this 3D Mizuno wedge golf club animation by Holomatix. Wow! Realistic and the ability to manipulate by panning, zooming, rotating in 3D space is great. I can think of lots of opportunities for providing these interactive images. I wonder how effective these are in helping a person make a purchasing decision? Does it matter what the product is? What types of products would this be most effective with? How could this be used in the education, training and support field? Great potential opportunities here.

Usability Test Facilitation Techniques

2006-08-27T09:37:00.000-05:00

UNDERSTAND BUSINESS>PRODUCT>TEAM
A great usability test facilitator does more than just show up on the day of the test, they spend some time making sure they understand the product, objectives of the business and concerns from the project team. A great facilitator participates in the test planning process so they understand and help define the learning objectives for the test session.

CHOOSE THE BEST TEST METHOD
There are many test methods to choose from, but I really like, especially for low-fidelity or limited functionality prototypes is the interview guided task protocol. In this method, a task list is prepared in advance with usability objectives defined for each task. But the session starts with a conversation with the participant to understand how they currently use the product and in which situations. Then we have them do the pre-prepared tasks they identified that they perform during the interview, plus any other tasks the participant identified that we, the project team had not identified during the planning phase. BONUS - more user and task analysis input at a usability testing session.

I have observed and coached many great facilitators. Some of these tips may seem so basic, but you wouldn't believe how often I need to remind myself of these during the course of a test day, especially on the last day.......

FACILITATION TIPS
Greet and Set at Ease

Set the participant at ease, by making friendly conversation, smile :)

Remind the participant that they are not being tested, the product is, anytime they seem to be getting frustrated

Interview

Use eye contact and share information about yourself

Start your interview questions with the least personal to most personal, you need to earn their trust

Task Testing

Let the participant know that you won't answer their questions, but you would still like them to ask them out loud and be prepared to answer them at the end of the test session

Position yourself out of the line of site when transitioning to the task portion of the test session

Never lead the participant, be very careful of any words or body language you use

Save all of your questions until the end, but bring the participant back to areas you have questions about

Probe only at the end of the test session, not after each task

Avoid "training" the user, unless the project team feels compelled to, then only after the post testing questionnaire is complete

Resist Clutter and Digital imagery that pops

2006-08-16T08:47:00.000-05:00

I, like so many people, receive way too many interesting email newsletters, magazines and professional journals. I do try to scan as many as possible and read at least one article of interest. If I scan and don't find one of interest or the day is just to0 hectic, I toss. I will be getting another edition in a couple of weeks anyways and if I didn't toss it, the clutter in my house would be too much. I have also learned that once I file a digital newsletter in my computer, I will never have time to look at it again.

This being said, I do want to share an article from one of my favorite digital design newsletters, SitePoint Design View, about creating better digital images in Photoshop. I had never heard about HDR, so this was eye opening to me.

Humor from Blimps are Cool

2006-07-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

I was randomly listening to MP3's at ODEO today and ran across the Blimps are Cool blog. I don't normally support developer bashing, because developers help me bring many of my designs to life, but this was just too funny. If you want to tickle your funny bone, take a read.

Interactive Architecture - Urinal Video Games

2006-07-05T19:10:00.000-05:00

I found a great site today on interactive architecture.

They had a funny article with video clip about a project at the MIT Media Lab on an interactive urinal. The combination of the virtual with the physical is what intriqued me the most. The stream producer was able to fire the stream at different areas of the backsplash in an attempt to hit the corresponding images on the video screen.

Take a look at the video, don't worry you won't see anything objectionable.

Playaway Digital

2006-06-22T16:54:00.000-05:00

On my trip to the UPA 2006 conference, I purchased a nifty little audio book, Cell by Stephen King that came with its own player, earphones and batteries. The player details and other book titles can be found at www.playawaydigital.com.

All you had to do to get started was pull the battery protector out and hit play. The user interface is intuitive and easy to control, but the simplicity and completeness of the product is what really impressed me.

I am nearing the end of the book and hear are some things I determined are not as good as they could be:

battery consumption, the player came with two batteries and I am now on battery number four.

If the battery does run out, the player doesn't always remember where you left off. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't. Not sure why.

The black and white LCD display is very hard to read in bright light or no-light.

The book chapter identified by the narrator is not the same as the chapter number display on the player. They should come up with a chapter mapping, so if the narrator says "Part 2, Chapter 1" the player displays something like "P2, CH 1".

The play button is easily depressed when bumping along in my laptop bag, thus the need for some extra batteries. ;)

Overall, a great product and I can't wait to start my own collection! In fact, the playaway website even had suggestions for how to share your titles with others. If you want to swap titles sometime, drop me line - paying shipping is a lot cheaper than buying a new book all the time.

Power Outage

2006-06-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

As I was working from home this morning, the power suddenly went out. It wasn't raining, nor could I hear thunder and lightning. There is construction out behind our house, so I figured I would don my walking shoes and investigate.

All the houses along my street were dark, but the construction area was quiet today. The heavy rains last night and sprinkles yet this morning were keeping the heavy equipment parked on higher ground.

I walked around the block and more quiet houses. A neighbor I hadn't met before was standing at the end of his driveway and asking a question. I held up the universal sign for "just a sec", one finger slightly raised and my hand moving in and out from my body, while I pressed the stop button on my mp3 book, "Cell" by Stephen King.
Have you seen these new audio books yet? They are basically a mp3 player with one full length book, ear phones, lanyard and triple A batteries. Amazing! If only I could download these books to my iPod, it might be a little cheaper. Removing the plugs from my ears, my neighbor and I confirmed each others suspicions, it wasn't just our own house without power, the whole neighborhood was impacted.

We stood at the end of his driveway talking about working from home and what we did for a living. He is a main frame, C programmer and he let me know that he thought Java was a waste of time and money when xml, C and others could do the job with a lot less lines of codes. As we were standing there, the Xcel Energy truck pulled up to his power pole, and the neighbor asked jokingly if he had too many computers running. The lineman jumped down from his truck, walked to the base of the pole and lifted a very stiff squirrel by the tail and said "Nope, this thing did it."

So here we were, standing at the end of the neighbor's driveway, wondering what could of caused this outage, when just 50 feet away, in almost plain sight, lay the answer. The neighbor and I are fairly intelligent human life forms, but we didn't know that the second most common cause of power outage was squirrels, so we didn't look for it or see it. We were also only casually observing the outcome of the outage because there was nothing we could do to fix it.

I see relationships between daily life and product design all the time. Here is what I learned from discovering that squirrels have a mysterious obsession with transformers:

If the user knows a products purpose and use, they will find the features they need in it.

The user must feel that the product is something they own or have control of or they will only use your product casually.

Make a product self evident and allow it to instruct the user as they are able to tackle more complex features.

Make a product personalizable and alllow the user to feel in control of the product.

UPA 2006 International Conference

2006-06-09T11:19:00.000-05:00

Carol Smith and I have been working with a great remote team to plan and present the UPA 2006 conference in Colorado this year. The conference registration desk officially opens on Sunday June 11, with tutorials, workshops, special sessions and the experienced practioner track on June 12 & 13th. The opening reception is Tuesday evening and the regular sessions begin on Wednesday June 14th and run through Friday June 16th.

This is an annual event that many folks in the field of usability and design anticipate and participate in. It is great opportunity to learn from, be inspired by and motivate others in our profession.

We have exceeded our goals for attendance this year and expect to be rubbing shoulders with 575+ usability professionals.

If you are coming to the conference, look for me! I would like to meet you.

Remote Interviews

2006-05-30T13:39:00.000-05:00

Remote interviews are contextual inquiry sessions without the context. It is not as good as being there, but it is better than guessing or only talking to subject matter experts. We also have great tools to get closer to the participant without really being there. I use a phone line to ask questions and a WebEx Meeting so the participant can show me what they do with a specific software application or website. [I haven't been able to use Video yet, because most of my users don't have webcams.] WebEx does require some education for the participant. I usually send instructions for calling in and starting a WebEx session a week in advance. I also request that they go to the WebEx site before our interview to get the latest WebEx components.

A remote user interview starts off like most interviews, obtain some basic profile information and make sure they meet the selection criteria you have identified. Once you have the basics, ask questions that deal more with their job function and goals rather than their use of a specific tool. Allow the initial questions to personalize the interview when asking questions specific to the use of the tool, you can ask clarifying questions related to the users job function and whether the tool is helping them to meet the job goals they stated. It is important to have the participant show you how they use the tool to accomplish common tasks. I often start off by asking them how they get started, what is the first thing they do when opening up the tool. This usually gets them into the "instructor" mode, where they are teaching me what they do and sets a nice tone for the rest of the session.

Always end a session by thanking the participant and giving them additional contact information if they would like to follow-up with feedback. I encourage you to still use gratuities of some sort. I have found electronic gift certificates to be popular.

Storyboarding

2006-05-11T21:24:00.000-05:00

I have been creating some draft concepts of an incredibly complicated feature and I have drawn hundreds of pictures to determine what WON'T work and have come to the realization that sometimes it is still an important enough feature for some users that we need to do it, somehow. I am going to apply several progressive disclosure principals:

Allow the feature to be suppressed if the administrator doesn't want to use it with their user(s)

Make a new object type that will be visually distinct so the user is aware of which objects the feature can be performed on

Mimic a wizard metaphor that would allow the user to step through the complicated process

So now I am trying to come up with some elegant storyboards that help the development and marketing team to:

See how valuable this feature will be for a percentage of the population

Explain the difficulties of providing the feature in the constraints of the current hardware and software

Depict the screens and flows present to allow the feature to be exposed and utilized

I usally like to stay low tech for as long as possible, but I am using Microsoft Visio and Macromedia Fireworks to mock up the screens and flow. I haven't found any tool that allows me to show flow better than Visio. I started using the Macromedia suite for an old client, so I know it better than Adobe Photoshop. I would like to a graphics art class and I might just do that this summer - if I can take a break long enough to see if there is anything offered at night.

Glenn L. Ray, Ph.D, from University of Pittsburgh has a powerpoint about the benefits of storyboards.

Free PC Check Up Online

2006-04-30T21:29:00.000-05:00

I just spent an entire Sunday fixing my Toshiba Protege Tablet PC. I uninstalled some competing anti-virus software and then I went to PC PitStop www.pcpitstop.com to get an idea about what else I could do to aid my ailing pc that was hurking and jerking and sluggishly moving along.

If you haven't tried it, go there and give it a try. I learned a few more tricks and I am happily using my TabletPC to create this Posting.

The Traveling Experience

2006-04-24T14:32:00.000-05:00

I was in Spain for a spanish trip tour with my son in March and April for 2 weeks of pleasure.

I was in Florida, Texas and Indiana in April for 2 weeks of work.

The experience of those two itineraries and expectations of each are highly shaped by my preparedness for each trip. In the first, I just packed a bag and was along for the ride. In the second, I had a cajillion loop holes, scheduling nightmares and contractual obligations to meet to pull it off. Guess which one met my expectations?

In the pleasure trip, all kinds of little nuisances bothered me, while some of the surprises thrilled me. It was a beautiful country and a wonderful trip.

On the work trip, surprises were not thrilling, but rather something to deal with. There weren't any nuisances, I was too tired to be bothered by nuisances!

The more empowered I was, the more positive my experience as a whole. Not to say that Spain wasn't absolutely wonderful, but the more control I had in what I did each day made me feel more at ease. This type of empowerment is something more products, applications and websites are building.

User Experience is about providing Strategic Design

2006-03-20T20:22:00.000-06:00

High quality products that exceed user's expectations will always be winners in the marketplace. In order to produce these products, the right team needs to be in place to make it happen. One of the members of that team should have user experience (UX) expertise. A UX designer will focus on the strategic concepts, keep it cohesive and contribute to the design as the product matures.

Read Why UX Should Matter to Software Companies
By Pabini Gabriel-Petit

And the Acadamy Award goes too...

2006-03-05T21:29:00.000-06:00

I rely on others to pull off the finishing touches of a design, a design that will go nowhere without their input. I am capable of deciding the architecture, importance of information and the layout of pages that lie consistently from page to page, but without a visual designer my ideas would fall flat. I am an expert at understanding the needs of users while accomplishing business objectives, but I couldn't sell the design at all without the help of a visionary with style.

I am watching the Academy Awards tonight and I desire to be so much more than I am. I really am just the technical support team who needs the the actors to breathe life into the still forms.

Read the article at UX Magazine to better understand how these discipline work together and rely on one another to get it right.

Recommendation and Rating Engines

2006-03-03T21:14:00.000-06:00

I am researching recommender and rating systems for two clients at the same time for completely different reasons. One client wants to be able to be at a single or list of products or categories and recommend similiar or logical cross selling opportunities. The other client wants to be able to allow a user to define a setting that is ok and then give the user alternate settings that are algorithmically similiar but possibly superior to the original settings.

Here are some things I have run into while taking a quick look on the web.
(Common terminology: Recommendation Engine, Recommender Engine, Collaborative Filtering)

If you are trying to get targeted recommendations and cross selling products these two products are interesting to look at:
SUGGEST Karypis lab at the Univ. of MN (like Amazon's, "You might also like" engine)
RECOMMENDER ENGINE 3 United

If you are trying to build a user defined rating of products or services take a look at:
CoFE IIS Research Group of Oregon State(like Yahoo's news article ranking system)

Often companies will combine these two technologies to allow users to refine the products and services recommended to them.

For example: A baker views flour and sugar and is recommended yeast, flavorings and preservatives. Let's say the baker is an all natural baker and can rate the preservatives as something he would never use.

To see a site that uses both go to Betterpropaganda.com
The home page has recommendations based on user ratings. If you click on a specific artist or album you will see a list of Similar Music. This site uses a content based recommendation engine from Loomia.

Authentic User Experience Design

2006-02-27T11:03:00.000-06:00

A Viewpoint article posted on the Design Management Institute website by Peter H. Jones, had one of the best sentences to describe the importantance of contextual inquiry: "the opportunity for designing from understanding the user’s authentic experience. Innovation emerges from truly understanding the fit between product and person."

I have never been able to describe the importance of getting early user data to help design the right product, even if the user doesn't know what that is yet. Read the article. It is worth your time!

Product Viability Indicator Tool

2006-02-11T15:53:00.000-06:00

The Federal Government of Australia uses Product Experience research to market and forecast the international and domestic tourism market in their country. Their research measures interest and motivation of 200 key experiences and activities that could be visited while on vacation in Australia.

The Product Viability Indicator tool is a database that the research interview findings are logged in. It allows the Australia Tourism organization to search through the findings and offer ways to market and prioritize the travel experience offering in their area of the country and which audiences to focus on.

They don't actually show the tool or the information that could be used but the slide deck showing some of the research artifacts are interesting. Good to see Australia recognizing that holiday travel is a product and treated as such.

FDA guidelines for Unexpected Experiences

2006-01-19T18:13:00.000-06:00

The US Food and Drug Administration has a webpage titled "Guideline for Adverse Experience Reporting for Licensed Biological Products"
http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/report/cberguid/define.htm
This guide is to be used by clinicians when reporting any adverse effects from biological products they have administered or prescribed to their patients.

Upon reading this page, I came across two terms:
"Expected Experience" and "Unexpected Experience".

The expected experience basically means the adverse effect named in the labeling or information was experienced by the user.

The unexpected experience means the patient had an adverse effect that was greater in severity of the expected experience or not listed in the labeling or information at all

If I apply this to designing a product, I would record anticipated adverse effects based on usability testing and clinical studies. If the product is launched with these known adverse effects we would expect to see a certain number of our user having the expected experience. These expected experiences would be tolerable as long as they didn't exceed the number of anticipated occurences in our target market. This would require one to be prepared to carefully track the expected experience occurences once the product is launched. In the case of an unexpected experience each one would have to evaluated.

For a simple example: Say that only 75% of tested participants were able to successfully achieve the desired outcome with the product because they were unable to complete one of the more difficult tasks. Patient eduction was performed during clinical studies and they indicate that 85% of the participants achieved the desired outcome. How do we see if that number actually plays out in the market?

Measuring Product Experience!

2005-12-28T10:49:00.000-06:00

This is one of the best examples I have seen of a government agency measuring the ROI of the products they select to use.

The King County Environmental Purchasing Program in Seattle, WA actually tracks the counties experience with recylced products they have used in place of new products.
http://www.metrokc.gov/procure/green/rdsasph.htm

They have a form that identifies criteria that rate the experience of that product in relation to the cost savings. One of the things that seem to be missing is the longevity of the recycled product in comparison to new products.
http://www.metrokc.gov/procure/green/form.htm

Shopping Carts

2005-12-11T21:36:00.000-06:00

Have you noticed how big shopping carts have gotten? I don't mean the web shopping carts, I mean the ones with wheels and plastic handles. The retailers have figured out that if we can't haul it to the checkout line, we may not buy it. So I have been looking at shopping carts in all the stores I have been to recently.
I still can't figure out why Kohl's shopping cart is so unlike the others and I wonder how effective it is. The Kohl's cart is more visually appealling, the childseat is much more like a stroller, but to buy items, you basically just stuff them into the back. I often don't grab one, because they look more like a stroller and I don't have stroller tots. Then, I begin shopping and run out of arms. Hmmmm -maybe I am just not their target consumer or I am comparing the wrong store model to Kohls.
Walmart, Target, and Kmart have Carts with the tiny seat for a child. Marshalls and Kohl's have the Strollers with a tiny cart design.
Now I need to go see what JcPenney and Sears have because I really can't remember. All I do know is that Kohl's is no Marshall's and I don't need a stroller, I need a cart! Shopping days are dwindling......

Jakob's word on weblogs

2005-10-31T17:45:00.000-06:00

Jakob has lots of good points and says every blogger should post a photo.

Unfortunately, posting a photo isn't as easy as writing a blurb. I think it is a usability hurdle - it takes time and learning to figure out how to do it. When I find the time and figure out how, I will take his advice.

Usability Test Planning

2005-10-17T13:28:00.000-05:00

Usability Testing has work activites that come together before going out to do the study.

- Recruiting (one month in advance - selecting locations than dates and participants
- Travel Planning (one month in advance - in tandem with the recruiting)
- Prototype development and refinement (2-4 weeks in advance depending on the fidelity)
- Task develepoment (2-4 weeks in tandem with the prototype)
- Approvals (2-4 weeks in advance depending on the formality of the study)

These activities are part of the test plan, but the plan also includes the objectives, success criteria, target audience, test methods, test schedule, agenda per individual test session and all of the data collection sheets.

Data collection sheets usually contain a pre- and post-test questionnaire, task sheets and any written materials provided to the participant during normal use of the product. (If a manual has been created and comes standard with the product, the manual should be mentioned and placed near the participant, if they choose to consult it.)

When preparing for a Usability Test the details are important. Confirming participants, Piloting with the task and prototype, and providing thank you gifts are an important part of making a Usabilty test have meaningful results and leave the participants feeling like they were part of something special.

Driving Design

2005-09-30T15:03:00.000-05:00

I am juggling a couple of clients right now and it always amazes me how much time i spend shaping how people react to things presented. I have to make sure I know who is coming to a meeting, their possible positions and arguements in any change or innovation. I have to dream up what their perceived risk, issues and concerns are before they see a concept or the design will be eaten alive or squashed before you can even figure out that the change is just the thing the product needed to stay fresh, usable and useful.

The Usability News had an article by Ann Light about the Interact 2005 conference keynote by Bill Buxton.
'As designers, we spend more time designing the organisation and the attitudes of the people around the process,' he said, estimating that only 20% of effort is spent designing the thing itself."

I don't know about what else he said, but I can't wait to read the book.

Reporting contextual inquiry results

2005-09-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

Everyone needs see the results of a site visit. What's the best format? As a designer I like to apply what I learned immediately to pre-visit concepts and make them more real so that I will have time to validate and iterate. But the team needs to understand what you did, who you saw, and why this new perspective is more accurate then their previous view of the world.

So a trip report has to include:
--Who you visited
--What you observed
--How the process observed modifies current flow
--How the procedures and language modifies current terminology, field labels and options.
--How the design, screens and hardware should be modified to reflect this new understanding.

Contextual Inquiry in a Medical Setting

2005-08-30T23:04:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I have such a hard time not embracing a patient who is in pain or assisting someone who is losing their balance or offering a kind word of encouragement to a caregiver who has been watching their dear one decline to the point of being unable to feed themselves. How do you observe and only observe?

I don't think I can do it. Is it okay to compassionately observe and still reach your hand out to pat a fellow hand. To nod and have your eyes well with tears while the patient stretches and grimaces and tells you how much better they feel.

I find myself wanting to make everyone all better, kiss all the boo-boo's goodbye. How do I improve the product empirically without modifying the actual patient environment?

Task scenarios vs Decision Trees

2005-08-16T16:31:00.000-05:00

I use both task scenarios (steps a user takes to accomplish some goal) and decision trees (questions the user or system needs to ask to accomplish the goal). One is task centric and the other is process centric, but both are focused on understanding the goal and how to acheive it. There are too many ways of getting to the same means, you must identify the goal, you must identify the process(es) used to achieve the goal and the tasks within the process. You can work bottom up or top down. Sometimes I watch people work and record their tasks, identifying the formal or informal process they use and the end goal, whether they stated it or not. Sometimes I start with the business stakeholder, understand what they want to acheive, the process by which they might make it most effective and then devise the tasks most effeciently.

Both of theese techniques help you drive effeciency and effectiveness. Neither of these help you be intuitive or consistent. You still need to turn the stories, personas, tasks, scenarios, or decision trees into pictures that make sense and follow rules.

Who cares which techniques or artifacts you create? If you are actually observing, collaborating and working with your users and stakeholders you know you will be designing the right thing.

Your sketches/pictures/mockups/prototypes will tell you if you talked to the right people and have the right goals.

User - Human - Activity Centered Design. What gives?

2005-08-10T10:01:00.000-05:00

It seems like everyone is still trying to come up with their own words for how they approach design. Don Norman's "new" stance (http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered_desig.html)is that user centered design is not as important as activity centered design. I don't know about you guys, but user centered design never just meant profiles and personas to me. Yes I do make sure I know who the target user is, so that I can understand what GOALS they are accomplishing when they show me the kinds of tasks they are performing. To me the GOAL is the reason for the ACTIVITY and the ACTIVITY is accomplished through a series of TASKS.

For example in a call center a user shows me what she is doing: "I record all of this information when a customer calls". In my analysis, this turns into a design that allows the user to perform the tasks to get the end result. The end result or activity is richer customer information that leads to better customer service on follow up calls. The Goal is better customer service, the Activity is collecting and recalling richer customer information, the task is entering the data and recalling the data. Haven't we all be doing this when we say we are User Centered Designer or Human Centered Designer or User Experience Architects or Usabilty Engineering or whatever.....

This doesn't seem new or different to me - just another way to say the same old thing: users performs tasks, combined tasks are an activity, activities accomplish a user or business goal. If the Goal is worthwhile enough then people will adapt. Is this the point that Don Norman is trying to make? If so, I agree, but I have always accounted for the potential value something new, undreamed of before by the users, as having substantial enough value to the user that they will be willing to learn. I may be just the thing they never knew they could have or needed. I don't believe UCD or HCD ignores innovation if the value can be understood and embraced by the users it was intended for.

Well, he got me thinking and reflecting - maybe that was THE point!

Usability Studies

2005-07-27T10:54:00.000-05:00

I am helping to design and test a device that causes a sensation the user can feel when they use this device.

For obvious reasons, our new design prototype won't actually zap or tingle the user during the study, but it leaves a big part of the device responsiveness missing during the usability testing experience.

The users often don't even look at the UI, because they say they are going by how it feels, not by what the numbers are doing on the screen.

So far, some people have really liked the UI, but few were successful with the device. How much of this is because a key success indicator to the user was what they were feeling?

Focus Group or Not?

2005-07-07T09:52:00.000-05:00

So the marketing manager sets up our first contact with real users, which I stated would be actual users of the device. Unfortunately, she didn't hear the "in their work environments" part.

Like a good marketing manager she hosts a focus group, complete with dinner and drinks during a training event.

Now I work fast to turn a focus group into a contextual inquiry and design walkthrough session.

I will be bringing the devices, showing screens shots of newly designed GUI for new features, and allowing time for lots of questions and answers. So now a 2 hour focus group has turned into a fact gathering, design walkthrough I will facilitate for 1.5 hours and a focus group for 15 minutes that our Product Marketing Manager will facilitate.

BONUS - I will be attending the training program that covers things every introductory practicioner attends. The agenda includes selection, advanced device programming issues, user management, and case study presentations by attendees (whoo-hooo, now that's what I'm talking about!)

Observations from UPA International Conference in Montreal.

2005-06-28T14:44:00.000-05:00

I am at the International UPA Conference in Montreal. Because I am serving as Co-Chair, I get to sneak into all the sessions and take a sneak peak at what is going on.

I stepped in on The jigsaw puzzle of intercultural usability tutorial to see the group had broken into teams for a project, one team was speaking in French and one in English, while the presenter, Lada Gorlenko , had a hint of a Russian accent. The teams then came together and shared their ideas with another. This is just one example of how a tutorial can live of up to it's promise.

The next was the Discovering User Needs: Field Techniques You Can Use tutorial by Ellen Story and Kate Gommoll. What impressed me were the shear number of artifacts covering the walls. Some that they brought with them and some that they were beginning to create during the session. If you ever wanted to see what someone else's profile, persona or storyboard looked like, it was all on display at this session.

Finally, Know Thy Disabilities: Beyond Checklist Standards and Automated Tools for Evaluating the Web tutorial given by Nicole Tolefson and Philip Kragnes struck me because of the blending of science, knowledge and true user experience. Philip is an Adaptive Technologies Specialist, who majored in Cognitive Psychology and just so happens to be blind. So when he talks about adaptive technologies he really gets it.

If you are here at the conference, I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am. If you couldn't make it, please try to join us in 2006.

Success Secrets - Project Kickoffs!

2005-06-20T12:41:00.000-05:00

We are kicking off two projects this week, both are working on hardware devices with software interfaces. One of the ways that we successfully transition from the proposal phase to the working phase is a project kickoff.

A project kickoff includes the following:

Project Summary - products included and purpose
Project Milestones and Deliverable
Project Objectives and Success Criteria
Project Scope - indentify those things Out of Scope also
Project Assumptions, Constraints and Dependencies
Project Roles and Responsibilities
Project Contact List - names, emails, phone numbers of all team members
Change Management Plan if anything identified in the Project Kickoff doesn't hold true

The power of the Project Kickoff is introducting everyone on the team, getting everyone driving to the same objectives, removing ambiguity of who is responsible for what and putting a method in place to mitigate project changes. The kickoff should be a means to clarify, solidify and assign accountability and collaboration.

Good project planning and UCD philosophies are a measure of the maturity of the organization. Pat yourself and your organization on the back if this is how you start a project!

UCD Proposal Basics

2005-06-13T15:35:00.000-05:00

While I am trying to put the finishing touches on one project, I am putting together a proposal for another.

The Background

The hardware (3 separate products that work interactively with one another) will be unchanged, but the software needs to be refactored for a user population with completely different needs. Only 2 of the products have UI. One product is for the user and one product is for the programmer. The first project I participated in was for one target audience, the second project is for an entirely different target audience.

Basics of Proposal - UCD in 3 phases - Research, Design, Validate.

Research
Users have already been studied extensively, so we will be using previous human factors data for that user profile, but will be studying the new target audience.

Watching initial use of device.
Watching follow up use of device.
Watching users be trained on new device.
Watching follow up sessions with users after they have used the device for some period of time

Design

Design additional features for existing users based on previous data
Design for programmers treating existing users based on previous data
Design for new target audience with new study data
Design for programmers with new study data

Validate

We will be validating the designs in Europe and the US for all audiences.

The Challenge

The research-design-testing of these 3 products for two different disorders and two primary user types needs to be done by the end of the year.

Whooo-doggie - I like a challenge!

Ad Hoc Interviews

2005-06-09T14:24:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to do some product and user research, without seeing real users in action, we brought together a group of folks who observed users and asked them about what they saw.

I started with some opening questions to get them started, but then they generally went on and addressed many of my questions without being asked.

I summarized what they had told me, the positive and negative experiences, the environment in which the device was used, the difference between a new patient and a follow up patient in their use patterns and things they thought the device should do.

We got some great input and some more names of folks even closer to the user, the folks who performed the study with the users. We will go talk to them next.

Sometimes, you start where you can and keep taking steps in the right direction. We hope to be participating in study follow-ups this fall. Then we will actually be in the room with the user and their working device. Up till now, usability had only used demos or prototypes of the product that didn't actually do anything, so the tactile experience was missing in the U testing. Now we can observe them using the real thing, baby steps with impact!

Design Reviews

2005-06-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

I went through a UI conceptual design review with system engineering and product planning today.

Here's the challenge:
I had never met either before, so my assumptions about their communication needs were based on their job titles.

The product planner (marketing) head would want more pictures and storytelling.
The systems engineer (development) head would want more detail and would point out more flaws.

Luckily, horrible generalizations proved helpful, but of course they weren't right on and I found myself back peddaling and providing more detail for the product planner than expected.

I also learned that some of the original feature requirements given me, did not come from product planning, so some of the concepts seemed pretty far out there. All in all, it turned out well, but it is amazing how each day you learn something you never expected.

Requirements gathering in are not as clean cut as I expected them to be.