Remote Interviews

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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?