Download - Usability Training - UDSM 06/2010
Usability TrainingUDSM, June 7
Marko Teräs, Timo Nevalainen
Kick-Off Questions
Your thoughts on usability?
Your goals and wants for this session
AgendaDefinition of Usability
Why Usability?
User-centered design
User Experience
Usability evaluation
Usability testing
Definition of Usability• Usability is the degree to which something - software, hardware or
anything else - is easy to use and a good fit for the people who use it.
• It is a quality or characteristic of a product.
• It is whether a product is efficient, effective and satisfying for those who use it.
• It is the name for a group of techniques developed by usability professionals to help create usable products.
• And, it is a shorthand term for a process or approach to creating those products, also called user-centered design.
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org
Definition of Usability
“After all, usability really just means making sure that something
works well: that a person of average (or even below average)
ability and experience can use the thing - whether it’s a Web
site, a fighter jet, or a revolving door - for its intended purpose
without getting hopelessly frustrated.”
Krug, Steve (2006). Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.
Definition of Usability
http://www.semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php
Definition of UsabilityUser Experience (Jesse James Garrett) http://jjg.net/ia
Why Usability?The economical point of view
Claire Karat (1990): The investment ROI (return on investment) of usability is 1:3 - 1:100
Excercise:300 workers in a middle sized company use a software for a certain task 30 minutes per day.
Because of the weak quality, doing the tasks takes 10 minutes longer than it would take if the usability had been better taken care of in the software development process.
How much the company would’ve saved costs per year, if the worker’s pay is 10 dollars per hour.
Answer:300 users x (10,00 e x 1/6 h) x 200 work days = about 100 000 $ per year[Here is not counted the additional costs that may come from frustration and stress or from the weakening quality of work.]
User-centered design
Specify the user and organizational requirements
Evaluate against design
requirements
Produce design solutions
Identify need for human-
centred design
System satisfies the
specified requirements
http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/about_usability/what_is_ucd.html
Understand and specify the context of use
Affordance
User experience
Typography
Layout
Psychology & Culture
Emotions
Usability
Intangible
Tangible
User needs
Video / Animation
Sounds
Colors Images
Why and wherewe are doing?
(Design Rationale)
Images: Support
and optimize
How to do it then?
Fonts that workand few of them.
Layout:Guide the User
To who are we doing?Emotions:
Make people enjoy
To make usable content is to
test it
Intangible
Tangible
Did the users get what they came for?
Motion: How heavy and does it open?
Sounds: Give options and are there
speakers?
Colors: Culture and aesthetics
User-centered design
Design a clear and simple navigation system. According to Web usability expert, Jakob Nielsen, a good navigation system should answer three questions:
Where am I?
Where have I been?
Where can I go?
Usability evaluation
Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
http://www.usabilitynet.org/management/b_design.htm
Make your own.
Usability testing
Light-weight testing can be done more often
Light-weight testing is cheaper and easier to approve
Use real users, real tasks [scenarios]
Observe, don’t interfere/manipulate
Do no harm.
More Reading from…
Jakob Nielsen (http://www.useit.com)
Steve Krug (http://www.sensible.com)
“Ginny” Redish (http://www.redish.net)
JoAnn Hackos (http://www.comtech-serv.com)
Jesse James Garrett (http://blog.jjg.net)
Peter Morville (http://semanticstudios.com)
Lou Rosenfeld (http://louisrosenfeld.com)
Sinkkonen, Kuoppala, Parkkinen: Professional Psychology of Usability
Feedback us, please
How did you find this training session?
What did you learn?
How would you improve the session?