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?