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An Introduction to Usability
- 1. An Introduction to Usability Dirk Swart Web Technologies Director University Communications
- 3. Keywords Simplicity User orientation Trade-offs Ease of use Patterns Reversability Details
- 4. Why do usability? Diebold Voting System Has 'Delete' Button for Erasing Audit Logs Wired News (03/03/09) Zetter, Kim Auditors report: "The proximity of the clear button to the "print" and "save as" buttons raises the risk of the logs being erased accidentally, and the system provides no warning to operators of the danger of clicking on the button."
- 6. “ Commandeer. Technical term. We’re going to commandeer that ship”.
- 7. Progressive disclosure : Showing overviews and hiding details until the user requests them. Affective : Appealing to the emotions of the user. Affordance : Property of a thing which determines how it is (or can be) used.
- 8. Insert photo of Mann Library doors
- 9. Academics for $200 please Alex What do economists study most?
- 10. A: Money B: People C: Utility D: !@#$# economists! What do economists study most?
- 12. C: Utility We will call this ‘happiness’ or ‘satisfaction’. “…changes in utility are sometimes expressed in units called utils.” (Wikipedia)
- 13. For our purposes … Something is Pareto Optimal if we can’t make someone better off without making someone else worse off.
- 15. Usability: “ The degree to which an object, device, software application, etc. is easy to use with no specific training” - Wikipedia
- 16. Usability: “ The degree to which an object, device, software application, etc. is easy to use with no specific training” - Wikipedia “ Quite simply, usability is making your site easy for your customers to find the exact information they need when they need it.” – www.searchenginewriting.com
- 17. Usability: “ The degree to which an object, device, software application, etc. is easy to use with no specific training ” - Wikipedia “ Quite simply, usability is making your site easy for your customers to find the exact information they need when they need it.” – www.searchenginewriting.com “ Usability is the study of how to Pareto optimize your website or application”
- 18. User Experience: “Impression left in a person's mind after the sum of a series on interactions.”
- 19. Q: Who decides if a website is easy to use?
- 21. A: Your target audience But that is not very informative - will discuss more.
- 22. Click … Whirr
- 23. Fixed Action Pattern: A behavioral sequence that runs to completion. It has a trigger feature (releaser) plus a sequence, and in people is usually cultural. Our take home: People like patterns. We’ll come back to this in a bit.
- 24. Q:
- 25. Form Follows Function Beyond the introductory level this principle becomes more complicated. But this is an introduction to usability, so we’ll stick with it We’ll come back to this in a bit too. Function first. Then form.
- 26. Rule 1
- 27. Web behavior is always rushed: Your website is a means to an end. Rule 1
- 28. Implications Good design ≠ easy to use. Simplicity is a choice.
- 29. Total Visitor time = search time + load time + browse time + scan time Think utility.
- 30. Consistency & Expectations Rule 2
- 31. Patterns Count
- 32. Thinky things … Interlude
- 33. Ready to hand Present at hand
- 35. OK, back to work
- 36. People expect patterns
- 37. Rule 2 Looks right, but isn’t
- 39. Law School vanishing menus
- 40. People try stuff Rule 3
- 41. Implications Words Count. Words are the steak, not the sizzle. (And use sans serif, scalable. No A -A band aid crap)
- 42. Implications Plan for the scent of information. Be reversible. Allow users to undo mistakes. Garden Path: a sequence of actions a user takes that each seem to be leading to the desired outcome but don't produce the desired result in the end.
- 43. Don't let the exciting, the periphery, drive you out of your core business Rule 3
- 44. Don’t focus on everything equally: Vegas effect. What is the most important: remember economics Rule 4
- 45. It’s ALL details Bonus
- 46. Common Mistakes
- 47. Heavy Pages <- violates rule 1 When OK? If you have a pattern. Eg: Amazon.com
- 48. Heavy Pages <- violates rule 1 When OK? If you have a pattern. Eg: Amazon.com
- 49. Ambiguous choices <- violates rule 3
- 50. Ambiguous choices <- violates rule 3
- 52. Lack of focus - Violates rule 4?
- 53. Summary Usability is important. You think so they don’t have to. Every decision is a trade-off. If you can, separate design, usability, focus, user experience. They are different. Learn the vocabulary
- 54. More Information? MIT Usability Guidelines: http://web.mit.edu/is/usability/usability-guidelines.html SUS, a quick and dirty usability scale http://www.usabilitynet.org/trump/documents/Suschapt.doc Designing for the Scent of Information Email me for a copy Vocabulary http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/main.cgi Humor http://www.ok-cancel.com Yahoo Design Pattern Library http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
- 55. "Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them“ Alfred North Whitehead (1861 – 1947)
- 56. Usability Testing End User Usability 161 Secondary School Teachers filled in on line form. 73% had no affiliation to Cornell, 7.5% were Cornell alums. 46% were not within driving distance of Cornell. Admin Usability 8 Detailed interviews (1 hr +) conducted on 1 day. Effort to produce these results: End user: 160 hours over a month, Admin; 45 hours over three weeks.
- 57. Usability Findings - Overall 68.3% used the net to find educational information 37% had never looked for educational materials at Cornell. 27% had looked “once or twice” They expected access to a very broad range of material. 33% would expect to find material in ‘Outreach’ section.
- 58. Usability Findings - Interface Search 55% of respondents did not like the “simple search”. Simple search with Primary and Secondary browse was most preferred. Browsing as a hierarchical sequence “is desirable” > 86%) >90% said program profile page was well designed. Search + Browse ‘front and center’ is essential.
- 59. Key Features of our execution Search and Browse Not trying to replace other sites. Refers people onward at Cornell. Reports: Ability to revise search and browse. Add to taxonomy Track and count search terms
- 60. Example: Alice and Bob
- 62. Usability Economics Psychology Human Factors Tips &Tricks 4 Rules Bauhaus Click, Whirr Choices, choices Scent Utility Theory SUS Examples More information
Editor's Notes
- Notes: Less technical. Show rule then principle. Start with the humboldt county error to explain importance, remove the confirm button. Don’t go into the pareto thing – just say make people better off without making people worse off, and tradeoffs. Use lab of O for choices.