Group 10 Lab 4 Joakim, Xu and Azadeh Question When new - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Group 10 Lab 4

Joakim, Xu and Azadeh

Question

When new functionality and technology is introduced to a product that users have been familiar with, there is always a learning curve and training cost for the users. Are there any methods or guidelines for handling the trade-off between introducing new functionality and the training costs that it brings? Group 7

Answer

Stage 1: New type of products: (Users willing to pay for learning and are tolerant to usability problems, calculator 100$) Stage 2: Competitors arrives: (Functionality becomes the key differentiators, users will buy the

• ne that fulfills their needs rather than the easiest to use, usability means having the correct

functions, ) Stage 3: Productivity wars: (All vendors offers more or less the same functionality, users becomes unwilling to accept a product that takes time to learn, developer strive to improve the ease of learning and speed of use by implementing wizards and on-screen instructions etc and hopefully it will result in lower support costs.) Stage 4: Transparency: (During this stage the price is the key differentiator, companies’ focuses on lowering production costs. An example CD-ROM) Reference: http://www.uie.com/articles/market_maturity/

Question

How does a usability engineer use the quality function deployment process? Group 15

Answer

Quality function deployment (QFD) helps the engineers to transform customer needs into engineering characteristics, and appropriate test methods, for a product or service. The technique yields graphs and matrices. With QFD, the voice of customer data is reduced into a set of critical customer needs using techniques such as affinity diagrams, function analysis, etc. Quality Function Deployment begins with product planning, continues with product design and process design, and finishes with process control, quality control, testing, equipment maintenance, and training. Quality Function Deployment, by its very structured and planning approach, requires that more time be spent up-front in the development process making sure that the team determines, understands and agrees with what needs to be done before plunging into design activities. As a result, less time will be spent downstream because of differences of opinions over design issues or redesign because the product was not on target. References: http://www.npd-solutions.com/qfd.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_function_deployment

Question

Should the novice user be taking into consideration so greatly no matter what that website serves for? Group 14

Answer

No! The designers must understand what type of users that they are designing for in order to achieve a successful interaction between the user and the website. Novice/Expert terms refer to the cognitive and knowledge structure of target users. Novice users: no domain knowledge no task experience or expertise weak memory recall A good paper: Expert and Novice User Models and Their Application to the Design process

Should the novice user be taking into consideration so greatly no matter what that website serves for?

group 14

No! The designers must understand the artifact users that they are designing for, in order to acheive a successful interaction. Novice/Expert terms refer to the cognitive and knowledge structure of target users. Novice users: no domain knowledge no task experience or expertise weak memory recall a good paper: Expert and Novice User Models and Their Application to the Design process

In projects which are using Agile methods, having a specific amount of budget and time, how can the team members make room for user engineering?

group 8

Even using non-agile methods, there is always a specific amount of budget and time. It's generally the same old feature and cost trade-off problem and many factors can affect it, but user engineering is not an option to be added or removed, its an essential part of any successful project. Team members may find some shortcuts or creative ways to save some time and money.

Are there any methods to justify the expense of the usability investment during the usability engineering? How to convince business individuals to apply UCD in their product development?

group 7, 15

This is the matter of proving the "Usability of a UCD Approach", you need to show them the costs and benefits of a UCD approach comparing to a traditional waterfall life-cycle. Measurements are needed on the efficiency and satisfaction

• n these two. Or if you don't have enough time to run this

process just refer them to some good papers which show the same results.

Assuming that the development of an application is in in Phase 2 of its progress and the Usability Engineering life-cycle cannot entirely be applied. Can UCSD be applied at this time and build upon possible mistakes done in the analysis of requirements? Should they rather conduct a task analysis first and start at the beginning of the usability engineering life-cycle? If yes, how can this be matched with the present result of the development?

group 13 , 14

As it was told in some lectures, the cost of change in the early phases of a project is much less, so its better to discover and fix those mistakes in phase 2 rather than phase 4. A migration plan with the minimum cost from a non-UCD method to a UCD method can be like this: Make a prototype of the whole knowledge-base up to know, assume it the developement phase in the first iteration, and go according to the UCSD method for the rest.

Do you think there are methods that does not give these amazing ROI that they are talking about in the paper? Can you go wrong ROI-wise when focusing on the users?

group 6

One reason for introducing the iterative methods was that the

• ld waterfal methods weren't so effective with the user
• satisfaction. A good sample of those methods can be The

Standard Waterfall Model As the chapter 2 of readings for lab 4 says, you can't go ROI wise when you apply UCSD: UCD -> user satisfaction -> more users -> more benefit

Customers do not return if they do not have a good initial experience with the websites. These sites and organizations can go under quickly without a second chance. Which usability engineering methods can be used to avoid a situation like this?

Group 13

Usability testing, the gold standard, is when participants are recruited and asked to use the actual or prototype interface and their reactions, behaviors, errors, and self-reports in interviews are carefully observed and recorded by the Usability Engineer. On the basis of this data, the Usability Engineer recommends interface changes to improve usability.

Find two webpages with the same purpose, but where one has good and one has a bad design?

group 11

From a UCSD point of view we picked and compared these two: Nordea Swedbank The "international students" target user group would prefer Swedbank, because it serves in English language which Nordea lacks.

A web site prototype was designed and eight physicians were paid to participate in usability testing. Within 45 seconds of starting their first search task, seven out of the eight physicians gave up. Could and should the test have been carried out in a different way that would have prevented the participants from giving up so easily?

group 11

Definitely could, but we should see what was the intension of the test, was it "measuring the impact of usability on being used" or "longer use of a system by users". The usability test is applied to show the efficiency of the product and in this case it showed that the designed search application is not usable.

What's metrics and evaluation tools, how to affect UI design?

• --group 11

Metrics:

Formal measurements that are used as guides to the level of usability of a product. Metrics include how fast a user can perform a task, number of errors made on a task, learning time, and subjective ratings. You can't manage what you can't measure ——Peter Druckers establish a set of metrics for the project to gauge the success later on

Evaluation tools

• 1. Always ask developers to do evaluation by using

guidelines and cognitive walkthrough. + not costly + find problems in the early phase + there is no need for developers to wait for the results from UI specialists

• 2. When user interface specialists are available, ask them to

do the heuristic evaluation. + UI specialist can find more serious problems in the interface + benefits & cost rate

• - UI specialists are hard to find
• - report many not so important problems
• 3. When having enough budget and time, do usability testing.

+ good at finding serious problems

• - but not much as heuristic evaluation
• - too expensive
• - time consuming
• - done by UI specialist, have same problems with using heuristic

evaluation

Reference

http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article4958.asp http://oldwww.acm.org/perlman/question.html http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~pancake/cs552/discussions/wang.j.html http://miskeeto.com/bytes/developing-ux-strategy/

How can new enhanced HCI models and methods help user in

usability context (in the context of web)?-----Group 1 In the "Chapter 1" (Section 1.3) they mention: "As we have already stated, we believe that many of the HCI-field frameworks and methods apply to usability engineering for the

• Web. Given the unique context of Web applications, though,

there are some new HCI models, and enhancements to HCI methods and practice that are necessary for the Web. What HCI-field frameworks and methods are they talking about, and how are they applied?----Group 12

Method:

Task analysis User testing

.

. .

Agile UCD Method (New): The choice of method Cost of evaluation Appropriateness to project

Time constraints

Cost of implementation

Cost of training new users

Model

Cyclical seven stages of action model Card,Moran and Newell's keystroke model User models Norman's model of emotional design A model of "pervasive Usability" in web design

• 1. Requirements analysis
• 2. Conceptual design
• 3. Mockups / Prototypes
• 4. Production
• 5. Launch and Maintenance

Framework

A framework is a basic conceptual structure used to solve or

address complex issues.(according to wiki) A framework is a set of interrelated concepts and/or a set of specific questions that is intended to inform a particular domain area.(according to the book"interaction design beyond human- computer interaction")

• ->the ways of thinking about system.

Frameworks can be iterative (spiral)/ linear (waterfall)

RUP (Rational Unified Processing) an iterative software development process framework XP (eXtreme Programming)

Norman's classic framework in HCI field

simple highly effective

Reference

http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1290000/1286295/p181-wills. pdf? key1=1286295&key2=1369799321&coll=Portal&dl=GUIDE&CFI D=30781443&CFTOKEN=85713324 http://www.usabilityfirst.com/websites/index.txl http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1160000/1150005/a10-daniel. pdf? key1=1150005&key2=6859799321&coll=Portal&dl=GUIDE&CFI D=30781443&CFTOKEN=85713324 http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/~walkerb/classes/hci/pdf/1B- history-frameworks.ppt.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework#Software_framework BOOK "Interaction design beyond human-computer interaction"

How will a company and user choose a person / designer to design its website in the context of cost, time and efficiency according to usability?

• ---Group 1

To design a web, you need to consider following factors

The organization's goals for the site : What industrial does company involves in? User's goals : who is the website aimed at, What do user groups need via the website? Background: Is there any competition in the same field? Who are they? Context of use Are they selling products or services?

In web design, ONLY one web designer is not enough

User interface designers Product manager UI developers Users

Reference

http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/650000/642697/p489- beier.pdf? key1=642697&key2=8729400421&coll=Portal&dl=GUIDE&C FID=30781443&CFTOKEN=85713324 http://www.wpdesigner.com/hosting/choosing-a-web- design-firm/

Group 11 Presentation

Return On Investment

“Karat collected cost-benefit data and determined that for the first three uses of the system by the target user group, there was a $2 return for every dollar invested in usability on the project. A more complete analysis of the return on investment (ROI) showed a $10 return for every dollar invested in usability”. Is the ROI value increasing, is it decreasing or is it stable over time (considering how much the value of ROI was 10 years ago and how will it change in the future)? ----Group 3

Answer to group 3: A closer look into a product life cycle

Introduction Growth & Maturity Saturation Degeneration

As talked in the article, that the development cycle is getting shorter and shorter, but "when you are in a hurry, it is even more important to follow a course of UCD", and there seems a contradiction. How can these two get balanced? What percentage of usability design cycle should be devoted to the total development cycle when it is extremely short? ----Group 5

Answer to group 5

The agile manifesto

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

“That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more”

Answer to group 5

eXtreme Programming

– If a practice is good, then do it all the time. – If a practice causes problems with project agility, then don’t do it.

Small releases - A.K.A: Short cycles “A sane and disciplined way to quickly succeed" – on typical small projects Everybody involved in the project works together as ONE team. One member of this team is the customer, or the customer representative.

• Developers are invited to the customer's company to work with them for a

short while. This is done to get a higher understanding of the system to develop.

Answer to group 5

Crystal methods

Every project needs a slightly different set of policies and conventions, or

• methodology. "Shrink-to-fit".

Crystal Clear (6-8 developers, XP light) Crystal Orange (20 – 40 developers) The developers are split into small groups, each containing all needed

• specialists. More work products and documentation but the

process still relies heavily on face-to-face communication and frequent customer involvement.

"HCI experts can make the necessary tradeoffs in determining the methods and tools to use in completing the usability engineering work with end users of a site, given time and resource constraints." Chapter 1.6 We believe that larger companies may have those HCI experts. How do the smaller companies do with the necessary tradeoffs in determining the methods without an HCI expert? (it is not possible to hire an consultant in this case - we assume it costs to much) Group 12

Answer to group12 Unique situations among every company. Small companies cant do as big projects as big companies. For a big company, a failure is not as critical as for a small.

Answer to group12 Smaller projects decreases complexity Has to make bigger trade-offs if they take on bigger projects. Mostly all the employees are involved in every project, hence every investments have a bigger outcome. Experience spreading is extra useful

How much does the value of ROI depend on the context, such as: type of user: novice users (Paint, WordPad) vs. expert users (Photoshop, Maya, Visual Studio. net)? culture and geographical location of users (e.g. Africa VS Europe)? Group 3

Answer to question of group 3 (2)

Novice / expert software ROI increases rapidly if a product is popular: investment stays relatively equal, but return increases. expert software has lower return, because it serves niche markets investment in usability for expert software is higher due to complexity and functionality of expert software novice products have a higher ROI

Answer to question from group 3 (2)

Culture / country Culture and the geographical location have influence on the expectations and needs of users. Interfaces should be designed in such a way that they meet these expectations and needs. It is therefore important to take into account the influence

• f culture and location when performing usability testing.

Answer to question from group 3 (2) Culture / country (2) Does the ROI change per culture / location? For example, would an investment in usability in Africa lead to higher returns compared to the Western world? Software designers do not necessarily know about cultures they develop

• for. Cultural influences are probably better understood for their own

culture leading to higher returns for own culture. Possibly: a direct connection between culture/location and ROI. Maybe some cultures are "less digital" or have different ideas about what usability means. Largest influence is the state of the current market. Developing countries have a lot of potential. Investing in usability for products meant for those markets will probably lead to higher returns.

How is ROI affected if a company cannot meet up with all of a customer's usability requirements? Group 5

Answer to question from group 5

How ROI is affected, depends highly on: state of the market the type of the sector Examples: user requirements don't matter: monopoly frustrates innovation, e.g. Microsoft and usability of their products in a mature market there is a lot of competition. Low usability of product leads to lower returns the Web is very competitive: many websites that offer the same thing. First-time visitors are very fickle (little patience, high expectations), critical to keep them, or they perhaps never come back (for example, URL shorteners)

Which factors determine the ROI and what is the impact

• f "usability" on it?

Group 14

Answer to group 14 The return on investment formula:

E.g. Marketer and Finacial analyst

Answer to group 14

Determinants of ROI:

• 1. Usability
• 2. Growth in demand
• 3. Costs and expenses
• 4. Technical and business benefits
• 5. Faster time to market

and so on…

Answer to group 14

What's the impact of "usability" on ROI? 1). what usability can contribute to gain:

• a. Increased user productivity
• b. Increased sales
• c. Increased perception of value of company by stakeholders

(satisfaction, trust, loyalty) 2). what usability can contribute to reduce cost?

• a. Decreased user error
• b. Decreased user support
• c. Decreased training cost
• d. Reduced cost for making changes earlier in design lifecycle

Answer to group 14 Once a system is in development, correcting a problem costs 10 times as much as fixing the same problem in design. If the system has been released, it costs 100 times as much relative to fixing in design" (Gilb, 1988).

The Usability Engineering Lifecycle is considered to be “highly flexible and adaptable through the selection of techniques “(chapter 3: 14). In an 8-week web-development project the Usability Engineering Lifecycle cannot be adapted in the full range. But how can you argument that it is still possible to achieve benefits with even shortcut usability techniques? How can you convince the stakeholder who knows that the predictions of ROI will be very risky?

Group 13

Answer to group 13

• 1. The usability engineering lifecycle is highly flexible and

adaptable through the selection of techniques.

• 2. Compare to most traditional software application, web

site function is relatively simply and typically took 8~~12weeks to develop. How to convince stakeholder:

• 1. The duration of usability engineering lifecycle in web sit

function is typically 8~~12 weeks, which means such short time will not bring high risk for granted.

• 2. Clear cost-benefit analysis
• 3. Use successful examples(like Mayhew)

Reference:

Gunjan Samtani, Factors for calculating the ROI of Web services, Oct 29, 2002 Rodney F. Smith, Growth in demand in demand as a determinant of return on investment, 1978 Cost-justifying usability: an update for an internet age, by Randolph G. Bias and Deborah J. Mayhew, 2005 Sidney Song, How to evaluate ROI – CMP, CPC, CPV, CPE or CPX? 2008 Return On Investment - ROI http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_roi.html Ann Light, ROI: MyTravel Redesign Increases Online Booking Conversion by 20%, 25 April 2007

Conflict

What is the usability trade-off between novices user and expert users, and what are the conflicts for the usability engineers? Group 11

Answer to question of group 11

Novice users want an interface that: is guessable: being able to use the interface without previous experience allows for growth: gain the skills and knowledge about the interface to become expert users quickly Expert users want: to form goals quickly and sequences of actions to achieve the goal a low number of interactions, action execution is accelerated a quick pace of interaction

Answer to question of group 11

Most interfaces need to accommodate both novice and expert users at the same time. Why? Novice users gain skills by using the interface and eventually become expert users Even an expert user may be quite novice with respect to many parts of the system not normally used by that user

Answer to question of group 11

design the interface so that the performance curve rides the best parts of the blue curve and green curve and reach the idealized curve combine the efforts to support the novice users with the effort to support expert users in one interface

Other

Today we use the internet in new ways and in different situations thanks to new technologies (broadband, wireless connectivity) and mobile devices (NetBooks, iPhones, mobile phones). What new demands have been put on usability and how might they be met?

Group 4

Answer to group 4

“The key challenge in designing new technologies is how best to take advantage of users’ skills in creating the most effective and productive working environment. We call this the usability challenge.”( Paul S. Adler, Terry Winograd) How to meet? Industry needs to develop more appropriate usability criteria and implement more effective processes to assure usability.

Answer to group 4

• 1. Develop a new web or product/service in a short period.
• 2. Global Marke, Global Design
• Differents between West and East
• Still have something in common

Answer to group 4

• 3. Global Emotion

E.g. Phone for youth and phone for old people, even for visual impairment person.

Answer to group 4

• 4. Global Market, Global Culture

ilkone

• for Muslims
• Islamic calendar
• complete Holy Quran text with English translation
• prayer alarm
• automatic Qibla direction

Reference

Paul S. Adler, Terry Winograd, Usability, 1992 Young-Ill (John) Kim, Meaning of Chopsticks in Asia, 2007 Jared Braiterman PhD, Yue Yu, Emotional Factors for Mobile Business Success, 2007 Marco van Hout, Global Market, Global Emotion, Global Design?, 2007

Thank you for your attention