USEworthy June 2003
The monthly Newsletter from The Usability Company
Welcome to June's edition of USEworthy. In this issue, we focus on the
business case for usability. In the article "Why Usability Matters", we discuss the many
business areas that can be improved by good usability practices or in fact weakened
through neglect of usability issues. In addition, we demonstrate the commercial benefits of
User Centered Design by presenting a case study outlining the work carried out by
The Usability Company to refine the online offering of international bookmaker Victor
Chandler.
We also present an article that
analyses the most pertinent issues concerning Intranet usability.
It is claimed that badly designed company Intranets are costing
employers up to £1,000 a year per employee so this article, which
appeared in HR Gateway April 24 2003, discusses the usability
issues surrounding poorly performing Intranet sites and includes
excerpts from an interview with Paul Blunden, CEO of The Usability
Company.
Company News
The Usability Company is sponsoring the usability
supplement in the June 19 issue of The New Media Age. The
usability supplement will serve as a guide to usability issues. It
will give a comprehensive introduction to usability and a good
overview of usability issues.
The Office of the e-Envoy launches
its "Quality Framework for UK Government Website
Design" document in June. Catriona Campbell, founder of The
Usability Company was one of the two usability specialists who
assisted the Office of the e-Envoy to write the document. The
Quality Framework for UK Government Website Design document seeks
to provide Government web managers with specific guidance around
usability issues relevant to public sector websites and, in
particular, awareness of issues that need to be addressed under
the relevant human centred design standards. Having high quality,
accessible and easy to maintain public sector websites is vital if
the government is to meet its dual objectives of having all
services online and achieving high levels of use for key services.
Online copies of this document will be made available at: http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk
June promises to be a busy month for Catriona
Campbell. She will be speaking at the CIPFA e-Government Forum on
Making e-Services Accessible to People with Disabilities, July 3.
Catriona will be discussing the accessibility issues affecting
government websites in particular, with regards to legal
requirements, and the Quality Framework for Government Websites
document developed by the Office of e-Envoy that Catriona helped
to write. Catriona will also summarise
some of the findings from the testing and research that The
Usability Company has conducted with and on users with
disabilities. This seminar is highly topical, as public sector
organisations are required by law to put all suitable services
online by 2005.
For more information about the conference, please visit the
CIPFA website: http://www.ipf.co.uk/egovernment/egovforum/events/prog030703.htm
And Finally...
We hope to see some of you at the New Media Age's Effectiveness
Awards ceremony. This is of particular interest to The Usability
Company as catriona Campbell is a member of this year's judging
panel. The 2003 awards marks the awards' seventh year, which makes
the awards the new media industry's largest and longest-running
awards event. This year saw a record 660 entries, which Catriona
and the other members of the judging panel have diligently
whittled down to a shortlist of under 70 contenders!
Usability, a Valid Business Proposition: Victor Chandler Case Study
The case study below, outlining the work carried
out by The Usability Company to refine the online offering of
international bookmaker Victor Chandler, demonstrates the
commercial benefits brought by User Centered Design or User
Centred Design in putting the user experience at the heart of the
design process from a project’s inception. User Centered Design involves scientifically structuring your content so
that it is more logical for the users. This case study illustrates
how getting a thorough understanding of usability implications
before and during the building process not only considerably
reduces development costs and timelines but also increases
revenue.
Victor Chandler Sites:
www.victorchandler.com
www.victorchandler.co.uk
www.victor.com
Objectives:
The Usability Company and Victor Chandler identified four main
objectives for the website:
- To consolidate three sportsbook websites
into one
- To improve customer experience in four main
areas: bet process, registration, account management, and home
page
- To enhance brand experience
- To improve cross-selling across business
activities
Development overview
The boxed area in the following diagram illustrates the areas
of activity within the overall development framework. Developing a
website is a complex process that requires a phased approach.
User Centered Design is at the beginning of the chain and
drives all subsequent development and improvements. ISO 13407
outlines the steps involved in interactive product development.
Stage 1 - Workshops
The main purpose of these workshops was to structure the
redevelopment project. The workshops also gave the Victor Chandler
team an opportunity to learn about user-centred web site
development and simultaneously afforded The Usability
Company's Information Architect an opportunity to gain knowledge
of vital information about the sportsbook business and
terminology.
Stage 2 - Site structure mapped out
To reflect the structure and organisation of Victor Chandler’s
web pages, the Information Architect created
- Wireframes that provided a page-by-page
storyboard and descriptions of page elements and features
- Sitemaps that provided a graphical overview of
the proposed structure in the form of a hierarchical diagram
- Flow charts
The site structure templates were then tested with real users.
Recommendations made by The Usability Company from the findings
were then applied to streamline and optimise the design. Through
this, Victor Chandler was able to avoid over-development by
exploring and testing User Centered Design possibilities at
the early stages of web design. For example, two solutions were
identified for the betting slip. One solution was considered to be
more appealing to the more experienced gambler as it offered all
relevant information and functionality on one page and the other
was considered more appealing to the less experienced gambler with
the intention of making the bet process as easy as possible. Test
results showed that the majority of the users tested preferred the
second solution.
Having decided on the optimal site structure, web pages were
then mocked up and usability research was carried out with
participants trying to complete the true-to-life tasks. The
true-to-life tasks are designed, among other things, to test that
the sites’ design allows the user to complete tasks that are
essential if the site is to meet its objectives. These tests
allowed Victor Chandler to both explore the alternative solutions
offered by our User Centered Design specialist
cost-effectively and to minimise the risk of making erroneous
design decisions that would have damaged the end product.
Stage 3 - Completed wireframes handed over to design team
At this stage, our Information Architect delivered the
optimised wireframes. These wireframes were then handed over to
the design team as templates from which the look and feel of the
site was developed.
Stage 4 - Usability research carried out on prototype web pages
At this point, the focus shifted from the assessment of
processes to the assessment of the effects of design on page
understanding and navigation. Usability research at this stage
determined that design did indeed complement process and
navigation. This demonstrates that user centred design not only
optimises the information architecture but also the look and feel
of the site.
Results:
Victor Chandler and The Usability Company are happy to announce
that both the project and business objectives were achieved. The
major achievement is the increased revenue witnessed by Victor
chandler in the following areas:
- Additional sportsbook business
- Improved customer acquisition
- Increased Cross-selling
The above is a short version of the case study. If you would like to
read the full version, please email info@theusabilitycompany.com
with your request.
Why Usability Matters to your Business
By Marc Sparrow, Midnight Communications
Most, if not all, Internet users are familiar with the
hallmarks of poor usability. How often have you invested time at a
site only to be frustrated because you were unable to complete a
purchase or registration process, or couldn’t find the
information you sought? More importantly for commercial websites,
how was your perception of the brand behind the website affected
by your experience?
On the Internet of course, a competitor’s website is just a
few clicks away, and although high-profile websites continue to
make errors, most businesses are now well aware of the commercial
benefits brought by a website with good usability. It’s clear
that no commercial online venture can afford damaging brand
reputation by annoying website visitors, and it’s equally
apparent that addressing usability problems, for instance in
simplifying registration and purchase processes, can raise online
revenue.
Usability considerations however extend way beyond website
design. Take-up of digital television continues apace, and
interactive television is opening up new avenues to the consumer.
Developers have to some extent learnt the lessons of early iTV
development - the remote control is not a mouse, and accordingly
iTV pages should not be laid out like web pages- but the medium is
still at a very early stage, and good usability will be key in
ensuring iTV fulfils its vast potential. The capabilities of
mobile phones too grow ever more sophisticated, yet users rightly
expect simple and intuitive digital interfaces to control the
increasingly complex functions. Again, usability analysis will
remain paramount in ensuring users’ expectations are met.
How humans interact with digital interfaces is determined by
psychological, physiological and sociological factors (e.g.
reading from right to left). Drawing on a number of academic
disciplines, usability analysis is about taking advantage of this
sort of knowledge and accepted conventions (e.g. a website’s ‘home’
button) to encourage interface designs that allows users to
achieve their goals with the minimum of fuss, time and effort.
Observing participants as they complete true-to-life tasks,
usability specialists are able draw up a detailed picture of the
interface as experienced by the end user, and provide
recommendations to refine and improve its performance.
Of course, ensuring good usability will be just one of many
requirements to be satisfied in any digital interface project.
Commercial imperatives will be the driving force behind any
development and it’s vital that key business objectives are met.
There will also be aesthetic considerations- no business wants to
be associated with drab, uninspiring design. What is needed is a
design process that can balance all of these requirements to
deliver a finished product that delivers on all fronts. And this
is where user centred design (UCD) comes into its own.
Working closely with project developers, usability specialists
are able to deliver interfaces which not only meet project and
business objectives, but also which the end user can navigate
through as quickly and effortlessly as possible. In allowing
alternative solutions to be tried out cost effectively, helping to
avoid over-development and wasted investment during a project, and
assisting in the creation of an interface that keeps satisfied
users coming back, an User Centered Design approach reaps
significant financial rewards.
Intranets: Depots for 'Limited Value Information'
This article appeared in HR Gateway April 24 2003
Time and money is being wasted by employers as workers take
longer to do tasks because of badly designed or ill thought out
Intranets claimed a leading consultancy.
Badly designed and unmanaged company Intranets are costing
employers up to £1,000 a year per employee, claims Nick Throp of
Mercer HR, and end up as 'repositories for information of limited
value':
'Many sites are created by self-serving departments with little
regard for the needs of other employees. Many companies fail to
recognise how their Intranet fits into an overall communication
and knowledge management strategy,' he said.
Intranets often mirror how organisations see and structure
themselves, he says, and it's apparent where information flows
from the top down or is created by people working in silos:
'The key is to understand employees' perceptions and
experiences of the Intranet. An audit by a usability expert, or a
comprehensive test on a group of users will identify what needs to
be improved,' said Throp.
Paul Blunden, CEO of The Usability Company who have their own
usability testing software called WebIQ, told HR Gateway today
that while he agreed with Throp's £1,000 estimate, the problem of
Intranet usability was one of measurement:
'Very little work has been done of measuring the usability of
Intranets but this is changing slowly. Measuring it would allow HR
to understand the behaviour of people when they use the Intranet
and what can be done to improve matters.
'All IT departments have web analysis tools such as Web Trends
that could be used to measure employee behaviour which would allow
HR to come up with concrete figures rather than the intangible
figures that are thrown around,' he said.
Most firms never discuss usability issues with employees, they
simply get the standard two hours' training and then when they
come to use the system for HR processes a few months later, for
example, they have to learn over again, he says:
'The problem is that many systems are simply not intuitive and
are usually based on an internal database with an entry page that
is full of confusing links. HR and IT need to consider the
usability of such as system,' said Blunden.
If you want to assess employees' experience of using your
Intranet, then here are some pointers from Mercer HR's Nick Throp:
- Intranet business strategy - do you have one? How are users'
needs understood and incorporated into this document?
- User needs - do you understand how the Intranet might help
employees and the management population to be more effective
in their job?
- Site architecture - what is the rationale behind it? Has it
been tested? Is it intuitive?
- Site content - how much content is up there? Would anyone
notice if you got rid of any of it? What process exists to get
content up on the Intranet?
- Usage statistics - are you getting good data? Do you
interrogate it? How do you feed this back into the content
creation process?
- Site visual appeal - is the site engaging? Do people feel
good about using it?
- Site branding - is it consistent? Is the User Experience
consistent with brand values? (Remember that branding is not
just a logo but is the whole experience of interacting with
the organisation).
- Access - can your site be accessed from everywhere in the
company? What about when employees are at home?
- Site usability - can employees find the information they
want easily and in good time?
- Communication strategy - how does the Intranet integrate
with other communication channels? How do they reinforce each
other?
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