USEworthy October 2002
The monthly Newsletter from The Usability Company

Welcome to October's edition of Useworthy. We have been busy organising our part in The Research Show, Olympia, Sion Mooney, a recruitment specialist gives his views on recruiting online, and David Bomphrey discusses why specialist Usability Labs should be used for user testing...

The Research Show

TUC spent a productive couple of days in Olympia promoting our new software WebIQ and letting visitors know what companies need to do in order to make their sites accessible. People were able to hear what their companies website sounds like through a screen reader and check out WebIQ in action. To find out more about WebIQ or accessibility contact us.

If they can't apply, then they won't apply - by Sion Mooney

Recruiting via the Internet has been widely touted as the only way forward for recruitment technology. Whilst the demise of traditional media has been greatly exaggerated, one area of undoubted growth has been the 'must have' careers section on the company website. Almost every FTSE 100 Company has a Careers Centre of sorts and barely a week goes by without a Unigate or Falkirk Council espousing the cost saving of taking recruitment on-line. However, even though articles talk of financial benefits derived by recruiting successful applicants, what about potential applicants who don't apply? Are you missing out? Do you know why people apply to your company, or more importantly why they don't? It seems obvious 'if they can't apply, then they won't apply.'

In all the excitement to get on the net, companies have lost sight of their customer, the applicant. 'User experience' has become a business buzzword within Internet design circles but is virtually ignored within the recruitment industry. If you were launching a new brand of cola you would do some research, right? Well, what's the difference with your careers website? Placing the user (or applicant) at the centre of your careers centre web-site design will dramatically increase the number of applicants and consequently, the financial return from your site. For example, recent studies have shown that successful Internet recruitment can saves you £5000 per hire.

Unfortunately, the bottom line is that most Careers Centres are unusable. We've all visited a web-site where we can't easily find what we need, so we've found another site that does. If your careers site is frustratingly slow to load, difficult to use with complicated navigation then your competitors will receive the application that you missed. (This counts manyfold if you are a recruitment website because your careers centre is your company!). Usability testing could transform your site from a dog to a cash cow. For example, a 200% increase in click-throughs from home pages is not uncommon. Usability is about getting back to the recruitment basics - without applications you can't make hires.

Have you got a map?
Would you invite an interviewee, and potential employee, to your site but neglect to give them a map and then let them wander round the building? Of course not, but that's what careers site do every day. By knowing your user you can make it easy for them to apply to, and become excited about, your company. The internet job seeker is 'task oriented' - wanting to get in and out of your site quickly. If they is applying from work they don't want to draw attention through flashy animations or music. At home they wouldn't want to sit on a telephone line for two hours trying to apply. If you are an IT software company with an unusable careers website then what will be the applicants first impression?

Show me the money!
By increasing site usability, you make it easier for applicants to apply - so creating a larger candidate pool. Once you've got the ultimate in usable sites you can add more rigorous selection criteria to handle your new found higher volumes of candidates. What a great problem to have! Of course, the financial implications are huge. The £5000 saving per careers site hire is obvious, and reason enough to generate a business case. Reduced time-to-fill is a given. Harder to measure will be the applications from high quality passive candidates who now apply because it's so much simpler than before. Remember, even the best employer brand means nothing if applicants can't apply.

Next Steps
Find out more about usability. Read a book or dip into a website. Find a way to get your site reviewed by your users. If you've got a budget for a professional company with trained psychologists then give your site the overhaul it deserves. The return on investment justifies the expense. If you can't afford that, then let your recent joiners or your HR team try out your site's usability. If you do this before any expensive IT developers touch your site, you'll stop mistakes before they happen. Even better, if you're redesigning your site you can save up to 90% of your IT redesign budget!

Sion Mooney
Strategic Recruitment Specialist, with extensive experience in Internet recruitment. Recent clients include Motorola and GlaxoSmithKline.

The Power of the Usability Lab - by David Bomphrey

Usability Evaluations can be carried out almost anywhere using little or no equipment other than that needed to run the application that is being tested. So why bother paying the extra and having your testing carried out in specialised Usability Laboratories using advanced equipment and monitoring facilities? Well the answer, as one might expect from Usability Specialists, is both simple and complex.

The simple answer is that you get a larger number of findings and more certainty that the findings you have are accurate. Another aspect is that the client and all the stakeholders get a fantastic opportunity to observe members of their target audience actually using their site, service or software to complete common tasks. This can be a huge eye opener for the team and will often reveal activity that ends internal debate about usage.

The more complex answer gives further insight as to why this is the case.

A purpose-built Usability Lab provides a controlled yet realistic environment for testing applications and other products. It allows many of the variables, such as outside interruption and technology differences to be controlled. By controlling them they can be accounted for, and their impact assessed. This will allow some analysis of the impact of these variables to take place. This insight into the product would be discussed in any final report where assessment of these variables was included in the original project brief. The findings can then be reported to the client. This would be extremely difficult to achieve under different circumstances and so the benefit in this case is two fold:

Another benefit of lab testing is the removal of distractions. In the real world or when testing outside a lab, participants and in some cases moderators can be distracted from the testing they are carrying out. This could be by telephone calls, email or questions from other staff. There is also the potential that participants can be "put off" or feel under pressure to respond in certain ways when they are not at an independent location. Creating a relaxed and independent environment will increase the number of findings and help to ensure that each finding is factually correct.

When testing in a lab environment the moderator and the company leading the testing is also generally supported by technology. This would normally be audio and video recording. There are multiple benefits to this procedure and it may not be possible to create such a record in other environments.

The first benefit of video recording is that no matter how good a moderator may be, without it, they simply will not be able to record every single comment, facial expression and interaction a user may make. The power of a video recording is that the moderator can go back after the event and double check the notes they made to ensure that they haven't missed any significant factors. The recording will also allow other interested parties to see the recording of the test and if necessary for the evaluation to be reassessed to gain further insights into the product than was initially reported. A third benefit of video recording is that a highlights tape of users failing to complete certain sections of a task will provide a perfect illustration of why recommendations for changes can be made and should be implemented.

Usability testing labs also provide viewing facilities. The value of this cannot be underestimated. The ability for stakeholders to watch users stumbling over sections of a product that are close to their heart may be painful but should inform good designers and businesses with solid reasons for changing their products.

The Usability Company has two brand new, purpose built labs to control all the above-mentioned parameters. They are fully sound proofed and allow clients to hear and observe exactly what is happening in the test room, via multiple remote monitors with picture in picture capability and a hi-fi sound system. You don't have to take our word for the benefits, come and watch for yourselves!

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