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I’m amazed, though not surprised, how revealing and informative field trips can be. Three episodes into Undercover Boss, a reality TV series by CBS, it becomes obvious how easy it is for upper management to get disconnected from the base, for a CEO to know little to nothing about its employees and their work conditions, for a corporate policy being counterproductive. High-level assumptions don’t live up to their expectations, prove to be ineffective, are misinterpreted or simply not useful at all.

For all that haven’t seen the show yet, each episode of the show features a senior executive at a major corporation working incognito as a new entry-level hire in his or her company for one week, to find out how the company really works and identify some of the unsung heroes among the employees.

Setting the stage

The show usually starts with the CEO of the corporation entering a board meeting revealing his plan to go undercover. I enjoy seeing the directors’ mouths dropping with shear fear in their faces of the possible outcome and its consequences. Could it be that they know something might be wrong? Or not perfect?

Learning the hard way

The undercover boss assumes a new identity and with the excuse of being filmed for a documentary on a person working entry-level jobs in several different industries (or similar) starts digging dirt for Waste Mangement, cleaning dishes at Hooters or serving coffee at 7-Eleven.

We see a woman that has to pee in a can for lack of time to make a toilet stop en route, store lights that cannot be replaced within a 30-day window, a restaurant manager having his employees competing in degrading games so the winner can leave early. All examples of failed management and policies with huge potential for change!

We also live with some incredible and heartbreaking stories of inspiring people that are on dialysis or waiting for a kidney transplant but still work hard and motivated. A guy that works long nights to finance his studies but without perspective within the company, something is not going right here.
All these people are invaluable to any company but unfortunately mostly overlooked, another missed chance of finding hidden potential. Some of them with incredible skills that are simply not needed at their current job position but might be essential in another. Where to go?

Overall, the experience is eye-opening and a dedication to humanity, the revelation that every “position” is held by a person, that every “customer relation” is an interaction between people, that every “policy” directly or indirectly affects the life of an employee.

Catharsis

Finally the CEO, overwhelmed by his experiences, seems cleansed by his experiences and vows to correct the disgrace before it becomes outrage. In the show the boss reveals his true identity to the employees and like a big family they watch clips from the show, laugh, cheer and live happily ever after.

Effect on UX

Field studies, a widely accepted and practiced method of user-centered design, seems to find its way into the conscience of the American (and British – the show is based on the 2009 British Channel 4 series of the same name) viewers. It appears as the obvious thing to do.

My very positive take-away from the show is that without knowing, managers, directors and CEO’s will ask for more involvement of the base (real people), will involve field studies or user testing in their methodology which surely won’t disappointed them. Their insights will improve the live of their employees (the society) and gain considerable business advantages over their competition in the long run.

Am I dreaming or reaching for the stars? Let me know what you think?

Scenario

The application sends out automated emails with links to a report that was requested by the user and created by the application. The sender address is ‘no-reply@company.com’ and obviously not meant to receive any further correspondence.

As it turns out, this exact no-reply email alias receives ‘feedback’ almost on a daily basis, some valuable and constructive, others from painfully true to filled with hatred, meaningless and doubtful.

Here an example:

Thx….this rocks……I am soooo gonna use u for this shit

What should we do with this answer?

Learn!

It is important that you hear something… anything… that you give your users a channel to voice their experience from which you can/should learn and grow. Don’t label them ’stupid’ just because they “didn’t get it”, all the opposite, maybe YOU didn’t get it because a reply to an incoming email seems intuitive and picking up the phone or opening a web browser with a link to a feedback form isn’t.

Lessons

So what can be learned from something seemingly unwanted – or to say it differently: not anticipated?

• Take your customers serious.
• Turn supposedly unwanted correspondence into contextual insight (observations drawn from data that resonates with an understanding of the business).
• Turn them into business opportunities. Let them help you make better and faster decisions or simply improve the quality and perception of your application.
• Optimize your automated emails following the guidelines for transactional email

Do it like Facebook. When Facebook realized that their users reply to email notifications about let’s say comments on a picture of them, they simply turned those replies into a comment on the comment.
On the downside, less users go to the actual site to post the comment and continue using the service but on the upside the communication doesn’t stop and becomes more real-time and valuable. A little give is a little more take I would say. Right on!

Today is World Usability Day (check out events in your area)!

What is World Usability Day?

“World Usability Day was founded in 2005 as an initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, on the second Thursday of November, over 200 events are organized in over 43 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.”

“It’s about making our world work better. It’s about “Making Life Easy” and user friendly. Technology today is too hard to use.”

A word about Usability

Usability is well-defined but often simply summarized in three key questions:

• Who are your users?
• What are their goals?
• How can you help them achieve those goals?

Another Key Question to Ask

Today and here I want add another key question that businesses need to ask themselves:

• What is the business reason for supporting this goal (=task)?

Without asking this question it’s really hard to generate revenue and being successful in both, terms of business and metrics to evaluate success. As a side-note: It also gets more difficult to sell the benefits of Usability and it’s methodologies to stakeholders.

Yes, you heard right, “Newsletter”, this old-fashioned, ‘traditional’ thing that pollutes our mailboxes. Well, at least according to Jakob Nielsen email newsletters are more powerful than stream-based media (RSS or other social media feeds) in terms of maintaining a customer relationship, i.e. because newsletters need to be deleted manually versus ‘dropping off’ the users’ main page.

5 Newsletters well worth following

Alertbox

Jakob’s column on Web usability is probably the most prominent and longest running newsletter out there. Jakob has been publishing his research results and findings in his bi-weekly ‘Alertbox’ since 1995.

Subscribe to Alertbox

UIEtips

Jared M. Spool and his team publish their high-quality research, interviews with grands like Luke Wroblewski, Donna Spencer, Dana Chisnell et al and special offers on User Interface Engineering. Like Nielsen he’s been around for ages and their conference is on sequel 14 this year.

Subscribe to UIEtips

SURL

The Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) was initiated in the Fall 1998 under the direction of Barbara S. Chaparro who has over 19 years of experience designing and evaluating user interfaces and conducting research in human-computer interaction (HCI). The goal of the lab is to provide usability services and research to the software development community and to train students on HCI with real-world projects.

Subscribe to SURL

Measuring Usability

Jeff Sauro maintains a very interesting site & newsletter at Measuring Usability. He has been pushing the limits of usability engineering for a few years now in the hopes of moving toward more objective implementations of user data. His articles are published irregularly but when they are, they deliver.

Subscribe to Measuring Usability

UI Design Newsletter

Every month Human Factors International (HFI) reviews the most useful developments in user interface research from major conferences and publications. Their UI Design Newsletter covers the full range of human-computer interaction, including development, HCI issues, I/O devices, multimedia, documentation, and training.

Subscribe to UI Design Newsletter

You know another Newsletter?

Have I missed something? Post it in the comments section.

No doubt, user testing increases the usability and acceptance of your website and can/should be done as early as possible, preferably during Prototyping.

The following blog entry discusses the advantages & disadvantages of remote user testing, describes time estimates & costs and explains how a session looks like using Techsmith’s UserVue.

General Discussion

Advantages

• Reduced (or no) travel time and expenses.
• Higher exposure through easy screen sharing (managers can sneak in easily).
• Actual user environment, familiar and comfortable.
• Possibly fewer drop-outs.

Disadvantages

• Facilitator not physically present (degree of separation can be challenging).
• Can’t see facial expressions or non-verbal cues.
• Difficult to build rapport and trust.
• Difficult to control environment.
• Possibly technical difficulties (firewall, etc.).
• Setup and use of software or usability lab might be challenging and requires a liaison.

Time estimates & Costs

Task Breakdown

The following time estimates are to be taken with a grain of salt, they can change significantly up or down depending on the project size, experience of the team and infrastructure.

• Preparation (18 hours)
  • User screening: 8 hours
  • Task creation: 8 hours
  • Environment: 2 hours
• User testing (10 hours)
  • 2 hours per user
  • 5 users per round
• Post-test (32 hours)
  • Test report: 16 hours
  • Implementation: 12 hours
  • Communication: 4 hours

Summary: Our Time

1 Round = 60 hours
2 Rounds = 110 hrs.
3 Rounds = 160 hrs.

+ User comps
+ Time additional observers

How it works

Software

UserVue

UserVue is a Remote user testing software that enables a Facilitator to remotely observe a Participant using a phone line for communication. Multiple Observers can passively join the Session and share their observations with the Facilitator.

Morae Manager

Morae Manager uses the collected data (observation markers and notes, video, keyboard and mouse inputs) to analyze and calculate task times, error quotes and other common measurements.

Session

A Session is initiated by the Facilitator. Invitation emails are being sent to the Participant and Observer(s).

At the announced time all the involved parties need to download a small software bundle that allows them to connect to the UserVue software. The Facilitator then calls the Participant and gives instructions on how to start the Session.

After the session has ended the installed software bundle will be removed from computers of the involved parties.

Participant Requirements

Operating System

Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP or later version of Windows.

Web Browser

Internet Explorer 5.0 or later, Firefox 1.0 or later.

JavaScript

Enabling JavaScript is recommended.

Security?

All communication with the UserVue Web site is performed over an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer transport mechanism (HTTPS). All session data is encrypted with a 128-bit Blowfish cipher as it is sent over the network.

Can anyone “eavesdrop” on my session?

All session data (including audio, video, chat data, etc.) is encrypted with a 128-bit Blowfish cipher as it is sent over the network. This makes it exceedingly difficult for anyone to intercept and observe session data.

Are copies of my session data stored anywhere?

No copies of session data are stored on any server. The only recording happens directly on the facilitator’s computer. Session data may pass through TechSmith’s servers to facilitate firewall and NAT traversal. However, this data is never stored. Also, this data is undecipherable as it is in an encrypted form as it passes through TechSmith’s servers.

What are your experiences with Remote User Testing?

References

• Bolt, N.; Guide to Remote Usability Testing; http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/article/2006/07/guide-to-remote-usability-testing.html
• Gough, D., Phillips, H.; Remote Online Usability Testing: Why, How, and When to Use It; http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/remote_online_usability_testing_why_how_and_when_to_use_it

In my daily work I’m constantly confronted with developments for government sites. Often I hear confusion in what needs to be achieved, who needs to be served and especially why it should matter.

Listening into a Webcast by Human Factors International (download white paper on Designing the e-government experience through citizen-centered usability, March 2008) gave me additional insights that I want to summarize and present here:

Goals of eGovernment

The web offers governmental sites the potential for increased operational efficiency and cost reductions while improving access to information and services for their citizens.

Levels of interaction between these two actors (government & citizens) include:

• Connect citizens with legislative offices
• Communicate faster and more targeted
• Leverage access to public services (enhanced productivity with reduced effort)

Steps to improve eGovernment

Traditionally the government has three main functions:

1. Report
2. Transact
3. Interact

What can be done to improve these functions/processes?

Get it out there

• What information is interesting?
• What is already available?

Make it useful & usable

• Pre-digest the information (e.g. into charts, comparisons, …)
• Understand the citizen’s needs (e.g. Spanish language, search, text size, …)
• Assist citizen’s in finding the information (sometimes they don’t know it exists)
• Avoid: limited business focus, internal focus, lack of shared resource

Provide self-service

• Assist citizens to walk through business logic (avoid unnecessary pages, forms, fields, …)

Track improvement

• Establish a baseline (best practices review, scorecard, usability testing success rates, web analytics, call center volume, server logs, …)
• Validate improvements (success rate, task time) & seek for support within your organization for doing this
• Continuously track usage
• Why? Avoid falling back in national ranking, reduce costs for service calls, …

Make it engaging

• “Will? Can?” Will citizens use the service? Can they find it?
• Make it exciting
• Use experiences or technologies that are current and up to date (videos, gadgets, …)

Embrace the future

• Become creative to engage citizens in governmental issues (using the citizen’s language), e.g. upload a photo of the damaged street (http://www.fixmystreet.com/)
• Encourage citizens to interact through social tools

Erase boundaries

• Integration of “Report”, “Transact” and “Interact” means to remove the disparity between organizational structures of governments and the mental models of the citizens
• Understand and channel the motivation of citizens to use online services
• Integrate offers from multiple agencies into one comprehensible user experience

Start a movement

• Create a community by involving State & Agency Leadership, Agency CIO’s and Webmasters
• Recognition and adoption are key aspects
• Embrace the chaos
• Provide useful & usable tools
• Reward contributions & demonstrate progress
• View webmasters as a partner, not as recipient

Transparency

• The user’s perspective of the organization and the actual organizational structures are mostly very different. Citizens should not need to know how an agency is organized or be familiar with its terminology.
• Focus on the citizen means to understand how they look for information!
• Integrate internal processes into one intelligent solution (iGov = integrated Government)
• Understanding the level of literacy is key to success. Easy language assists citizens in filling out bureaucratic forms.

Government must view itself as a business

• Attract and satisfy citizens. Beware of competition and consider concepts like ‘brand loyalty’. Effective interaction adds benefits to citizens.
• Convert visitors into customers meaning that citizens become active online users of the services.
• Broaden the focus onto international audience which is important to attract entrepreneurship and investment capital and is a good indicator of a strong technology market and research and development environment.

Assistance through technology, tools and continuous improvement

• Support CIO’s and webmasters through tools like design templates, standards, guidelines and an effective means of governance.
• Adjust technology to changing market conditions, population demographics and the user’s level of expectations.
• Create a culture and long-term commitment (=institutionalization) of usability within the agency!
• Establish a baseline of improvement and continuously validate and improve through benchmarks.

Your thoughts?

I’d like to hear your feedback and if you have applied one or many of above techniques in your agency and what your experiences were.

References

• Straub, K., Gerrol, S.; Designing the e-government experience through citizen-centered usability; Human Factors International, Inc.; White paper; March 6, 2008

We, the people, have been around for quite some years now. Computers, software, applications and the web not so much. Therefore it is clear that applications have to adjust to the people and not the other way round.

Many design principles have developed throughout the decades, but the main difference of user-centered design to others is that

UCD tries to optimize the user interface around how people can, want, or need to work, rather than forcing the users to change how they work to accommodate the system or function.

Purpose of UCD

UCD answers questions about users and their tasks and goals, then use the findings to make decisions about development and design.

UCD seeks to answer the following questions:

• Who are the users of the application?
• What are the users’ main tasks and goals?
• What are the users’ experience levels with the application?
• What functions do the users need from the application?
• What information might the users need, and in what form do they need it?
• How do users think the application should work?

Benefits & Return of Investment

• Increased usability
  • Higher degree of customer satisfaction
  • Continued business
  • Higher revenues
• Project management optimization
  • Focus on important functionality early
  • Unforeseen user requirements
• Reduced costs
  • Training costs
  • Help-Desk calls and service costs

UCD Principles

• Focus on users’ needs, tasks and goals
• Spend time on initial research and requirements
  • Identify your target audience and observe them (accomplishing their tasks)
  • Let users define product requirements
• Emphasis on iterative design process
• Evaluate system on real target users

Summary

Nobody could state it simpler than Susan Dray: “If the user can’t use it, it doesn’t work”.

Are your clients asking to add features upon features to your application because they think it will boost their success? This might really harm them and therefore you in the long run. Here is why:

Feature Fatigue

A study by Harvard Business Review (Defeating Feature Fatigue) has found that the features of a product mattered more to participants (customers) before they bought a product but after the purchase the actual satisfaction was greater with the simpler version of the product.

That means that customers think they want feature-loaded offerings while they are shopping but once they start using their purchase, they suffer feature fatigue: they become overwhelmed by the product’s complexity and annoyed by features they realize they don’t want or need.

There is an inverse relation between expected utility and experienced utility. The turning point is the purchase and subsequent use of the product.

Say NO to your Clients

It’s been common knowledge for some time and we all kinda felt it and even saw it with our own eyes with products like the Flip camcorder taking 13% of the market with doing less. I can find plenty of useful features for my new search portal but the reason why google is so successful is because they perfected their main task and prevented adding useful but unnecessary features to their portal.
So now you know why you should say NO to your clients when they brainstorm cool and sexy features.

What you should do

• Design products with just enough features to stimulate sales
• Ensure the features are easy enough to use once the customers start using them.
• Provide a variety of simpler application, each tailored to a particular task.
• Remind your client and your team about the main task that enables their users to do something outstanding.

What it is

A focus group is a moderated discussion that lasts about two hours and covers a range of pre-selected topics.

In traditional focus groups, a screened (qualified target audience) group of respondents gathers in the same room. A moderator guides the group through a loosely structured discussion that probes attitudes about a client’s proposed products or services. The moderator is typically given a list of objectives or an anticipated outline. Additional questions might serve to initiate open-ended discussions.

When to use

Requirements phase

Cost

High

Output

Non-Statistical

Sample Size

6-9 users

Pro’s / Gains

• Discover what users want/desire/belief
• Observe group dynamics and organizational issues
• Show users spontaneous reactions and ideas

Con’s / Disadvantages

• Don’t trust what people say or pretend to do
• Possible bias through specialized groups

How to perform

• Select representative participants.
• Identify problem area (what you want to learn).
• Prepare a script for the moderator to follow.
• Hire a skilled moderator (facilitator).
• Allow flexibility during the test to keep the discussion flowing.
• Tape and/or observe the test.
• Create good notes of the test.

References

• Usability.gov; Focus Groups; http://www.usability.gov/methods/focusgroup.html
• Nielsen, J.; The Use and Misuse of Focus Groups; http://www.useit.com/papers/focusgroups.html
• wikipedia; Focus Group; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group

I just came back from an extended trip to Las Vegas, a fascinating city for a multitude of reasons. Not only is it the fastest-growing city in the US, it is also constantly transforming and reinventing itself, a Disneyland for grown-ups, gambling capital of the world, vacation spot for one and Sin City for others. It became evident to me that this city offers more than just pleasure, it teaches us how to attract, entertain and keep us happy despite the fact that we are loosing our money, which means they must be doing something right. Here are my 10 Webpage Design Lessons learned from a trip to Las Vegas… seriously:

1.) Don’t Listen to Users

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, the motto of Las Vegas is a true #1 (who ever came up with that slogan is a genius in my eyes)! When asking your fiance/fiancee about his/her bachelor party … pardon … when designing an easy-to-use interface, pay attention to what users do, not what they say. Jacob Nielsen states that self-reported data is typically three steps removed from the truth:

• People bend the truth to be closer to what they think you want to hear or what’s socially acceptable.
• In telling you what they do, people are really telling you what they remember doing.
• In reporting what they do remember, people rationalize their behavior.

Lesson: Perform user tests as early as possible (e.g. design phase).

2.) Optimize your Top Task

Marriage is wonderful and so is the wedding day, at least mine was. Of course I blacked out the six months of preparation and swet that lead to that event. Now, Vegas wasn’t Vegas without finding a way to optimize the wedding experience: A 24-hour drive-thru wedding chapel called A Little White Chapel Tunnel of Love. “Ahem, yes, Combo 2 with two wedding rings, a bouquet and the Elvis… can you make it ‘Love me tender’ please?” – “120 Dollars at the first window please.”

Lesson: Identify and optimize your top task.

3.) Direct your Users

Once inside a Casino it is incredibly difficult to find your way out – I’m not certain but I would take any bet that exactly this is the purpose of a Casino designer. More than once I found myself in a maze of slot machines surrounded by their ringing noise and flashing lights. Whatever I was looking for (except ATM’s) seemed always to be at the other end of the Casino.
Design your page in a way that helps users find their way around but at the same time support your business model, e.g. Amazon has perfected the process of returning articles and submitting online or email support request but made it really difficult to find a phone support number which would seriously compromise their business income.

Lesson: Create a logical Information Architecture; add links to related items; cross-reference articles.

4.) Make it Easy to Learn

Casino games are mostly very easy to learn, don’t you agree? It can’t get any easier than inserting your bills, hitting the main button on the front panel or operating the lever to the side, wait until the reels have stopped spinning, compare the pattern of symbols on the reels with the possible winning combinations stated to the top of the machine and cash in the jackpot.
The actual difficult part is to get the people to play or use the machines. That’s when the Casino offers free lessons and sections with machines that pay well, everything to get you started.

Lesson: Help novice users to learn and avoid frustration by offering easy entry tasks.

5.) Provide relevant and attractive Content

Vegas has realized very early that sex-appeal and show makes a great combination, but it was limited to mostly the male population and that’s when the city started to transform itself into a family-friendly, theme-park like vacation destination with Castles, Musicals, Rollercoasters in and around the Casinos, 3D rides and more. Free drinks, cheap buffets, Day-Spa’s and a variety of other promotions added to the perfect experience. Attractive entertainment options could still be found at any corner in the form of bars, clubs and shows but lately I recognize a shift back to more go-go style entertainment in newly created bars in between the slot machines and tables. I guess the family-style hasn’t really worked out.

Lesson: Create attractive content that is relevant to your target audience; test and adjust if necessary.

6.) Make it Easy to Enter

Casinos do everything to get you into their building. Almost free (two dollar tip is ok) valet parking allows you to drop off your car quickly and one-directional moving walkways (obviously you need to walk back) shovel you inside, that’s where the music plays… Get the people where they want to be as quickly and easy as possible, show me the money!

Lesson: Avoid splash screens and flash intros; keep page sizes small.

7.) Avoid Windows and Clocks

There are two things you will never find in a Casino: windows and clocks. Right, nothing should distract your focus on the slot machines to the other wonderful Casinos outside and nobody wants to encourage you to make time-sensitive decisions (leaving the Casino early) by realizing how much time (and money) you have already spent during your visit.

Lesson: Avoid popup windows and time-sensitive triggers or forwarders.

8.) Make Sign-up Easy

Even though 100% of players think they can win only 1% will win. The only safe way to win in Las Vegas is to sign up for a Players Club. Handing over your name and address to the Casino will in many cases give you an immediate bonus of 5 or 10 bucks in free slot play, discount coupons for drinks and shows as well as little Thank you presents (wink-wink, Tropicana gives you a free T-Shirt and a deck of playing cards). Gambling itself is then rewarded through comps like more gifts, free buffets, free hotel rooms, free show tickets and more. I’m 11 cards richer now
Well, the sign-up process was easy enough, the only interaction with the clerk was handing over my drivers license and entering a PIN twice. Guess what, sure enough I always hit the Enter key after entering the PIN which wasn’t very well received by the system and the clerk. I don’t even know why I ended up apologizing. Why in the world can’t the system take care of that? Another day, another Casino, another Keypad, yes, another keypad, it was an actual computer keypad which is reverse to an ATM keypad and thus reverse to ALL the other keypads. Try your ATM PIN on your keyboard right now … exactly!

Lesson: Anticipate input errors and handle them gracefully; use common and widely accepted interfaces.

9.) Monitor User Behavior

There is no way one could walk into a Casino and cheat undetected. The famous ‘Eye in the Sky‘ is omni-present. 24/7 ‘Surround’-Surveillance captures every movement, every face and every deal. That doesn’t really worry me as long as they keep on bringing the free beer. It is clear that this kind of monitoring helps the Casinos to optimize their winnings not only by preventing cheats but also by detecting patterns in playing behavior and machine pay-out/malfunctions. I don’t see a threat in it as long as my face isn’t connected with the data collected.

Lesson: Use Server Traffic Log Analysis and Search Log Analysis to optimize your website.

10.) Make it Sexy

Sexy is probably the attribute I hear most often lately, it’s not ’slick’ or ‘beautiful’ anymore, it’s ’sexy’ now. That’s fine with me if only I knew what that means. Any ideas? Send them to me…
Anyway, what would be a blog about Vegas without mentioning sexy at least twice, huh?

Cheers and good luck!