If you’re often on the move going from one meeting to another, or you’re on the train to and from work regularly you’ll often experience those moments where you have ideas about your site that you wish you could do something with while they’re fresh. Perhaps you’ve just come from a productive meeting with your design team to discuss changes to your site, or you’re on your way home from work and an idea strikes you. Here are 5 iPhone apps that can help you maintain, manage and improve your website user experience.

Read & Note

This app includes a full-screen browser which allows you to annotate a web page, or copy and paste from a website. With this app you could browse the web for inspiration, make amends to your current website copy, plan user tests, or use it to annotate web pages to pass to your design and development teams to look at. This app is so versatile it could even be used to share and upload documents for access to importand documents while on the go.

Additional information: iTunes Preview , App Website

iBlue Sky

iBlue Sky is an easy to use mind mapping tool allowing users to capture ideas, organise and re-order them all in one place. Mind mapping is a fantastic method to capture and make sense of ideas after meetings and can be an excellent way to structure your thoughts on the way home from observing user tests.

In addition to capturing ideas and notes in one place, this app can be used to draw up site structures and reorganise entire sections of a website. When you’re done you can export it as a PDF or PNG to email to yourself or directly to your team for feedback.

Additional information: iTunes Preview , App Website , YouTube Video Demo

Sketches 2

Sketches as the name would suggest allows users to create basic sketches. Users can create simple diagrams or wireframes while on the move. We also liked this app because in addition to illustrating basic concepts you can take a screenshot* of a web page and then use the app to draw boxes, arrows and new buttons. It is a fantastic tool to facilitate quick and dirty amends and recommendations to designs.

We also found the tool to be extremely useful in sending directions to friends or colleagues by taking a screen capture of a map and drawing quick lines to show the route to take and the final destination.

Additional information: iTunes Preview , App Website

* To take a screenshot, press and hold the Home button at the bottom of the iPhone and then press the ‘sleep’ button at the top of the iPhone. The screen will flash and make a camera sound, then when you navigate to your photos on the ‘camera roll’ you’ll see your screenshot.

Analytics

This well designed App allows you to review Google Analytics for your site on the iPhone. With access to data wherever you are you can use it to research and refine your website improvements using understanding from current user behaviour. We’ve found it particularly useful in preparation for a meeting to get access to the data to help firm up an idea before discussing it with the team.

Additional information: iTunes Preview , App Website , YouTube Video Demo

Work Timer

Although this app is designed to help people keep track of the time spent working on different projects, we’ve found it can be useful in timing tasks for on the fly user tests. Say you’ve got an idea that there’s a usability problem with your site. You’re round a friends house and you’d like to get them to complete some tasks on the site for you. Rather than setting up the timers to track hours for different projects, the app can be used to track the time it takes a user to complete a set of different tasks. There’s a very simple play and pause feature and when the test is complete you can email the results to yourself. It’s far from perfect as a usability tool but it can be useful to allow you to focus on what users are doing while gathering some interesting data to understand which tasks take longer than others to complete.

Additional information: iTunes Preview , App Website

Instaviz

Defining simple user flow charts is an essential process in working out how a site will support users in completing their goals. When coming up with a new idea for the site this App is great in allowing you to capture your thinking in a logical flow chart to map out how the site will react to each user interaction. Essentially this app allows you to draw up flows on the move just like you can on a whiteboard.

Additional information: iTunes Preview , App Website , YouTube Video Demo

Which apps do you think should be included in this list?

Related services: App Usability

To survive the day to day dangers of using the Internet I use a range of passwords, user names, and email addresses, all created to make my online world more secure. And, like most people we observe in user testing, am pretty used to having to answer or create a security question when registering on websites.

But this one caused me quite a while of hesitation…

Can you see why?

Why do security questions cause such a usability problem?

I was applying for tickets to the 2012 London Olympics (above), and I was offered three security questions. I provide these below with an explanation of why I was unsure what to do:

What is your best friend’s name?

This caused me a few concerns. Firstly, I consider myself to be pretty even to my close friends and don’t regard any of them as a ‘best friend’. Secondly, I would actually feel guilty if I had to choose one over others. Thirdly, I wouldn’t remember which friend I chose when I come back to the site in January to get my tickets. Maybe I should have chosen my wife!

Who is your favourite sportsperson?

I’m 34. I like football. When there is no football, I follow a bit of tennis, some athletics when it is on, and the odd game of rugby. I don’t have a favourite sportsperson. If I had to choose one now, how would I remember this in five months time when I return to the site?

What is your favourite food?

I’m a bit of a foody. I dabble in cooking but am lost without Jamie Oliver. So I like lots of food. Asking for my favourite food is like asking for my favourite song, or movie. It completely depends on how I’m feeling. So when I’m asked this question in August, I’m feeling summer food; barbeques, Mediterranean, crazy salads, summer fruits. When I’m asked in January it will be comfort food, hearty food, soups and pies.

So the common issue I had with all these questions was that I simply could not answer any of them with confidence. I had a discussion with my wife. I pondered. I questioned. In the end I just had to jump in a choose one with the expectation that I’ll struggle with this next time I come to use the site. What kind of user experience is that?

What makes a good security question?

The reason for these security questions is to back up who you are should you forget your other security details (username, passwords, etc.) and testing often proves inconclusive in finding the ultimate security question, especially if your audience is international.

When asking a security question, the question and answer should be:-

• Easy for an individual to answer confidently
• Not obvious enough for hackers to guess or research
• Not subjective, open to interpretation, or reliant on mood and feeling
• There can clearly be only one answer

Yahoo! attempt and tackle this with a range of options for users to choose. As long as you’re not a young and single only child to a single mum who has no siblings! Which just shows how difficult a problem this is!

The commonality with good security questions that we come across are those asking for firsts; your first pet’s name, your first school, your first musical instrument. But like any security question we can come up with, there will be a percentage of users who can’t answer it.

In some cases, users are able to write their own question and answer. However, this poses an issue for websites that need good security because users may choose an easy question (for someone else to guess), i.e. Who won the World Cup in 2010?

How do we instil good usability and incorporate a security question?

I’m no expert in online security, but we use PIN numbers for our bank and credit cards, so could this system be added to secure websites?

If we must use security questions, allow users to have some control but ensure the answers are not easy. Ask users to complete a question, and provide an answer. For example:

This would require usability testing in contex before it was used. But it may help to make the process easier for users to create a more secure secret question.

We would be very keen to hear how other people have resolved this issue. What good and bad examples of security questions have you come across?

Related services: Usability Testing & Information Architecture

It is fair to say that the Web has changed shopping in some major ways over the years. From the initial rush to provide bricks and mortar stores with a wider profile and client base, to the monsters of Amazon and eBay, shopping has changed forever, and will continue to evolve.

The current problem is the static nature of e-commerce where most online stores use pictures and some descriptive text. That can be fine for books and boxed product, but there are many product types where a more immersive, higher fidelity experience is required.

Despite some high-profile attempts to change that (Boo.com, anyone?), it has taken longer for the hardware and the marketeers to catch up. But now shopping is ready to move to the next level, changing the user experience forever.

iPad Shopping Mock Up from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Who says the pictures in your catalog  have to stand still?

New technology can make a big difference to user experience

As you can see, when selling clothes, having the ability to see how a dress hangs, how it floats or flows or how the cut of jeans looks can really help make up a buyer’s mind. Our usability research shows that online shoppers really want to see the product in the same way they can in a physical store. While this is only a mock-up, it won’t be too long before online retailers catch on to providing the kind of experience shoppers are hoping for.

It will also only be another couple of development steps to reach the point where an avatar of the buyer’s proportions can be used to show how the clothes will fit you and the exact size you would need to order.

Stores like Gap are already preparing tightly integrated apps for Apple’s iPad and the portable, instant-on nature of tablets and smartphones means that shoppers will be able to buy on a whim, just as they do when perusing the high street.

Retailers must remain focused on user needs and not just cool new features

User experience designers will need to work very closely with media creators to make their store look just as good as the top apps. Just as shoppers wouldn’t buy from a tatty, grubby store, they won’t buy from a poor-looking website.

Navigation will play a key part in designing a successful site where buyers will want to go freely from the dress, to the belt, to accessories (appropriate to the main item) without meandering through menus or hordes of unsuitable items. Retailers will need to remain focused on usability and information architecture and be careful not to get too carried away with exciting new technology.

Improving the user experience without overcomplicating things will take great effort. Portable devices like the iPad will provide experiences better suited to natural browsing but retailers will need to be careful not to get carried away with the technical capabilities and ‘whats cool’ and keep focusing on what users really need from the experience.

Have you seen any good examples of what online retail will look like?

Related service: e-commerce usability

In 2006, the face of video gaming changed when Nintendo introduced its Wii console. This allowed the machine to sense the player’s input as they moved the controller around. Suddenly, players could jump, wave, bat, swordfight and perform many other actions through motion sensing technology. More importantly, it helped the public get used to the idea of a computer sensing their actions.

Now, Sony has unveiled a higher-fidelity equivalent called Move, while Microsoft unveiled its Kinect gadget for the Xbox 360. Kinect is of particular interest as it has a camera and infra-red sensor that monitors the user’s actions. Without any kind of controller, users can interact with games via gestures and motion.

Beyond games and novelties, this technology, with software developed by PrimeSense, an Israeli company,  will soon be flooding into television sets, computers and public kiosks. At its simplest, end users can interact with systems via hand and arm movements. But, with a little effort and further refinement in fidelity, developers can use the cameras and clever software to focus on where the user is looking, or it could be trained to focus on the face, looking for emotional cues.

This information can be fed back to system designers (be it interactive menus, websites, kiosks or banking ATMs) to help them design better systems, interfaces and improve user experience. Mixing the two ideas, if users are observed to ignore one part of a website, then designers will learn this through feedback and can work on enhancing that area through visual design. If sensors detect confusion in people reading part of a site or document, then what they are looking at can be highlighted and checked for clarity. This has some fascinating implications for the future of user centred design.

In the not too distant future, banking systems can check for honesty in customers withdrawing money (think having Tom Roth’s character from Lie To Me in every ATM) to detect card fraud. At a more practical level, interface designers can have a field day building systems with all sorts of practical feedback loops, as David Leggett’s UX Booth article demonstrates.

So, without getting all 1984 on us, what do you expect from advances in this technology that could assist user experience development, interface and site design?

When our clients observe usability tests we are careful to encourage them not to focus too much on what users say and instead look at what they do. On many occasions users will tell us that they liked a website, and found it easy to use. But just the opposite was true from our observations. They struggled to use the site and spent a long time being confused when making navigation decisions.

Why does this happen? If you’re asked why you did something (why did you select the button on the bottom right instead of the button on the bottom left), you will probably find a very reasonable answer you believe to be correct (the button on the right is red, and that’s my favourite colour).

Rather than saying “I’m not sure” we have a tendency to formulate credible scenarios to articulate why, but this will often not be the real reason. This phenomenon is known in psychology as ‘confabulation’. Psychologists believe that much of our behaviour is driven by our unconscious which, by definition, is something we are not aware of.

Avoid asking people to explain why they did something

When conducting usability research it is important to try to remain focused on observing real behaviour by looking at how users complete a task, where they seem to get confused, what practical barriers stop them from completing their task and so on.

Choosing the right method in user research is important and some methods are better than others to understand how to improve your website’s usability. Surveys and focus groups can be incredibly useful to gain insight into users but are not the best method to retrospectively ask why users behaved the way they did.

Similarly, eye tracking research often uses a method called ‘retrospective think aloud’ where participants are shown their gaze patterns after using a website and asked what they were looking at and why they used the site in the way they did. This is a fantastic tool in the right circumstances but, if it is so easy for us humans to unknowingly make up reasons for our behaviour. Can we rely on the retrospective feedback users give us when we’re making key design decisions?

When making key design decisions you should observe people using the website

Although we will never really know what unconscious urges can influence users to click one thing over another, by being alongside them while they experience a website, a usability test will provide a time sensitive and clearer insight into which areas of the site cause confusion and which areas work well in supporting user decision making.

We will never ignore what users say, but we are aware of the effects of ‘false memories’ and will use observations of their behaviour to interpret what users say during a test. So, use eye tracking to review your website and you’ll get some great insight, but make sure you use the findings to run a typical usability test, this will validate the findings and ensure you really know why users make the decisions they do.

Have you observed people using your website?

Related services: Usability testing & e-commerce usability

A recent report from the Royal Mail reports that 82% of online shoppers said that free delivery would encourage their use of a website.

This makes sense, but before you rush out and start advertising ‘Free Delivery’ all over your website, it is important to look at how best to promote this.

When usability testing eCommerce websites we often observe users completely ignoring large ‘Free Delivery’ banner adverts, and still getting confused when they are looking for delivery information. This is due to banner blindness, where users discount anything that looks like an advert in the corner of their eye. So how do eRetailers combat this?

First, look at the user journeys to understand where in the process they will need information about free delivery. There are often multiple points in a process where your customer will ask themselves about delivery charges. This may differ on a variety of websites but typically this will include:

• Pricing – include ‘Free Delivery’ where ever you quote a price. This will remove the need for users to ask how much delivery will be
• Product detail page – explain that delivery is free when users are reading about a product and considering their purchase
• Delivery page – for users who are specifically looking for delivery information, ensure there is a dedicated page to reiterate that delivery is free

www.play.com provides ‘Free Delivery’ message with all pricing

The above tips will provide a starting point to encouraging your users to buy from you. However, observing your users interacting with your website continues to be the best way to establish where in the user journey the Free Delivery should be mentioned, and to establish what other barriers are a cause of cart abandonment for your users.

How well are you promoting Free Delivery, and do your users see it?

Related services: e-commerce usability & usability testing

We’ve all had days where things get on top of us. We’ve not been sleeping well, we’ve had an argument with someone we care about, and our football team has just lost (or been kicked out of the World Cup!!). Things seem bleak. Most of us rely on our own ability to lift our spirits, sometimes we get a boost from other people. Wouldn’t it be great if your toaster made you smile, or the ticket machine at the train station gave you a chuckle, or even a bin you just put your rubbish in?

There are some fantastic examples of how everyday experiences can be made more fun on the Fun Theory website. They have run a competition to change people’s behaviour with fun. The addition of a little fun has some interesting effects. We’ve selected a few of our favourite videos.

How to make walking up stairs more fun that using an escalator

How to make it more fun to drive slower

How to make it enjoyable to throw rubbish away

As designers we are capable of affecting emotion when someone interacts with our creation.  When we design a website the foundation of it must be useful and usable but once this is in place adding a little fun can make a huge difference. In the examples above from The Fun Theory website much of the behaviour change is likely to be temporary due to the novelty factor. But if you take the focus away from changing behaviour and instead place it upon improving the experience there are plenty of opportunities for fun.

How to make the mundane a little more fun

Taking some of the mundane aspects of the web and turning them into short but enjoyable experiences can be the difference between a first time user and a regular user. We found this example from Xero which turns something we have come to expect to be annoying into something that is simple and fun.  Instead of asking users to repeat meaningless words or decipher weird images to extract letters and numbers Xero provides a simple Noughts and Crosses concept. Users just need to place an X to make three in a row. The trick with designing fun into interaction is to spot opportunities which don’t add any further time or barriers to the user journey whilst bringing a short lived smile to the face of the user.

We hope to see much more examples of fun on the web soon. Have you seen any good examples you can share with us?

Related service: Interaction Design

Back when I was in tech support, I used to get calls from friends and family asking me how to fix their computer issues. Now, I get asked to cast an eye over a website, a blog or a design concept. The truth is that there’s no secret usability voodoo involved when doing these ad hoc reviews. It’s a simple case of asking them three straight forward questions. But when I do, I am often answered by silence while they think about their answer, as it is not something they have really considered.

Once they’ve answered the three questions, I’m in a much better position to review the design and advise on the best way to improve them. The three simple questions you should ask yourself when designing anything:

Who is the typical user?

You need to know enough detail to get into their head. To empathise with them and see the world through their eyes. You don’t necessarily need demographics such as age, sex, or income. But you do need to be able to picture a stereotypical user.

What is their goal?

Now you have a typical user in mind think carefully about what their objective in using the site is. What is their number one reason for being there? Are they desperately trying to find a present for their mum? Are they trying to decipher all the technical speak to decide which camera to buy? Understanding their goal allows you to focus specifically on helping them find what their looking for quickly and easily. All the rest of the stuff can be de-emphasised.

What do you want them to do?

It is your businesses, so you lead the way, but make sure you bear in mind what users are trying to achieve. A lot of websites are too busy pushing their own agenda to help users reach their goals. Instead, look for opportunities to link your goal with their goal. For example, help users find the product they want first and then persuade them to sign-up to your newsletter.

If you get stuck during the design process, or want to review something to see how well it works, consider these questions and you’ll see how useful they can be.

The simple fact is that, as a designer, your role is to influence behaviour. To do so, you must understand who you are influencing, what you want them to do, and what it is that they want to do. Successful websites are those that align their business goals with the goals of their users. If you are designing anything without some idea of how to answer the three questions above, you’ll most likely end up with an ineffective design.

What questions do you think designers should consider?

Related service: User Journey Design

When talking to our clients about focus groups and customer panels they invariably reply, ‘there’s a difference?’. Indeed there is, and it can have a lot of impact on the type of research you can do and the feedback you will receive.

If you conduct a focus group, you get a one shot deal. They will tell you what they think of your site or product, and then go away. All the data you get from them is received in isolation of any other factor. This might be good when asking about something definitive like a brand name or logo and asking ‘what do you think?’

A panel, on the other hand, offers a way of evolving your ideas and receiving feedback from the same people through the changes. A panel can be reconvened at regular intervals to monitor progress of, say, a new shopping site page, to see how their opinions have changed and if those changes are for the better or worse.

Naturally, the latter is more expensive, as the subjects need paying or rewarding for their time, opinion and loyalty over the course of a project. But, the information that your regular panel members provide can help bring a project from its origins to conclusion in a meaningful and structured manner.

So, you can see that the two distinct groups can serve very different purposes. For example, anything that is being researched as a concept, such as an advert or cosmetic site refresh, can go to the focus group for a snapshot of opinion and some yes/no answers to design questions.

On the other hand, when you need some ongoing feedback, turn to the consumer panel and you will see how their opinions evolve with your product. The downside of the panel is that you need some guarantee of open mindedness and a willingness to share opinion.

Another difference is that while both are traditionally run as face-to-face events, it is now easier to run a quick focus group over the Internet, allowing for the rapid collection of data. A long-running consumer panel is still best run as a face-to-face exercise to allow for a more detailed approach and the ability to observe the reaction of subjects.

Someone who starts out with negative thoughts may well harbour them through a project, no matter how it progresses and you might find that your panel runs out of love for the project long before you do. This is where companies that run these panels and groups try to find the right people, a task that would be tough for most businesses.

So, there can be a fine line between when to call in the consumer panel or when to get a focus group to do some opinion forming for you. Or, if your project or product is easily adjustable, why not try evolving it in front of the focus group and see their reactions and impressions change live on the day to try to shorten the timeline and development process. It’s amazing what some hard focus and nimble evolution can do.

What type of group do you think would benefit your company or product better?

Related services: Focus Groups & Customer Requirements Capture

We’re often asked about how to get a website ‘right’, or what is the ‘right’ way to display a product page for example. Our clients want to know what the best practice is, what guidelines and standards to conform to, what other sites are doing and so on. Understandably, everyone is very anxious about getting it right, but looking good for investors or designers is not the same as looking good in the eyes of an end user or customer.

In our opinion, guidelines and best practices can be useful to help make quick decisions during design but ultimately a guideline or statement of best practice is only a generic principle that worked for someone else at some time in the past. It may not be right for your users, on your website, at this moment in time.

Most of us are worried about getting it wrong. Ultimately though, getting it right is about what works for your website users. The only way to really get it right is to test the site with real users to understand what works and what does not. Getting it right for your users is far more important than adhering to a guideline.

Do you test your site with users or rely on guidelines instead?

Related service: Usability Testing