User Vision

A new home

2009-05-01T08:57:00.003+01:00

The User Vision blog has now moved to http://www.uservisionblog.co.uk. Please update your bookmarks and we look forward to welcoming you there.

Primed For Success

2009-04-03T12:03:00.009+01:00

Firstly, I would like to say that I have had a long and almost always successful relationship with Amazon. However, we are all used to ‘hidden’ costs associated with too good to be true deals. This is part of the everyday online purchase process and something which is becoming more and more prevalent. After a recent £30+ purchase, imagine my delight at being offered Free ‘Prime’ delivery on future purchases: ‘Congratulations you have qualified for our Free Amazon Prime™ service’. Hold me back! Although this might be one of those ‘too good to be true’ offers, I trusted Amazon and duly ordered a CD with prime delivery. Unfortunately, the postcode coverage did not extend to my location within the Scottish central belt so it was not possible to take advantage of this service. Six weeks later my account showed that I had been charged £47.97 for my annual Prime membership. My confusion was two-fold, why has this happened and also why does the site show 2 different annual fees?

To ensure a balanced discussion Amazon did refund the £47.97 within 2 working days thanks to a helpful CSR I spoke to on the telephone. They also sent an email in advance of the refund to reassure me that the refund would happen. This is potentially a very useful service to serial Amazon users (which is also extended to family members) living in, what is defined as, accessible parts of the UK. However, providing this information upfront with clearly specified customer benefits and a consistent price point would assist in the uptake of this service. It would also ensure that customer satisfaction is not compromised.

Testing the online census with users proves useful

2009-03-31T15:42:00.008+01:00

Last year I blogged about the announcement that The General Register Office is planning to provide an online version of the 2011 census. In the blog I stressed the importance of testing the form to ensure that nothing prevents participants from completing it successfully. So when I received a leaflet stating that our household would be taking part in a 'trial run' I was very pleased. A few days later I was presented with my own census form. Sunday the 29th March (or thereafter) was the day everyone was being instructed to complete and return the form.

As the online version was something which appealed to me I was excited to get the opportunity to help test it out. I can report that on the whole my experience was a positive one. After entering your personal census code into the site, you are immediately taken to the form. Sections are separated onto a different pages with clear navigation buttons back and forth. The number of questions to each page is always minimal which saves scrolling. Clear instructions are also provided at necessary points.

If the instructions are not sufficient, help is provided in a question mark button next to each question. Although this is good practice, the button did not behave in a way I expected. When you select a button the page refreshes and takes you back to the top of the page. This is confusing and frustrating. Additionally, the help appears between the question and the field to answer (see image below). Normally when such a button is used a pop-up box opens or some text appears near the question without refreshing the page. As a result, my previous answer to another question was cleared so that when I tried to proceed, an error was returned. Although the error reporting was clear, it seemed unnecessary to clear previous answers and caused some annoyance.
Another thing that was missing was a progress bar. Completing a census is quite a long process with lots of questions. At one point when my enthusiasm was beginning to wean, I searched for a progress bar to provide me with some encouragement. In this situation it would have been really useful to have some idea how far I was through the form and how much longer it might take.

Lastly, I was disappointed to find how much paper was wasted sending me a physical copy of the census when I knew I would complete it online. The paper census form cannot be reused by anyone else and must therefore be recycled. It seems that there could be a better system which would save the expense of creating surplus paper versions. Currently those who want to vote by post can do so by opting into this system. Perhaps a similar system could be adopted here whereby those who want to participate online do so by writing/calling or emailing the relevant person. Receiving a short code requires much less, if any paper.

Overall, it is great to see that the Government wants to get this right in advance of the real event. I hope the feedback which I was able to provide at the end of the form will go some way to ensuring any small issues are resolved. I know that the exercise will prove very valuable.

Amazon - supporting the user experience post sales

2009-03-23T15:54:00.006Z

What started off as a really useful tool for both Amazon and their customers, has in my opinion, turned into a user experience nightmare. I am talking about the overwhleming array of options presented once you select a product - customer reviews, ratings, tags, what other people bought, frequently bought together, sponsored links, etc - and somewhere amongst it all are the product details.

As part of my new years health kick (already going badly) I decided to look into buying a juicer. Having honed it down to one product, I found the technical details were unhelpfully separated from the product details and then again from the product description, casuing much scrolling and hunting around the page for the info I needed. All the cross selling information totally disrupts the user journey and causes inefficient navigation which I don't find helps me. It has the opposite effect of getting in the way and annoying me. Ratings/feedback from other customers are helpful, but splitting up important information that I need upfront creates a disjointed experience which puts me off purchasing.

However, today I am pleased to find that Amazon have employed a useful means of cross selling and overcoming the current complexity of their site. I received an email around 3 weeks after I made a purchase from them, which provided a simple digest of other accessories I may find useful to add onto my purchase. Given I've had a few weeks to get used to the product, the timing works well. It also cuts through all the different presentation styles for ranking and rating accessories, and just gives me the information straight.

If only Amazon could apply the same approach to their online store and simplify the user experience keeping things straightforward and uncluttered. Maybe I would buy that juicer and finally start my long overdue health drive!

5 Features of a Public Sector Feedback System

2009-03-10T09:52:00.009Z

The Government today unveiled new measures to bring greater transparency to public services. As reported on the BBC news today, a new NHS website will allow patients to comment on their local services and rate their GPs, similar to e-commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay. Providing transparency to local services such as these will be welcomed by those people who use the services. However, it also raises questions of how such as system might be implemented to make it easy to use and ensure it provides value to the public. After looking at the systems used by retailers I've created a list below which outlines features that can be incorporated into a similar system for public sector websites.

Ensure that users can locate the review form quickly and easily. In e-commerce sites, invites to review products are placed next to the product details page. For public services this could happen next to the GPs name, for example. Calls to action should be clear with links which stand out from other text.
Provide a rating system which visitors can review at a glance. Amazon has been using a 5 star rating which has quickly become standard across many other e-commerce sites. Although this system can be somewhat crude, when used in association with a full review it can provide visitors with an overview of these comments, a rating breakdown and statistical averages. This makes it easier for users to identify the review they wish to read in detail which is often a problem when there are a large number to navigate through.
Do not ask visitors to register to leave a comment. This can actively discourage users to leave feedback. If the information they might have provided would have been valuable to someone else then this is an issue. Typically feedback forms ask users to leave a "name" and an email address which is not published. As anonymity is important to some people, especially if the feedback is contentious, users should feel confident about leaving a comment. It also reassures users that their personal details will not be used for marketing purposes.
Provide guidelines to those thinking of leaving feedback. This can avoid situations where comments are removed because they are abusive or include personal details. As well as outlining what users should not do, it can also be a good opportunity to suggest what users can write. Debenhams have provided a link to their customer service department for those who have serious or complicated complaints which may be better dealt with privately. This prevents negative messages from being left prematurely and shows customers that they are serious about customer service and satisfaction.
Welcome bad reviews as well as good reviews. Although there may be a fear that negative reviews can attract bad publicity and discourage public use of certain services, ultimately allowing negative reviews will increase user confidence in the system. As the Government's goal is to increase transparency, censoring negative reviews would defeat the purpose of such a system and in the long term reviews would be used less and lose value. If users adhere to the guidelines outlined in point four, there should be no need to remove reviews unnecessarily.

Compulsory field indicators?

2009-03-02T13:56:00.004Z

After having vented my frustration about opting out of marketing programs on a previous blog, I couldn't let my recent discovery pass without commenting.

On an online form, the most common practice for a required field is to use an asterix (*). This lets us know which fields are compulsory to complete. People are now familiar with this.

I recently recieved a feedback form from Crystal Ski holidays. On this, they have an asterix (*) next to various fields. Going by common practice, I would have thought, without looking at the key, that these fields are compulsory.

But no! The key (which is at the bottom of the form rather than the top) states '*Please provide if you agree to be contacted for marketing and research by us and other selected third parties.' See image below...

By completing what I thought were compulsory fields, I would have signed up to their marketing program, which is certainly not my intention.

So...

Allow customers to opt-in rather than opt-out of marketing programs.
Follow existing convention and to not try to trick the customer.
Don't use people’s familiarity of required field indicators to get them to sign up for email marketing without realising it.
Always put the text describing the indicator at the top of the fields. It is a piece of information the user needs to know before completing the forms, not after they think they’ve finished their task.

Grand Usability Designs

2009-02-20T16:20:00.000Z

When watching Grand Designs recently, Kevin McCloud was talking about the usability of a staircase. It’s a sad and/or strange admission, but this caught my attention; Usability should be considered with physical objects, not just websites.

My heating system is an object, it’s inactive, but I interact with it and form a relationship with it. Whether it’s love or hate, it’s a relationship. The more positive a relationship I have, the more likely I am to interact with it without even thinking about it. I’m more likely to go back to it. How do I have a positive relationship with it? If it’s easy for me to use.

I’m pretty sure anyone reading this has had some kind of negative experience when trying to use a physical object. If not, where are you living?

It’s the same with paper. Have you ever opened a letter and not understood what it’s asking you to do? Have you sat puzzling over a form, not sure what the questions are asking, or which bits you should fill in. Have you managed to get confused when trying match up the instructions and the materials provided with flat-packed furniture?

The natural reaction as human beings is to start to question ourselves – is it me? Did I read the instructions properly? What am I doing wrong?

Past projects have seen us working with heating systems, mobile phones, remote controls, child car seats, ballot papers as well as websites. None of us here are technicians, electricians, designers or political experts, but we watch people, study their behavior, and see when they are struggling to understand how to complete the task in hand. We make recommendations on ‘how to make it easy’ based on what we see, and our experience and knowledge.

So whether it’s a website or any physical object, make your users happy and have positive relationships & experiences with your products. How? By making it easy to use!

Opting out of marketing programs

2009-02-11T15:32:00.013Z

I was recently looking at comparison websites, and was amazed at how they get potential customers to overlook the ability to opt-out of marketing programmes.

Money Supermarket had a pre-checked check box as default on their form which I then had to un-check to opt-out.

The pre-checked check box certainly isn’t ideal, but it’s better than hiding options.

In order to opt out of Compare the Market’s marketing material, the opt-out area is located in the Terms &Condition’s (T&C). Who reads the T&C? When I accessed the T&C’s, I had to then tick the box to opt-out as the default was to receive information.

Go Compare dealt with this in a very interesting way that I’d not seen before. This time, instead of the check box, it said ‘If you'd prefer not to use this service, please click here’, so there was no check box visible on the page - See image below:

Aside from the fact the link text said 'please click here', once you clicked the link, the section revealed a previously hidden extension with a checkbox for me to tick if I wanted to opt-out of receiving marketing material. Only if you spot the textual link, read the small print, click on it, do you then get the option to opt-out – it’s pre-set for you to receive marketing information.

Surely these examples have the opposite effect that the company wants to happen. Customers will sign up unknowingly, and as a result receive calls/emails from insurance companies. Customers often use websites and in particular comparison sites because they want self service quotes and avoid inconvenient phone calls. Disguising privacy options and opting customers into sharing their details automatically with others will have a damaging impact on the relationship between the company and customer.

Evidence presented here clearly shows that best practices are required whenever customers provide personal information:

Don’t have the check box pre-checked. Allow customers to opt-in rather than opt-out.
Don’t hide the check box in the T&C’s.
Display the check box to opt out initially, that’s what customers will scan for.
If the page refreshes due to an error, make sure once the customer has chosen to opt-in or out, their choice remains fixed: they should not have to input their choice again.

Good Vibrations via my mobile

2009-02-01T13:24:00.010Z

For the past week I have been in that rapture of getting a new phone and enjoying all the new features and improvements from my previous one. After a long flirtation with the iPhone, I finally committed myself to the HTC Touch HD, and I have no regrets.

I have actually been using the HTC products for my past 3 phones, although branded as the Orange SPV range, before HTC had the brand confidence to lose the alias. Among the many features (like the iPhone, it lets you flick things around the display, and also has great photo image quality and connection speeds) one of my favourite is not something I see or hear but rather feel.

The HTC Touch is the first phone I have that uses vibrations for more than letting me know when calls or messages are incoming when I am in a movie or meeting where a ring would be a nuisance. The phone uses haptic feedback via a short vibration or bump to let me know when little things have happened such as:

my call has been answered
moving to a new web page
closing an application
the little ball in the 'Teeter' game is bumping into a wall (see video of it being demonstrated on the HTC Diamond)

Its a tiny feature but I am surprised at how much it adds to my overall experience and enjoyment of the phone.

I recall doing some experiments in haptics, the sense of touch and psychophysics way back in my university days but this is the first product I have had that has elegantly integrated it into the usage (aside from the Wii on the gaming front). Thinking back to my previous phone I realise that often when I made a call I had to alternate between holding the phone to my ear and looking at the display to see if it had been answered, particularly in a noisy environment like a gig or a bar. A minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but still one that is better off solved through a gentle vibration.

No doubt haptics will be integrated into more things and, used wisely, should be a positive contribution to mobile phone and consumer product usability. I certainly am looking forward to it as products make best use of all of our senses.

Communicating across web accessibility barriers

2009-02-01T13:04:00.025Z

Recently I had the opportunity to communicate across several barriers and technologies in a fascinating demonstration of how people and technology can be combined to overcome accessibility challenges.

After speaking at the Andicom Conference in Cartegena Colombia, I attended the commercial exhibition and particularly the U-city, a demonstration of ubiquitous computing in various areas of everyday life.

As User Vision provide many web accessibility services such as usability testing with disabled users and accessibility audits, I spent quite a bit of time with the project Conectando Sentidos (Connecting Senses) the Colombian Ministry of Communication’s programme addressing accessibility in technology.

There, in addition to seeing their demonstrations of magnifiers and refreshable Braille displays (photos below), I met for the first time a person who was both deaf and blind. I have long wondered how people without either hearing or sight can communicate, especially using today’s technologies.

The team set about demonstrating by having me engage in a conversation across several potential barriers, as shown in the photos:

What I said in English was first translated to Spanish by one team member

Another person communicated the message to Juan, the deaf & blind person by holding their hands & arms and manoeuvring them in a way to convey the message in a form of physical sign language

Once he understood the message Juan used sign language to communicate to another person via a web cam and web connection

The person at the other end of the web cam replied, their response was translated by movement again to Juan, and the process continued.

Considering the number of steps and modes of communication, the process was relatively rapid. Once we got the hang of it I found myself explaining who I was and why I was there, and learning about their involvement with the government’s accessibility programme.

The demonstration was a fascinating display of overcoming barriers through innovation and technology, and for me a great insight to how communication is achieved with people who are both deaf and blind.

Accessibility - More than just checking the boxes

2009-01-29T14:03:00.005Z

With the new WCAG 2.0 guidelines in full flow, I find myself presenting a number of introductory courses to clients, analysing the new guidelines in some detail.

At the beginning of each course though, I always stress that whilst the course itself is all about the guidelines, the same can't always be said of Accessibility. Time and time again when testing with disabled users, the real issues, the real bona-fide, "can't go any further" barriers are not necessarily attributable to violations of the guidelines themselves. Meeting guidelines and making your site accessible doesn't always go hand in hand, nor should it.

I'm not suggesting we ignore the guidelines. Of course we should adhere to them. What I am saying is that we shouldn't view the guidelines in isolation. By all means, audit against the guidelines but if you want the real insight, straight from the horses mouth so to speak, then you should really test your site with disabled users.

As a general rule, disabled users encounter more issues than able-bodied users. Not only do they experience the same usability issues but they also have an additional layer of difficulty on top, whether that difficulty is caused directly as a result of their disability or by badly marked up pages, poorly presented content or inadequate assistive technology.

As designers, developers (and occassionaly even as accessibility specialists) we often make assumptions about the types of difficulties users with disabilities will encounter. I never fail to be surprised during disabled testing when a user fails to fall over what looked like a glaring hurdle. Conversely, I am also never surprised when a developer tells me that their site is fully accessible only to find that it is almost unusable for users with particular disabilities.

The key thing to bear in mind is that technically accessible is not always accessible in practice. Building a fully accessible form - labels, logical tab order, properly titled buttons, optimised error messages - is one thing. However, if you give this form 40 fields then at the very least it is laborious to navigate for keyboard and screen reader users. For users with a severe physical disability, entering information into 40 fields may become virtually impossible.

The guidelines stipulate that we must provide text equivalents for non-text content. Again, this should be easy enough to achieve. Do this incorrectly however and the constant reading out of over-elaborate and unnecessary alternative text may result in blind users giving up and potentially using a competitors site which doesn't suffer from additional "noise".

Still on the subject of blind users, many navigate using the 'links list' in JAWS or the equivalent in Hal or Window Eyes. Clearly naming your hyperlinks is a requirement of the WCAG guidelines but there is a world of difference between clearly naming then and sensibly naming them. Many a time I have witnessed a blind user looking for contact detail access the links list and press 'C'. After all, pressing 'C' to jump to 'contact us' would make sense, right?

Of course it does. Except if the link to your contact page is labelled 'Talk to us' or 'Get in touch' that is. When pressing 'C' doesn't bring up the required link, it's guesswork time and the blind user ends up pressing random keys or (as is usually the case) listening through all of the links until something sounds right. Testing with disabled users gives us this critical insight into not only which tools are available to them, but exactly how they use them in their day to day interactions with the web.

These examples are only a handful of many similar experiences, gathered from hours of testing with disabled users. Any one of these issues taken in isolation should be enough to highlight the merits of disabled testing. The fact of the matter is that any project where disabled testing takes place regularly highlights numerous accessibility barriers either of the same severity or of a greater severity than those detailed above.

And no amount of 'box checking' is going to solve them.

Navigation methods in mobile web usability

2009-01-21T15:23:00.012Z

During my experience testing mobile websites, it has become apparent that users are split on their preferred navigation style. I have come to realise that this is a complex issue to resolve. Normally as a usability consultant, consistency is something which I regularly find myself recommending to clients. While the same principle applies in mobile sites, it may be better to alter the design according to the type of handset the user owns and keep the style consistent throughout their experience.

The split related to the type of navigation style used and how well each method worked: a traditional search form or a 'drill-down' type of navigation. The 'drill-down' method allows the user to search for something by selecting a series of options or answering a number of questions, similar to a decision tree.

Using a search form is the ideal solution for some. It is common on the web and therefore familiar to users across multiple platforms. It also gives them a sense of control. Most importantly users perceive a search form to be the quickest route to a set of results. This is most attractive as users always want to find information in the quickest way possible.

However, search forms were originally designed for the web and not for mobile browsing. Not all mobile phones have full keyboards therefore typing on a mobile phone is not as easy or convenient. It is made even more difficult when trying to type on the move or with one hand, for example, the URL may use characters not commonly used during day to day texting. Also, someone commuting to work by bus/train for example is less liked to have both hands free. In this situation, a system which allows someone to navigate with one finger would be easier to use.

So which navigation works best? The answer is both but is dependent on the type of handset being used and maybe even the users' experience with that device. Sophisticated mobiles such as the iPhone can cope much better with traditional websites. Older phones or phones with small screens cannot manage full scale pages as well and this forces the user to scroll horizontally. While Blackberry's and other PDA's have more keyboard functionality, many have to contend with a limited number of buttons.

In a situation like this, longitudinal diary style studies would provide valuable feedback from users who experience the mobile web in real life situations. The findings would go some way to resolving the split between searching traditionally and drilling down through a site. It would also help to determine which mobiles work best for each navigational style.

WCAG 2.0 - ready to go?

2008-12-16T15:08:00.005Z

So version 2.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are here, but are they worth all the fuss?

When I first encountered the draft WCAG 2.0 guidelines many moons ago now, I wasn't so sure. As time has passed however, I am warming to them tremendously and am really looking forward to using them regularly in my day to day work.

I can appreciate the criticisms - too vague, technology agnostic to the point of providing little implementation advice and complex, inaccessible documentation to name but a few. I can however also appreciate many of the clarifications made in WCAG 2.0 and the increased measurability of some of WCAG 1.0's vaguer checkpoints, particularly around colour contrast and scalability.

Much greater emphasis has also been placed on Multimedia content and this is only right given the way the web has changed. Users with cognitive impairment will also benefit greatly from much more specific guidelines around understandable and clear content which fall under the 'Understandable' priority.

Further information about WCAG 2.0 can be found in my (previous) article 10 things you should know about WCAG 2.0. With the exception of point 1, all of the points are still valid now that WCAG 2.0 has been released.

Only time (and implementation experience) will tell if WCAG 2.0 stands the test of time and is indeed robust enough to adapt to what is a fast moving environment. In the meantime, I'd like to welcome WCAG 2.0 to the world and all of you to WCAG 2.0.

Usability and the gaming industry II

2008-12-09T15:16:00.007Z

Controls
People have different preferences; do you use your computer mouse on the left or right of your keyboard? Games should also allow players to have control of their controls. Provide the ability to remap controller buttons to suit personal preferences.

Having controls that don’t do what a player expects will lead to frustration and loss of interest in the game.

Don’t over complicate controllers by thinking every button must be used. If there isn’t the need for it, don’t do it.

Remember to consider the menu system, and objects within the game. Opening doors, swapping weapons, jumping onto ledges…

Tutorials/Learnability
Create a safe environment to make mistakes. Players need to try buttons, actions, and commands to see what is and isn’t possible.

Tutorials are important, they should always have a level of engagement for the player to see how they will become immersed in the game. Do not leave the creation of tutorials to the end of the development of the game.

Gradually introduce sophistication in game play throughout the game. New things to do should be introduced to the player bit by bit, not all at once.

Use loading screens to educate the player in new skills.

Menu systems
Entering/exiting games...
Allow the player to press any button to start a game. Don’t make them unnecessarily stop and think about how to start.

Once players have cleared a section of a game, it should then be available for them from the start menu so they can go back to it if they wish. Allowing players to jump in and out of game play as they wish will increase game play. Making it difficult to enter a game where they want is more likely to result in the player switching off the console.

Saving games...
If you give players the option to save their game at an appointed place, once they’ve reached the save place, don’t ask them if they want to save.

What’s the best way to allow players to save games?

Save at an arbitrary point,
after a task has been completed,
at particular save points within the game,
quick saves.

Quick save might not be required depending on the games difficulty level, but providing the facility for those who wish to use it is a good balance. I liked the Resident Evil save, where you collect typewriter ribbons so the save is built in as part of the game play, although this is due to change with the release of Resident Evil 5. The long and short of it is that the save function should depend on the particular game. Testing should be done to see how players would expect to save.

Pausing games...
All players need to be able to pause a game knowing they will not lose anything. How this is done should depend on the game. ‘Guitar Hero World Tour’ deals with pausing well, players are given a countdown of 5 beats to get back on track. This could be further improved by allowing the player to decide how many beats they require.

Other features...
Swapping between easy and advanced modes should be easy. Whether it is the single player who wants more advanced game situations and wants to swap, or whether it’s two people paying one after another at different levels. Quite often it can be a frustrating experience to swap between modes, and can put new players off a game if it is difficult to choose easy.

Cut scenes
Cut scenes are often used to advance the game plot, develop characters, and provide background stories, mood changes, essentially to immerse the player deep into the game. Many games are greatly enhanced with clever cut scenes.

Players should always be able to skip cut scenes. It is the player’s choice that matters, not how important the scenes are to the story.

Ensure cut scenes have subtitles, and use a clear font. Even if players don’t listen to the whole thing, they can skim read conversations.

Game play
A game should be a challenge to play, not a challenge to use. Players should not have to sit for hours trying to work out how to do a particular jump to get onto a higher up object. A player should always know what they can & can’t do, avoid the ‘what the hell am I supposed to be doing’ moment.

Get the player involved from the start. Don’t have a drawn out start to a game as they will become bored before even starting.

Give players the ability to change design features to make game play more interactive. E.g. in GTA, players have the ability to change the radio station in cars and the volume of music.

Allow players to reread mission instructions. If a player fails a mission, they should be able to reread the mission. If they have paused the game and gone back to it later, give the player the ability to reread missions throughout game play.

In order to reach levels of high emotional states, players must be given calm periods as well as high intensity periods. Tim Home uses a good analogy of a roller coaster to describe this. “The fun lies in going up and down on the ride. Staying at the same elevation is about as much fun as riding a monorail.” Having the game on a consistent level will tire the player out, or perhaps bore them stupid.

At the moment, I’m in the future racing league of WipEout HD for the PS3 which is a total joy - You can you go retro and have a similar look from when I was playing it in 1997. I feel like a child fighting over who's shot it is.

Power to the people: Stephen Fry and the new Blackberry Storm

2008-11-28T16:10:00.005Z

Comments from Stephen Fry on the new Blackberry Storm appear to have received a lot of attention recently, as discussed on the BBC technology blog. The question of one person's influence over the success or failure of a new gadget is believed by some to be a real threat and in this case, Stephen Fry's negative review on the usability of the new Storm. It is quite possible that this one very well known man could influence others and convince some people not to buy.

Stephen Fry's own response to such a notion was interesting in that he plays down his expertise and knowledge on such topics as that of "an enthusiastic, passionate amateur". This attitude is not dissimilar to those participating in usability testing who I find often blame themselves for the difficulties they encounter, citing inexperience or stupidity. This could not be further from the case.

There seems to be an expectation that reviews of new gadgets should be conducted by experts who have an extensive knowledge and understanding of the latest technology. I disagree. I believe that those people who are likely to use the Blackberry every day and represent the common user, like Stephen Fry, should be the ones to road test and review it. This is likely to provide the most honest and accurate account on how the technology will fare when released. After all, if one person has a problem with the text input, the chances are so will someone else.

If more people were to base their decision to buy from the comments of enthusiasts such as Stephen Fry, then perhaps this will result in companies refining future generations of the device and improving on them. A poor performance in Blackberry Storm sales might be bad for the company but reinforces the importance of user-testing during the design phase and not just post-launch, something I'm sure RIM are very aware of.

Are User Centred Design (UCD) and Agile processes a ‘half baked’ methodology?

2008-11-07T15:26:00.006Z

Including UCD into an Agile methodology can be faced with it’s own challenges. The process is fast-paced and can be in danger of becoming internally focused on the team's ideas and creativity. This could results in the neglect of the customers business goals. This means that the UCD team will have to be willing to be flexible with the exploratory methods and be willing to adapt to meet immediate needs or changes that are likely to occur. Many changes are likely to occur in parallel to the development where constant evaluation, modelling, testing, and feeding back proof of concepts to the design/development team will be required e.g. any new functionality that is introduced will have to be outlined and designed against the persona and user tested (low fidelity paper prototyping).
Outside the development process, the usability team can conduct research and get ahead of the remodelling to accumulate user input and workflows for the next stage in the development, which again can be fed back to the design team as soon as possible to keep pace with the development process.

For many organisations, moving from the traditional Waterfall project process to Agile may pose certain challenges to traditional UCD methods such as:
- the difficultly in doing formal usability testing on complete scenarios early because they may not be formulated in their entirety.
- the need to change some of your tool sets and UCD methods for delivering designs to be quicker such as creating lower-fidelity wireframes.
- educating clients who are accustomed to the waterfall process, will find it difficult to accept and signoff what might be perceived to be a ‘half baked’ design.
All these are mitigated by good processes and frequent communication. Again the key is to present information as soon as possible so changes get scheduled into future ‘sprints’.

It is also important to identify ahead of time milestone points where user testing of the prototype product could happen in addition to the technology being used to support it.
If planned correctly it is possible to make sure that the UCD methodologies are part of the Agile development process and support client requirements.

WCAG 2.0 Training course

2008-11-05T11:31:00.004Z

The new WCAG guidelines will be released soon and it is essential that people are aware of the key differences from the old ones in order to remain accessible to those with disabilities.

User Vision have designed a special ½ day training course to help people understand the new guidelines and how they differ from WCAG 1.0. The course will give delegates a solid overview of WCAG 2.0 and how they can be implemented to best effect.

The course is run by resident accessibility expert Mark Palmer. Mark is a fantastic trainer who will ensure that you not only fully understand the topic but also thoroughly enjoy the training. The course is being held in London on the 4th of December. Early booking is strongly advised for this very popular course.

New Public Sector Training Course

2008-11-05T11:05:00.006Z

Organisations in the pubic sector have to ensure their users have a positive online experience just as much as any corporate organisation does. User Vision have designed a specifically tailored training course to help those in the public sector improve their online offering, the course will run on the 25th of November in Edinburgh and 27th of November in central London.

By the end of the course delegates will feel confident in implementing a usability strategy into their own operations and will have the skills and knowledge to identify key user experience issues and how to rectify them.

The course will be run by public sector usability specialist Rob van Tol as well as User Vision’s Managing Director Chris Rourke. The two experienced and knowledgeable trainers will ensure your understanding of the topic and make you feel at ease throughout the day.

Sign up for the Edinburgh course
Sign up for the London course

The human phone booths of Colombia

2008-11-04T11:50:00.005Z

I have recently been in Colombia, South America where I spoke about usability for successful e-government at Andicom, Latin America's largest a telecoms and technology conference organised by the country's IT research organisation CINTEL. In the free time I had in Bogotá I couldn't help but notice the many people on the street offering "llamadas 200 pesos / minuto" or calls on mobile phones for about £0.07 per minute. It was clearly a thriving business in busy Bogotá, and many of these walking phone booths had 3 or more mobile phones in use at one time. As shown in the photo below, they usually had the phones attached to themselves through small chains to help ensure their phone did not get carried away with the caller.

The practice was a good example of a competitive market in practice as one man shown was charging just 150 pesos per minute, undercutting his rivals by 25% and gaining a lot of business as a result. He is also ready for a volatile market - he has a series of signs bound together so that he can quickly change the price should he see that other phone time sellers change their rates.

One of the interesting facts that I picked up while there was regarding the mobile phone penetration rate among Colombians which was estimated to be about 75 to 80% based on the number of phones sold compared to the population. Clearly practices such as the sharing of mobiles will call some of the data into question, and also remove some of the expectations that we might have about a very personal relationship with our phones for storing data, viewing favourite web pages, sending text messages etc. It also will be beneficial to have relatively simple handsets mobile phone usability should not be a factor for simply making a phone call.

The practice shows a great deal of initiative in the bustling economy of Colombia, a country I would highly recommend for a visit - wonderfully friendly people, and interesting history.

Can you still maintain harmony and be platform free?

2008-10-29T14:43:00.003Z

I recently completed research for a platform independent application that can be accessed by the iPhone, PC and digital TV. What became apparent very quickly was that the harmony of the user experience across all platforms was not consistently positive as the application lacked continuity when viewed on different platforms e.g. the TV programme search did not perform or behave the same as the PC search, it was not as flexible. In addition, the handset used to control the TV programme selection proved cognitively challenging as the handset did not offer the standard affordances displayed on “standard” interactive TV handsets. To elicit positive emotional and behavioural responses we have to understand the ergonomics of the hardware that the application is accessed by. In addition, the user needs to understand the application and the relationship between each device and expects a positive user experience irrespective of the device through which the application is being accessed. Each platform has various affordances and capabilities, from buttons and icons that are ergonomically hardwired so there are limitations at each stage in the development process. None the less, the user expects the same level of consistency in the integrative quality of the elements. To create a consistent positive experience, the user expects to encounter the same level of consistency and interaction between the:

- Aesthetic style, brand and quality - does the product have an emotive visual tone of voice that appeals to younger or older audience segmentation? Is the design culturally meaningful?
- The story – the user needs to assimilate very quickly, what is the purpose of the service and its benefits? Can I use it?
- The performance and primary usage capabilities – the time taken to interact with the application via each platform and complete the primary tasks.

More research is required to identify and understand how the users would expect to manipulate the application using a TV remote control and mobile devices such as the iphone (which incidentally only supports the Safari browser agent). To provide a positive interaction and increase the brand credibility, the relationship between the TV remote and the TV interface has to offer good affordances to increase the efficiency of primary tasks such as searching and scheduling a programme. To maintain the positive user experience, the application should also offer the same level of continuity, functionality and flexibility in design so that the same level of satisfaction can be achieved across all devices.

From post-its to design patterns

2008-10-29T12:57:00.002Z

Design patterns are generally referred to as a way to support developers and help them to reuse proven solutions and solve common design problems while composing patterns to create reusable designs that can be mapped to different platforms. Without this, cross-platform application designers are not properly applying design solutions or taking full benefit of the power of patterns as reuse blocks, resulting in poor performance, poor scalability, and poor usability. Furthermore, the designer may "reinvent the wheel" when attempting to implement the same design for different platforms based on their own understanding of the system application requirements. Design patterns are a vehicle for capturing and reusing good designs while detailing a motivating example on how design patterns can be composed to create a generic application design. In addition, patterns are a suitable means for mapping an application to new platforms while maintaining its intrinsic quality attributes and providing consistency across all platforms. Attempting to define design patterns from a development perspective is a complex task but what about the users? How do we define design patterns from a user experience perspective?

An example may be by talking to the representative user groups, asking specific questions about the product concerned to help identify the user’s motivations and emotional response to the product in question. Following a series of interviews or diary accounts of the user journey, it is then possible to transcribe each individual interview highlighting the motivations (verbs) and the emotions highlighted by each user. In doing so what you will start to see is the emergence of a pattern highlighting common motivations and emotive responses. Carrying out a cluster analysis of the common verbs and emotive references will not only inform the developers of the components required during the early stages of the analysis but more importantly help to build the personas of each representative user group and provide insights to the taxonomy or classifications of information categories required from an interface perspective. This does not need lots of technology or technical understanding just good observation and a pile of post-it notes to help build up a pattern and identify the common elements of the user experience that need to be created or resolved.

Open Office: Coping with Online Stampedes

2008-10-14T10:12:00.013+01:00

Yesterday Open Office launched it's major upgrade to its open source Microsoft Office bashing office productivity suite, version 3, and it's servers crashed in the stampede to download it. I know, I was part of that stampede.

Now this is not to have a pop at Open Office. Quite the contrary. After all, Open Office is a vast open source community undertaking, backed by Sun and IBM. It would be disingenuous, if not actually positively ungrateful to complain that when I tried to download my FREE copy, all I got was this screen …

I could complain that Apache error message is hardly suitable for public consumption: ContentHelmNoodle anyone? But that's hardly Open Office's fault.

But actually, this is a story of doing the right thing, when you're best estimates gets trampled by the crush of wildly keen users.

Step 1 Apologise
Even though Open Office are giving us a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation tool, drawing program and maths tools for FREE, they still apologised. Of course, this is tricky to do on your website, as it's been clobbered by user demand. So you have to get a statement out to the news agencies, such as this article in The Register. Plus send emails to your user base:

All,

We must apologize. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is proving immensely,
staggeringly popular. And our site is down as a result. While we fix
things, we urge you to be patient and try again later on tonight,
tomorrow, this week. It will still be there.

Oh, by popular, we mean it: figure hundreds of thousands of users,
mostly Windows users, but also Mac OS X and Linux and Solaris users,
all trying to download it all at once.....

Cheers, and thanks for your patience,
Louis

Step 2 Clear the Boards
If you're being swamped, stop trying to swim elegantly, and concentrate on just staying afloat. Or in web terms, pull down your usual site and focus all your bandwidth on doing the one user task nearly everyone is wanting: to get their hands on the new release.

Step 3 Return to Normal
Eventually things will stabilise and in a couple of days OpenOffice.org will return to normality.

Step 4 Tell the Story
Some people may grumble, but actually a bit of mad rush creates some incident, a marketing story to tell.

The stampede demonstrates the power of open source movement, and its continued momentum. Did Microsoft servers collapse after the release of the last version of MS Office? Not so far as I'm aware.

Stories such as this, in ZDet, talks of the opportunity for Sun and IBM and Open Office, as the global financial crisis puts more pressure on IT budgets. So having ordinary users mob the release of Open Office 3 can only add to its kudos, and the manner in which Open Office responded was just right.

e-Commerce Customer Advisor: Does My Bum Look Big In This?

2008-10-10T09:44:00.010+01:00

On telly, Trinny and Susannah are a couple of cruel-to-be-kind school prefects, prodding and bullying their semi-willing fashion victims to accept certain fashion verities, such as:

The 70s and/or 80s are over
You're looking at 41, so stop dressing like 21
Tatty is not the same as fashionably distressed
Black is not the only colour
Magic knickers can transform your body shape

Now watching someone being ritualistically humiliated is all part of the schadenfreude that is the joy of Reality TV. But in the privacy of your own PC, who would be masochistic enough to want to be jibbed and criticised?

Well the designers of Trinny and Susannah's Body Shape Calculator, which has been created to support the online store of Littlewoods Direct, understood this, and have taken a slightly softer approach.

Which is good … but what about The Men? Well, at last, we victims of being banished to the basement or the top floor have an opportunity to dress à la mode.

Being a fine figure of a man, let me share with you the experience … Step one, pop in those vital statistics. Remember, if you lie at this point, you're only lying to yourself. So here's mine.

Somewhat prescriptively, you have to have to admit to being either big, short or skinny. Whatever happened to hunky? Anyhow, so let's pretend I'm "big" then.

"Ask" Trinny and Susannah's advice brings up a set of outfits, classified by casual, smart and formal, with a set of style tips.

Apparently I should wear my top buttons undone to create a slimming vee-neck, and having a jacket with big pockets will divert attention from my hypothetical big tum. While puffa jackets are a huge no-no.

What you are meant to do, after browsing around and poking about the various bits of advice, some of which is the same and some of which differs per outfit, is select some of the items offered to have a look at them. So I selected some trousers.

Now my selection was a bit random, as I couldn't really see the trousers very clearly in the thumbnails offered. And as you can see, when looking at the trousers all together, you still cannot really see them especially well either.

But the most surprising thing is the sudden appearance of the "go to basket" button. Whooooaaaaa! Steady on! I was just having some fun with Trinny and Susannah, trying out stuff and getting some tips and suddenly I'm being asked to buy stuff!? This is not what Jared Spool called a Seducible Moment.

I don't know

if this is available in my size
if this is available in my colour
(I'm autumn colours, apparently)
how this will go with other things
what brand is it
what material is it made of
even that most basic of purchasing questions: how much does it cost!
or most basic of all, what does it really look like, aside from a small 4cm high (on my screen) single angle photo

So I'm really not disposed to put any of these things into any thing that implies a commitment to buy. Now as it happens, the "basket" gives me an opportunity to answer some of these questions.

Though you'll notice that the price still isn't shown, until you select your waist, inside leg and colour.

You'll also notice that the basket includes no images at all now. So which trouser detail is which?

You can, one-by-one, click on the enlarge button, which pops up a new window, which is 7½cm high (just less than half the screen height) … hardly eye-popping in your face.

So you're chief guide is a set of terse descriptions, such as "Brushed cotton twill trouser with plain bottoms" and "Bedford cord western style pants with zip-fastening".

Oh yes, Bedford cord … I think we all know what that is, er?

So, what started off as a playful piece of fun, and a rather nice attending to men's fashion needs (so often neglected to a poor second place), suddenly became a jarring sales experience, in which I was being asked to commit to buying things I didn't properly understand. Which is a shame.

Maybe I should try Gok Wan instead…

Play.com shopping process misses a trick

2008-10-07T09:25:00.009+01:00

As the nights grow longer, the temperature drops and Christmas begins to close in, this year I decided to try and be organised and start my Christmas shopping early. Doing my shopping online has always been attractive because it allows me to get a few bargains and avoid going out in the cold weather. This way I can browse at my leisure from home, have everything delivered to a convenient address and it doesn't even have to cost me a penny extra in postage in some cases!

After a bit of browsing I decided the best option would be to shop with Play.com and noticed that they proudly display their recent title of 'Best Online Retailer 2008' which was awarded to them by Which? This certainly is warranted as I have shopped with Play many times and always enjoyed the experience. However, I have recently noticed that they have made one of the biggest mistakes in retailers terms when it comes to their shopping process. It appears that the site will not save any items added to your basket over a long period of time. Twice now I have added some Christmas presents and decided to go back the next day to either add some more or checkout and pay. Both times I have logged in to find my basket empty, leaving me with no other choice than to add each item all over again. This seems like a lost opportunity in increasing sales. It is not uncommon for customers to browse over a period of time, adding items each time they return to the site.

Grocery shopping sites in particular are aware of these customer habits and all ensure that any items added to a basket are saved. Without doing this, customers are less likely to remember which items they had in their basket from previous visits and as a result, unlikely to spend as much. From a personal point of view I find it irritating to have to add items each time I log in and although I will still shop with Play, this could put other customers off. It seems that no matter how successful online retailers are, there is always room for improvement!

Forms behaving badly

2008-10-02T14:26:00.005+01:00

I recently completed a usability study on a bespoke software application. All participants involved in the study preferred to navigate the form input screen using the tab key. Users quickly discovered that the navigation was restricted due to the form “behaving unexpectedly”. When tabbing from one input field to another and attempting to select an item from a drop down menu list, the page reloaded and posted back to the server as the focus moved on to each menu list option. As a result, the system performance was reduced dramatically and users were unable to navigate efficiently to the next input field until the previous “postback” actions were complete.

It would appear that on further inspection that JavaScript “postback” events had been attached to drop down list boxes which produced the unexpected behaviour e.g. when the user tabbed through a menu listbox and used the up–down arrow keys to navigate through the list, a JavaScript “onchange” event fired every time the focus moved onto another item in the list, causing the form to “postback” to the server unintentionally and unnecessarily. As a result the system speed and performance was reduced as was the task efficiency.

If a drop down list selection is required, position a button next to the drop down list so that the ‘”postback” event is only carried out once the item has been selected from the menu list. This will prevent many “postback” actions being sent back to the server every time the focus changes from one list menu item to the next. This will also reduce the response times endured by the user each time the focus moves onto the next list item and as a result increase the task completion and satisfaction rates.