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Developing a sustainable usability program
BY JEN COLLIER POSTED ON OCTOBER 12, 2011 1 COMMENT
STC Atlanta presents special guest Dr. George Hayhoe at our meeting on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 6:30pm. Join us for this hour-long presentation by one of the field’s most valued and respected educator.
In his presentation, Dr. Hayhoe tells us how to create a sustainable usability program. There are big problems associated with establishing a routine usability program in many companies. Commonly, the perception is that usability methods are invariably expensive and time-consuming. They believe the yield is not worth the investment. They think failure to institute and sustain such a program does not place them at a competitive disadvantage.
However, says Dr. Hayhoe, such assumptions are neither valid nor productive. An organization that wishes to succeed today needs to base its decisions on facts rather than assumptions.A host of authorities beginning with Nielsen and Molich (1990), Bias and Mayhew (1994), Redish and Ramey (1995) have demonstrated that usability programs not only don’t need to be expensive, but can add significant value to products. Moreover, incorporating usability methods in the development process is increasingly recognized as an indispensable part of software and user documentation development (ISO/IEC 26514:2008).
This presentation will outline a management approach to designing usability programs that help ensure user satisfaction, including the following:
· Selecting from an array of usability techniques (including task and user analysis, heuristic evaluation, “discount” and more formal laboratory testing, and others) those that are appropriate to a particular project in light of the product’s complexity and users rather than attempting to establish a “one size fits all” program
· Designing and managing the usability process as well as the other aspects of the development cycle in such a way that higher quality products and documents are delivered on schedule and at or under budget
· Identifying the specific value added by the usability program over time
The presentation should be helpful to engineers and professional communicators who wish to demonstrate the need for, cost of, and value added by a usability program as part of their software and document development process.
George F. Hayhoe is professor of technical communication at Mercer University. A fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, he edited its journal, Technical Communication, from 1996 to 2008. He is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the IEEE Professional Communication Society, and is a past president of that society. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina. His professional interests include product and document usability, research in technical and professional communication, and core competencies of professional and technical communicators.
Image from Wikipedia
Time and Date:
October 25
Networking & Announcements: 6:30 -7:00
Program: 7:00 – 8:00
Location:Knowledge Development Centers
7000 Central Parkway, Suite 1250
Atlanta, GA 30328
Usability Tool kit
ReplyDelete• Jakob Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics are rules of thumb that he has devised to step through the product as an evaluator. The evaluator answers the questions that the heuristics ask. The answers are fed back through the development process to give the designers a better idea of how to make the product more useful.
• Focus groups are an effective way to gain insight on a product. When conducting a focus group, you gather information from the users of your product, or competing products. You also ask them questions about usability and ideas for improving the functionality of your product.
• Expert inspection is where a number of experts inspect the product using usability and product domain expertise.
Managing usability studies
• Designing a track to follow the documentation, usability studies, and time it will take to accomplish those things
• Develop and customize your metrics
• Track your progress against the estimates that you have built
Payoff:
• By doing usability studies, you can develop a feedback loop from feedback studies.
• Less re-work will be needed, because you are “doing the right thing the right way the first time”
• Products will be easier to use
• After sales support less costly
Need to know:
• Time to market
• Product support and returns cost
After instituting programs of usability studies
• Need to track time to market, cost of support, and costs of returns
• Record cost savings of doing usability studies
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ReplyDeleteCompanies tend to do too little usability testing but it's often very important. Thoughtless or careless design are never user's fault, they are down to the basic, designers fault
ReplyDeleteUsability test scientifically are very expensive. However, iterative testing during the develop process, implement and production with low (3-5) user numbers this can be down relatively quickly and relatively low cost. Jakob Nielsen call this discount usability testing.
Other types include heuristics evaluation, user inspection (Expert evaluation), cognitive walk through and surveys.
We must ask ourselves how much more expensive this product is more difficult to use in terms of loss of reputation, loss of market share, loss of revenue as result of product returns. In other words, how expensive is not using usability testing going to cost us?
We should remind ourselve that usability studies is not just usability testing. Usability testing is only a part of the usability studies. Field study for example is also part of the usability studies we often ignore. Field study refers to the "stalking" of customers on how they normally perform certain tasks in everyday life in order to predict and analyze their actions.
All of this will come together during the final evualation because we will have more accurate data, better product design and less sales support operational costs.
Myth among Management is usability programs are time consuming and cost prohibitive. In reality we dont need sophisticated labs. Mercer University paid about $10,000 to setup a usability lab about 10-12 years ago. Now it will cost les $2,000.
ReplyDelete"Discount usability" provides a different model for testing. Smaller number of participants. Exploration of small part of user interface.
Other usability techniques:
user and task analysis
card sorting
proper prototyping
heuristic evaluation
focus group
expert inspection
How to manage usability studies
Design, estimate, and track the progress of usability studies associated with a particular product or portfolio.
intangibles: user satisfaction, product reviews, awards, reputation.
Because of the feedback from the usability studies schedules will be more reliable, less rework will be needed, product will be easier to use and less support after release.
More than three decades after the concept of usability test was introduced in tech communication, still very few companies routinely include usability studies in their product development process. Usability programs are not time-consuming and cost-prohibitive anymore. We don’t need an elaborate, expensive, dedicated lab. It is more affordable by “discount usability” that provides a different mode for test. It is iterative testing throughout product development, quicker analysis and feedback to designers, and required small number of participants.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, there are six usability tool kit: user and task analysis,
card sorting,
paper prototyping,
heuristic evaluation,
expert inspection, and
focus group.
We can manage usability studies by designing, estimating, and tracking the progress of usability studies associated with a particular product in portfolio, and developing our own metrics for estimating just as we do for developing pages or topics of documentation.
Also there are payoffs for usability test. Schedule will be more reliable because less rework will be needed from the feedback loop. Users will be more satisfied with them when products will be easier to use.
Also research products costs before implementation and track products costs after implementation. These are product development, time to market, product support and returns. The difference is the cost savings resulting from your usability program.