usability fail - psmg march 2012

#UsabilityFailStop wasting your marketing budget on bad usability #PrecSemMark Russell

Hearty Home Cooking Cookbook80+ expertsstrategy & research

branding & communicationsuser centred design

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22 yearsexperience

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5 sectorsfinance

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healththird sector

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#PrecSem#usabilityfail

Usability and user experience

Usability

Desirability

User experience

“I can easily use it”

“I like the way it looks and feels”

“I like the product”

“Is the product useful

to me”

It starts by being useful...

Functionally people must be able to use it...

The way it looks must be pleasing...

The overall experience

Executing well on all of these areas creates a positive user experience. Research and testing is needed for each.

Utility

More than two thirds of companies (68%) recognise a strong link between long-term business performance and customer experience.Econsultancy Multichannel Customer Experience Report, 2010 http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports/multichannel-customer-experience-report

Hands up if you have a digital marketing budget

Quick straw poll:

Keep your hands up if you also have a usability or user experience budget

Quick straw poll:

Keep your hands up if your usability budget is the same or more than your digital marketing budget

Quick straw poll:

―Pay per click advertising

―Referrals from groomed sites

―Engaging social media

―Mobile sites & mobile apps

...and it’s a utter waste if they fail to convert

“Online ad spending set to hit $50B in 2015” – eMarketer, 2011

But it can still all be ruined by poor usability and experience

Is attracting visitors to your site inherently more valuable than making sure they have a good experience when they are there?

ConversionsThe funnel is getting fed but the wastage is high

Doubling conversions

=3,455 extra visitors

---- or ----53 extra conversions

Put another way, do you want to:Increase non-converting

(bad?) experience to 6,804---- or ----

Decrease the bad experiences?

Measuring the value of usability

Spend 10% = improve 83%Jakob Nielsen

Why usability fails

1. Lack of consistency2. Lack of clear navigation to

common goals3. Lack of orientation in the

process4. Lack of error handling5. A lack of clear closure6. No easy reversal of actions7. Lack of control8. Content is unclear and hard to

read9. Too much information/memory

required to perform an actionJakob Nielsen

Measuring the cost of bad usability

1. Use your analytics – check exits and bounces

― Brainstorm analytic findings

― Heuristic evaluation (“rules of thumb”)

― Conduct a (short) user survey

― Ask your customer services team/front line staff

― Track customer complaints (inc. on social media)

― Ask a (non-technical) colleague to do a task

― Assess site against your market/competitors

― Check how your site works without CSS

― Check what the experience is like on a mobile phone

― REMEMBER: You are not “normal” – you know too

much

2. Use DIY usability methods

3. Commission a professional study

What does it cost?

Examples

The University of Texas at AustinHow NOT to present a campus map http://bit.ly/eJOh8e (Expand) Sheesh! #UsabilityFAIL

Testing would have found this out

Mental modelfail

Common sense failure

Your examples?

1. Nothing should be more than three

clicks away

2. Your home page is seen the most; it

deserves more usability attention than

others

3. Written instructions simplify any online

process

4. People don’t scroll; anything “below the

fold” is missed

5. Every process must be simple

Some usability questions:

The golden rules

1. Users

You are not the user. Neither is your boss• What do they want to do?• What do you want them to do?• What barriers do they face?

The bad

What you can do

Dr Alan Mackintosh, GP, 40Key tasks• Alan is a busy man with little free time between work and

family life. He subscribes to updates from alumni relations and the events section of the site to keep up to date with new information

• He keeps an eye on upcoming events and lectures, trying to find time to attend one or two a year

• He finds and keeps in touch with other alumni though the website and especially enjoys reunions when they are arranged

• Research is another important area , keeping him up to date in his own area of expertise. Some old friends from his student days are now work at the University, and he is always interested in reading work they publish

You would like to promote• Alumni benefits and networking events/opportunities • Upcoming events and seminars particularly alumni events

and those related to medicine• New research that’s being carried out• News feeds, so that Alan can subscribe • How, when and where alumni can donate to the University

Persona 4: Alumni

“I keep an eye on upcoming events and research my old friends at the University are doing. News feeds are important as I’m a busy man”

Alan is a GP, living in Hertford, Herts, with his wife Alana and their two small children; Isla 9, and Hamish 7. Alana is pregnant, so there will soon be yet another addition to the family. After Alan graduated his first job was in Scotland, after which he moved to Cambridge for his GP training. His main interests are art history and photography, but he also enjoys bird watching, playing golf, art galleries, theatre, music and the pub - Alan is a big fan of real ale. He is not politically active, but he supports the coalition government.He accesses the internet both from his PC at work and at home using his laptop and his new iPad. Websites he visits are Flickr, the Independent, Amazon, eBay, Waitrose, Expedia, Wikipedia and Art. His parents live in Edinburgh so he is still in touch with the area and the local community. He has an interest in distance learning.

Web usage

Access to other information platforms

Use of your website

Strength of relationship with you

The good

1. You are not the user. Neither is your boss

2. Interactions

The bad

What you can do

Interactions checklist

• Labelling with explanations where required

• Mark mandatory fields clearly

• Let the computer handle errors

• Validate inline

• Informative error messages

• Clear calls to action

• Surrounding visual elements can support or

impair different aspects of user behaviour.

• If it’s not required, why ask for it?

The $300m button

The good

3. Accessibility

It’s more than just disabled users• Always remember users with physical and cognitive disabilities

• Also consider technological and cultural differences

What you can do

Culture, language and UX !

ArabicAbu Karim Muhammad al-Jamil ibn Nidal ibn Abdulaziz al-

Filistini

Father of Karim

Muhammad(Given name) The beautiful Son of Nidal

Son of Abdulaziz

The Palestinian

Culture, language and UX !

Culture, language and UX !

4. Consistency

Gently hold your user’s hand• Users learn from other sites• Don’t make them think• Visual and linguistic cues make a huge difference

The bad

What you can do

The good

5. Familiarity

We prefer things that are familiar to us.

Increase conversions by 10%

Increase conversions by 20%

We need to sell more savings accounts

I need a savings account

Decisions are rational and emotional

As a new parent, I want to save money, so that I can have enough put aside for when my son goes to university.

6. Strategy

How does your website align to your core business objectives?

Define your key performance indictors based on your goals and measure them

Business objective Goal KPI1 2 3

Business objective

Sell subscription packages for entertainment and communications

Build good will with existing customers

Effective marketing

Goal

Increase customers

Increase interest in products and services

Provide news and be an information resource

KPI

Monthly sales/revenue

Monthly unique visits

we

Number of returning visit

Number of registrations

1 2 3

Build a CRM

So We’ve measured the problem

We understand the range of techniques that could be used

We get what the trade off is between effort and results

Now, who is going to own this?

Attracting people to the site

Delivering what people do on

the site

Making

the site

work

Manage

site

Marketing

Services /

Products

Web TeamIT

Attracting people to the site

Delivering what people do on

the site

Making

the site

work

Manage

site

Marketing

Services /

Products

Web TeamITUsabilit

y

Spend 10% = improve

83%

Remember the golden rules!

1. Users2. Interactions3. Accessibility4. Consistency5. Familiarity6. Strategy

@PrecedentComms

#PrecSem

#UsabilityFail