measuring ux
TRANSCRIPT
Why bother? You did rapid prototyping using Balsamiq You used Agile during development You are feature and code complete You delivered the application on time
Consider the following… Are people using your application? Are people using your application the way you intended? Are people using your application differently? Do they like it?
Task Observations Preset scenarios that involve the user going through one
story or key action
Thinking out loud is encouraged Observer should refrain from helping the user in the actions
Video recording is recommended On screen User
Example Task 1 – Marking points on the EUR price curve Task 2 – Marking points on the GBP price curve
Based on rating scale of (1 – 5, hard to easy)
Same task but different score
Users mentioned that they found the second stage harder because they couldn’t navigate back to the main selection area
Eye heatmaps Using sophisticated tools such as eye tracking cameras you
can create heatmaps of what people are looking at in an application
System usability scale Simple list of likert scaled questions
Surveys General questions about the user and how they interact with
the system
1. I think that I would like to use this system frequently.
2. I found the system unnecessarily complex.
3. I thought the system was easy to use.
4. I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this system.
5. I found the various functions in this system were well integrated.
6. I thought there was too much inconsistency in this system.
7. I would imagine that most people would learn to use this system very quickly.
8. I found the system very cumbersome to use.
9. I felt very confident using the system.
10. I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this system.
“Would you use this application?”
For web applications to general public this is a good question
For internal application for regulatory purposes, maybe not Answer would be YES
What is a better question?
“What would make you stop using this application?”
May find out information about what is important to users
People were generally worried about the calculations accuracy
People were worried about who did what (auditing)
Example: Walmart Trying to compete with Target in the area of store layout
Clean and tidy (Target) vs. Packed aisles (Walmart)
Walmart surveyed their customers “Would you like Walmart aisles to be less cluttered?”
Walmart reacted 15% of inventory was removed from the aisles
Removed pallets of items like juice boxes in the centers of aisles.
Reduced displays at the ends of aisles Shortened shelves
Cause of error Walmart came up with the answer first, then asked
customers to agree to it.
You should react to what customers do rather than what they say
Ie. How often do you work out?
Logs What people are searching for? How often?
Uncover relationships in the data searched for and your application
Add hooks to your applications so that you can track uses when different views are invoked
Taking the ideas of tracking web clicks to the desktop application world
Heuristic evaluation This can be done during the rapid prototyping stage as well
Using a few evaluators who are familiar with heuristic evaluation to go through an rate an application on certain criteria
Considered cheaper and as effective as user testing
This is not a graphical design evaluation
Nielsen’s Heuristics Jakob Nielsen’s list of heuristics is one of the most used set
for evaluating user interfaces
There are 10 heuristics
Each heuristic is measured on a numeric scale with 1 – Low 10 – High priority, must fix
Visibility of system status Essentially feedback Users should be informed of system state within a
reasonable time
Nielsen’s Heuristics (1/10)
Match between system and real world System should use users’s language with words, phrases
and concepts “Item” versus “songs” in an album
Nielsen’s Heuristics (2/10)
User control and freedom Making errors is a good way for users to discover features of
the application
There should be affordances to let users fail without fear: undo, redo, exit without saving
Nielsen’s Heuristics (3/10)
Consistency and standards Follow platform conventions Users should not have to worry if words mean different things
in different situations (ie. “close” vs. “exit”)
Nielsen’s Heuristics (4/10)
Recognition rather than recall Minimize user’s memory load Make objects, actions and options visible “Preview” “Intellisense”
Nielsen’s Heuristics (6/10)
Flexibility and efficiency of use Allow users to tailor frequent actions “Accelerators”
Nielsen’s Heuristics (7/10)
Aesthetic and minimalist design Key information should be clearly presented
Nielsen’s Heuristics (8/10)
Help users recover Error messages that are user friendly Suggest how to solve the issue
Nielsen’s Heuristics (9/10)
Help and documentation Provide help and documentation to simplify tasks Video guides Tool tips
Nielsen’s Heuristics (10/10)
Graphed as a matrix
Rows are the different evaluators Columns are the heuristic measures
Data sorted to isolate easy problems together to highlight hard problems
Result of Measuring UX Knowing your users better Continuous feedback and improvement cycles Driving change that is measurable
Leading businesses to make decisions on key areas rather than just speculation
Next steps? If there is interest, gather as a group and go through design
exercises Similar set up as the Human Computer Interaction course
from Coursera
Skills Rapid prototyping (Balsamiq) Heuristic evaluation Presentation
References http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2012/05/04/the-user-is-not-like-
me/
http://dailyartifacts.com/walmarts-185-billon-dollar-mistake http://www.businessinsider.com/eye-tracking-heatmaps-2012
-5?op=1
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html