An Introduction to Usability

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An Introduction to Usability

• Dirk SwartWeb Technologies DirectorUniversity
  Communications

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Keywords

• Simplicity
• User orientation
• Trade-offs
• Ease of use
• Patterns
• Reversability
• Details

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Why do usability?

• Diebold Voting System Has 'Delete' Button for
  Erasing Audit Logs
• Wired News (03/03/09) Zetter, Kim
• Auditors report
• "The proximity of the clear button to the "print"
  and "save as" buttons raises the risk of the logs
  being erased accidentally, and the system
  provides no warning to operators of the danger of
  clicking on the button."

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Commandeer. Technical term. Were going to
commandeer that ship.
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Progressive disclosure Showing overviews and
hiding details until the user requests
them.Affective Appealing to the emotions of
the user.Affordance Property of a thing which
determines how it is (or can be) used.
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Insert photo of Mann Library doors
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Academics for 200 please Alex
What do economists study most?
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A MoneyB PeopleC UtilityD !_at_
economists!
What do economists study most?
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C UtilityWe will call this happiness or
satisfaction.changes in utility are
sometimes expressed in units called utils.
(Wikipedia)
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• For our purposes
• Something is Pareto Optimal if we cant make
  someone better off without making someone else
  worse off.

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Usability The degree to which an object,
device, software application, etc. is easy to use
with no specific training - Wikipedia
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Usability The degree to which an object,
device, software application, etc. is easy to use
with no specific training -
Wikipedia Quite simply, usability is making
your site easy for your customers to find the
exact information they need when they need it.
www.searchenginewriting.com
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Usability The degree to which an object,
device, software application, etc. is easy to use
with no specific training -
Wikipedia Quite simply, usability is making
your site easy for your customers to find the
exact information they need when they need it.
www.searchenginewriting.com Usability is
the study of how to Pareto optimize your website
or application
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User Experience Impression left in a person's
mind after the sum of a series on interactions.
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Q Who decides if a website is easy to use?
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A Your target audience
But that is not very informative - will discuss
more.
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Click Whirr
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• Fixed Action Pattern
• A behavioral sequence that runs to completion.
• It has a trigger feature (releaser) plus a
  sequence, and in people is usually cultural.
• Our take home People like patterns.
• Well come back to this in a bit.

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Q
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• Form Follows Function

Function first. Then form.
Well come back to this in a bit too.
Beyond the introductory level this principle
becomes more complicated. But this is an
introduction to usability, so well stick with it
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Rule 1
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Rule 1

• Web behavior is always rushed
• Your website is a means to an end.

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Implications

• Good design ? easy to use.
• Simplicity is a choice.

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• Total Visitor time search time load
  time browse time scan time
• Think utility.

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Rule 2

• Consistency Expectations

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• Patterns Count

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Interlude

• Thinky things

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• Ready to hand
• Present at hand

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OK, back to work
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• People
• expect
• patterns

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Rule 2
Looks right, but isnt
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• Law School vanishing menus

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Rule 3

• People try stuff

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Implications

• Words Count. Words are the steak, not the
  sizzle.
• (And use sans serif, scalable. No A-A band aid
  crap)

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Implications

• Plan for the scent of information.
• Be reversible. Allow users to undo mistakes.

Garden Path a sequence of actions a user takes
that each seem to be leading to the desired
outcome but don't produce the desired result in
the end.
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Rule 3

• Don't let the exciting, the periphery, drive you
  out of your core business

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Rule 4

• Dont focus on everything equally Vegas effect.
• What is the most important remember economics

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Bonus
Its ALL details
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Common Mistakes
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• Heavy Pages lt- violates rule 1

When OK? If you have a pattern. Eg Amazon.com
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• Heavy Pages lt- violates rule 1

When OK? If you have a pattern. Eg Amazon.com
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• Ambiguous choices lt- violates rule 3

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• Ambiguous choices lt- violates rule 3

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• Lack of focus - Violates rule 4?

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Summary

• Usability is important. You think so they dont
  have to.
• Every decision is a trade-off.
• If you can, separate design, usability, focus,
  user experience. They are different.
• Learn the vocabulary

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More Information?

• MIT Usability Guidelineshttp//web.mit.edu/is/us
  ability/usability-guidelines.html
• SUS, a quick and dirty usability
  scalehttp//www.usabilitynet.org/trump/documents/
  Suschapt.doc
• Designing for the Scent of InformationEmail me
  for a copy
• Vocabularyhttp//www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/
  main.cgi
• Humorhttp//www.ok-cancel.com
• Yahoo Design Pattern Library http//developer.yaho
  o.com/ypatterns/

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• "Civilization advances by extending the number of
  operations we can perform without thinking about
  them
• Alfred North Whitehead
• (1861 1947)

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Usability Testing

• End User Usability
• 161 Secondary School Teachers filled in on line
  form.
• 73 had no affiliation to Cornell, 7.5 were
  Cornell alums.
• 46 were not within driving distance of Cornell.
• Admin Usability
• 8 Detailed interviews (1 hr ) conducted on 1
  day.
• Effort to produce these results
• End user 160 hours over a month, Admin 45 hours
  over three weeks.

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Usability Findings - Overall

• 68.3 used the net to find educational
  information
• 37 had never looked for educational materials at
  Cornell. 27 had looked once or twice
• They expected access to a very broad range of
  material.
• 33 would expect to find material in Outreach
  section.

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Usability Findings - Interface

• Search
• 55 of respondents did not like the simple
  search.
• Simple search with Primary and Secondary browse
  was most preferred.
• Browsing as a hierarchical sequence is
  desirable gt 86)
• gt90 said program profile page was well designed.
  
• Search Browse front and center is essential.

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Key Features of our execution

• Search and Browse
• Not trying to replace other sites. Refers people
  onward at Cornell.
• Reports
• Ability to revise search and browse.
• Add to taxonomy
• Track and count search terms

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Example Alice and Bob
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