Usability Study Design Tips

While working on project 1, I had a few questions about how to to complete usability studies. I sent an email asking/commenting the following:

"In your usability studies, how do you get the subjects to take the interview, survey, etc as serious as you do? Most people who take surveys fill it out without much thought. One time I created a survey to determine if a particular tool was useful; it seemed as if the participants just went through the motions, especially if the questions only required them to select from a list (i.e. agree..strongly agree). Is there a certain method of questioning or interviewing that is more effective for getting honest answers or well thought out answers?"

The response to my email was to do the following:

1. Build rapport with the people you are interviewing. Make sure they feel like their opinions are valued and put them at ease so they feel they can be completely honest.
2. Wording of questions is critical. Make sure you ask really open ended questions without leading.

I did some browsing around also and what I found in a document that someone posted on the web was helpful in providing more insight as well as confirming the email response. The author of the document posted on the web gave some do's and don'ts of usuability study design. For example, give the participant an options to end the study if they feel uncomfortable. Make sure the user understand that there is no right or wrong answer. Also, have them sign a form explaining that he results are anonymous; this helps them feel that they can be honest in their answers. The author also gave techniques on what to do during the study as far as what to watch for. For example, be sure to note non-verbal communication. Some advice on the types of questions were to give open ended questions as well as task oriented questions.

The author also gave pointers on when to perform usability studies, the best person to conduct the study, etc.

http://www.highedweb.org/2007/presentations/PST6.pdf

Neccessary Excise

Cooper chapter 11 talks about eliminating exise. Cooper claims that software is often "top heavy", "requiring extra work". Therefore by eliminating excise you decrease the amount of cognitive and physical effort when using the software or product. My question is, is there a need for excise in certain situations? When it comes to user interaction, isn't there times where you need that confirmation or alert message? There maybe be information that needs to be relayed to the user before completing a task. For example, I have always appreciated the "Are you sure you want to delete this?" alert message. That has saved me plenty of times, but I do understand that these types of things irritate some. So where is the balance? Or do we need not need a balance? I guess in the end Cooper does imply that excise isn't necessarily bad if the effort to complete the excise task is kept to a minimum. Then, how do we assess the effort? When you are in a rush, any extra click is too much. Your thoughts?

What is Banner Blindness? Is it real?

Banner Blindness? I admit that I am new to HCI. In fact, HCI=Human Factors in a system design, period. While browsing around on the web trying to get some bearings in this new subject, I found an article about banner blindness. It is a phenomenon where website vistors ignore banners on the website or anything that looks like an adverstisement. I thought, well this is silly. Considering the fact that a lot of websites make their money from adverstisements. I mean who would pay for something that's being totally ignored. On the other hand I thought, maybe that's why Craigslist is so "boring" in appearance because they know about this. This is the article link

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html

If you read through the article, I know from my personal experience, I agree. I never actually pay much attention to the "happenings" on the side. They also stated that if the user does engage themselves with the ads it is usually one that looks like a windows command. I AGREE. I remember the first time I saw one of those...I CLICKED. That was the last time I was fooled, so nowadays I don't think those are popular anymore.

Now I understand why advertisers are just plain old bombarding web browsers with advertisements. You ever been reading an article then have a McDonalds ad just pop up right in front of your article? Then you have to search for the mistery "close" button. Now I know why! The ads want to be heard or seen in this case. This is another reason why I am beginning to accept that this phenomenon is real.

Creating Effective User Personas

I found creating personas to be quite challenging. So I looked around the web for other resources that might make it clearer or at least give a different perspective. I found one article by Lene Nielsen. The article gave 10 steps to use when creating usability personas. Please find the link below
http://www.masternewmedia.org/interface_and_navigation_design/usability/how-to-create-effective-personas-20071004.htm
I found this article to be helpful because it list steps to help guide you in developing your personas. I thought Cooper (Chapter 5 p 77 did a great job with this also. This article gives a different perspective of the step by step process for developing effective personas. One part that I found interesting in the article as opposed to Cooper is the verification step. This is where you find data to support your persona descriptions and scenarios. This made sense because when creating personas, you use the data collected to help get an idea of what your users are like. But is what you came up with correct? Or make sense? Even though article seems to be focus more on development as oppose to the “user”; I think you can pull different techniques and ideas from each process (Cooper and the article).

“Trust” as service, or all about Benjamin?

As I tried to things to post here now, I have been gathering some materials for a month or so. I just couldn’t find a time to do that. The projects were killers. :(

I came across this Web 2.0 site called, Smartypig.com. Smartypig.com is a service site which users are able to set own saving amount. It’s a virtual piggy bank. At the same time, you can share your saving goal with others (family members too) so that they can contribute it if they wish. Since this is Web 2.0, it integrates with facebook and other social network sites.

I am little baffled with this service model and user behaviors. I maybe old school, but I don’t get the idea of sharing this kind of personal details. It’s a good behavior that can be recommended, especially in this tough economic time. Everyone wants to save some but I am not sure but doing this in public places.

Then I remember seeing other sites that are related to money lending sites a few years ago. Instead of getting load from banks, you ask from peers. The sites are even more popular now. Some college financial offices are even listing these sites as alternative way to get loans.

"Matching Borrower with Lender, Social-Network Style"
"Peer to Peer Education Loans"

Other sites are…
GreenNote.com
Lendingclub.com

Obviously, lenders and loaners are getting something out of this service. The needs for both parties are different but the service brings them together to provide what both user wants. To bring this service as legitimate, the service site has to create “trust” to users. I wondered how this kind of service would be started… Peer-to-Peer service is common, but the amount of money both users deal are completely different level. Would this be a common service in future? Is this part of cloud service?

Broken Service. Can HCI save everyone?

As we wrapped up service design course, I thought I would ask others about this issue. Digital Copyrights has been and will be one mess experience for both content owner and users. No technology so far seemed to work well between content provider and customers

Many industries, particular music and movie have been out of control with how they deal with copyright infringement. General public are fed up but the industries are not responding what customer wants. RIAA is actively going after individuals who violated copyright. The recent case of a grad student from Boston who was ordered to pay over $22,000 per song (total of 30 songs) shows how broken the system is.

AP thought they deserve to get paid every word they publish. So they implemented iCopyright to charge # of words, starting $12.50 per word. Also AP got Copyright Bounty Hunter to go after those who violated the copyright. Guess, how this AP copyright ended up working? James Grimmelmann, associate professor at NY Law School, submitted an expert from Thomas Jefferson’s letter, not written by AP. Of course, AP said he owes $12.

I understand you want to get paid for what you create. But the overall service is broken. The experience of service is not pleasant to both creator and users. Smaller music service sites are trying different models to accommodate both musicians and users. Are there any ways to design workable and realistic service for this kind of issues?

Mock up for touch?

For our first project, I found that the observations and feedback lead me to a multitouch interface, or at least touch. When it came time to create a running mock-up, I found the existing tools lacking in this area because using a mouse in an environment intended for touch skews the usability benefits and issues. I don't see this as a software issue, but more of a lack of test hardware. I could go buy an iPhone and create an application specific to it for testing. A tablet or one of the new touch monitors might work, but again, this is something I'd have to buy. I could potentially use a multitouch device on a university campus if I lived near one. None of these options are really feasible for me at the moment, so is there a solution to individuals working with small projects that are touch based? Is there a way to test touch based interfaces with a mouse and gain more accurate interaction data (beyond cognitive measures)? Or is a paper prototype potentially the best way to test with users since they can simulate dragging, touching objects with their fingers, and experience moving their whole arm?

I was pointed to this post about the SDK for Microsoft Surface which permits multiple mice to simulate multi-touch interfaces. This would help verify the correct manipulation features, but would not provide accurate data for ease of use or speed for this different form of interaction. It seems like this area is currently lacking in prototyping opportunities, but then maybe that is the price of using interaction concepts with newer technology.