UsabilityNews: News (full)

All change at the top for System Concepts

Sue Butland — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Leslie Fountain has been promoted to joint Managing Director of leading usability consultancy System Concepts Ltd.

Tom Stewart, who was previously joint Managing Director with Tanya Heasman, has become Executive Chairman of the consultancy.

Since joining the company in 2001, Leslie has managed many large and complex projects, often in several different countries. She has helped to expand System Concepts’ user experience services, introducing innovative tools to find out user requirements and promoting interaction design techniques.

A qualified ergonomist, Leslie gained an MBA with distinction from Cass Business School in 2008. She is well-known as a lively and motivational speaker and trainer in usability, accessibility and ergonomics.

Tom explains “I am delighted to hand over some of my operational responsibilities to Leslie. It allows me to concentrate on strategic issues and provide mentoring and support to our growing team of consultants. I will be able to use my time more effectively to promote System Concepts and carry out my duties as President of the Ergonomics Society and chair of the International Standards committee for human-system interaction.”

Leslie is particularly interested in helping clients align their business strategy and design processes to ensure products have the best chance of success.

She comments “I am looking forward to building on Tom’s work over the last 25 years to help our clients deliver successful products by improving the total user experience.”

Life in UCD immortalised in fiction: you couldn't make it up

Ann Light — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Ex-Flow Interactive employee, Sarah Herman, has turned her hand to authoring more than usability reports as this debut graphic novel reveals. This week sees the book get a good review in UK national newspaper The Guardian (see link below).

"I Like my Job" was launched with drinks in central London earlier this month among current and former Flow staff and other user experience experts as well as friends and relatives. While the story is fictitious, some resemblances to UCD people and practices might be discerned by the particularly observant and pages were turned avidly at the event.

The book is dedicated to Meriel Lenfestey and Phil Barrett, Flow's owners, and Allan Barr, former managing director. It is published by Jonathan Cape.

Interfaces Magazine - Issue 79: The Education Issue

John Knight — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Download “The Education Issue” and visit the Interfaces archive at:
http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/about/interfaces

Interfaces Issue 79: The Education Issue

• HCI 2009 by Alan Blackwell
• Play up, play up and play the game by Tom McEwan
• Reflections by George Buchanan
• Lancaster MA in Interaction Design by Alan Dix & Corina Sas
• Teaching design to heterogeneous classes by Sus Lundgren
• Can short courses create lifelong learning? By David Travis
• Practical Interaction Design by Phil Turner and Susan Turner
• My PhD by Nazean Jomhari
• Profile with Anthony Dunne
• Interfaces reviews by Shailey Minocha
• Interacting with Computers by Dianne Murray
• View from the chair by Russell Beale

Interfaces Team: Fiona Dix, Eduardo Calvillo Gámez, Jennifer Hart, and Stephen Hassard
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HCI 2009 - Celebrating People and Technology
1st to 5th September 2009 in Cambridge
http://www.hci2009.org/
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Interfaces Issue 80: Celebrating People and Technology
Please send your submissions to the next issue of Interfaces to John.Knight@intiuo.com by July 4th.  
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About Interaction  
Founded in 1984, Interaction is the longest-established and largest national group in Europe devoted to HCI. A specialist group of the British Computer Society, Interaction publishes Interfaces, the award-winning quarterly magazine for members and the high-ranking international academic journal Interacting with Computers. The group also organises a prestigious annual international conference (HCI 2009 is in Cambridge in September) as well as regular workshops and events including the HCI Educators Conference held annually with IFIP (in Dundee Abertay in April 2009). Interaction runs a number of websites including the leading global usability portal, UsabilityNews.com.   
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Join Interaction  
Existing BCS members can join Interaction for free: simply select Interaction as one of your five specialist groups. Those not currently in the BCS can join Interaction by taking out Student (£25) or Affiliate (£35) membership of the BCS (or indeed any of the other membership grades). This also entitles you to free membership of four additional BCS specialist groups and is available from http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5780.  
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Websites 
Interfaces Magazine http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/about/interfaces 
Interacting with Computers http://ees.elsevier.com/iwc/ 
HCI 2009 http://www.hci2009.org/ 
Usability News http://www.usabilitynews.com/ 
HCI Educators Conference http://hcied2009.abertay.ac.uk/

Two new Behavioural research Tools from Noldus

Annelies Verkerk — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Noldus Information Technology this week announced the release of The Observer® XT 9.0, the latest in behavioral research software. Along with this release, Noldus announced the launch of Pocket Observer 3.0. It allows you to perform behavioral coding on a handheld computer, making on-site research possible. These innovative products are available worldwide from our headquarters in The Netherlands, offices across Europe, the United States, China, and via a worldwide network of distributors.

The Observer XT is an invaluable research tool for researchers and practitioners worldwide. With a 20 year track record and citations in more than 2000 scientific publications, The Observer XT is considered the gold-standard of software for the collection, analysis, and presentation of observational data. This new release of The Observer XT enables universities, research institutes, and companies worldwide to benefit from the latest in observational research software. New features include an advanced find functionality to explore results and retrieve information quickly, support for coding in Chinese and Japanese characters, a RSS feed integrated in the software, for easy access to downloads and extensive documentation, and the possibility to combine time sampling with continuous recording during the observation.

Noldus also announced a new release of Pocket Observer, which is now fully compatible with The Observer XT. Pocket Observer runs on a variety of mobile devices, ranging from smart phones to rugged handhelds. It is the ideal event logging tool for live observations in natural settings such as classrooms, stables, shops, or in offices. Even in hostile environments, such as tropical rainforests and deserts, researchers can count on the durability of our handheld observation system.

“This release makes The Observer XT even more useful and versatile for behavioral research. Its new features make coding easier and faster” states Albert Willemsen, Marketing Manager at Noldus. “The new Pocket Observer is more convenient than ever. But perhaps the most important improvement is the addition of Asian characters. Our customers in Asia can now code and transcribe in their own language”.

Cell Phones that Listen and Learn

Joanna Bawa — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

By Kristina Grifantini

Researchers are increasingly using cell phones to better understand users' behavior and social interactions. The data collected from a phone's GPS chip or accelerometer, for example, can reveal trends that are relevant to modeling the spread of disease, determining personal health-care needs, improving time management, and even updating social-networks. The approach, known as reality mining, has also been suggested as a way to improve targeted advertising or make cell phones smarter: a device that knows its owner is in a meeting could automatically switch its ringer off, for example.

Now a group at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, NH, has created software that uses the microphone on a cell phone to track and interpret a user's activity. The software, called SoundSense, picks up sounds and tries to classify them into certain categories. In contrast to similar software developed previously, SoundSense can recognize completely unfamiliar sounds, and it also runs entirely on the device. SoundSense automatically classifies sounds as 'voice', 'music', or 'ambient noise'. If a sound is repeated often enough or for long enough, SoundSense gives it a high 'sound rank' and asks the user to confirm that it is significant and offers the option to label the sound.

In testing, the SoundSense software was able to correctly determine when the user was in a particular coffee shop, walking outside, brushing her teeth, cycling, and driving in the car. It also picked up the noise of an ATM machine and a fan in a particular room. The results of the experiments will be presented this week at the MobiSys 2009 conference, in Krakow, Poland.

Top Six Don’ts for Usability Testing

Ashley Faus — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

About a year ago, Patrick Sullivan, Jr. of Edit Weapon, decided to give UserTesting.com his own personal test and blog review. During that same post, Patrick mentioned that there were a few golden rules and guidelines to tasking users so that their test results would be optimally useful and easy to interpret, but that he’d have to cover these in a follow-up post. So here they are, the Top 6 User Testing Tips as disclosed by Edit Weapon:

1) Never ask, “What do you think about this?”
First of all, most people will simply give you a polite, rather than bluntly honest answer. Second of all, you’re not really interested in what they think of an interface /Web design /piece of software; you’re interested in how well and how easily they can USE it. That’s why it’s called usability testing. So you always want to put the question in the form of a goal /task. Tell the user what they want to do with the interface /software; give them an assigned scenario. This transforms the process into an objective exercise (rather than a subjective opinion) and allows you to watch how the testers go about using your tool. You can then get a much better idea of how easy or intuitive your interface is, where the friction occurs, etc.

2) Don’t feed the tester your question
As people learn new things they tend to be very literal - especially when it comes to tasking. For example, if you ask a tester to ‘Compose an email’ and the button for writing a new e-mail is actually labeled ‘compose email’, the tester will simply match the phrases up rather than thinking organically in terms of what they’re trying to accomplish and then figuring out the interface. This is leading the tester by feeding information with your questions. Ensure that you ask questions using terms that are not directly on the interface labels. Use synonyms. Going a step further, if most users won’t think of a task in terms of multiple steps, but your interface requires multiple steps, don’t break your tasking down into steps to match the interface. Write the question or task in the way that most users would think of it within a given scenario.

3) Don’t let users be the designers
When you get goal-oriented tasks, each user will have different levels at which they learn the interface and pick it up, and some users will do crazy things. So some users will offer suggestions. Don’t take those suggestions literally or at face value. You’re looking for what users DO more than what they say. This is similar to the rule against not asking users what they think of an interface.

4) Don’t let the statistics fool you
Let’s say you’ve done 20 tests in a row and 5 out of 20 were failures. But say you’ve been working on the interface and creating new iterations, and the last 5 tests went extremely smoothly. In that case you’ve got a good design. You need to think of the results in terms of being 5 for 5 rather than 15 for 20. This also applies to individual tasks within a test. If users find some minor tasks more difficult than operating commonly-used features, don’t let those usability problems count anywhere near as much as your successes with the main functions of your interface. Basically, not everything can be a big red button in the middle of the screen. You have to balance things out and sometimes a few items are a bit more difficult to find. There’s really no perfect solution for a multiple use interface.

5) Don’t get discouraged
Your expectations are usually going to be high prior to the first test. You’ll wonder how people aren’t seeing what they are supposed to see. User testing can be a humbling experience. That’s why it’s usually best to test and tweak your interface in iterations. You can’t design perfectly from the get-go because as the designer, you are too much inside the bottle. But as you alternate insight generated from testing with new and improved interface iterations, you’ll find the magic if you’re willing to hang in there.

6) Don’t try to test too much at once
You’ll get easier to analyze results if you limit your tasks to just 2-3. And at UserTesting.com’s prices, it’s not a big deal if you end up running additional tests instead of adding more tasks to the same test.

Usability: ‘Lovely software. But I can’t work it’

Joanna Bawa — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

By Jessica Twentyman

Ask anyone who uses a work computer as part of their day-to-day job and most will admit to ongoing struggles.

Many gripes will focus on the usability of the software: how difficult it is to navigate and how their passage involves numerous detours and frustrating dead-ends, necessitating anguished calls to help desks. In short, the software tends not to behave as they expected.

The impact on productivity of such confusion can be huge. In a recent survey by Global Graphics, an electronic document software company, 77 per cent of office workers estimate they lose up to one hour a week because business software is difficult to use.

Software vendors, on the other hand, prefer to focus on the time and money they dedicate to making their software as “intuitive” as possible, on their rigorous processes for pre-release usability testing and their dedication to gathering user feedback.

Frank Spillers, co-founder of Experience Dynamics, a usability consultancy based in Portland, Oregon, is on the side of the users. His company specialises in helping businesses – including big names in the technology sector – to understand better the problems that end users might encounter with their products.

“It’s as if designers and developers of software have become better at making software look simple on the surface, but as the user actually starts using it, they soon get helplessly lost. Navigation is often multi-layered and vital buttons are hidden away,” he says.

“My feeling is that software developers tend to build applications according to their own perceptions of users’ needs, not users’ actual needs. They find it hard to stop themselves from adding new features and functions, because they believe these make the product more applicable to a wider audience, when all they do is make it unnecessarily complex for the majority of users.”

Despite the lip-service paid by software vendors to usability, problems persist with even the most recent of products, says Chris Rourke, director of User Vision, an Edinburgh-based usability consultancy. His company offers an eye tracking service, based on technology that measures and records the path that users’ eyes take when scanning a user interface. “This allows customers to see which areas of the interface grab users’ attention and which areas they tend to overlook. If you’ve got a vital button or menu located in one of these neglected areas, your application or website isn’t likely to hit usability targets.”

And what do you do?

Russell Wilson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

How do you describe your job role? Here are the results of a recent 'Preferred UX/UI Title' Poll. Participants were asked to rank titles (prefixes and suffixes) in order of their preference. This doesn’t reflect current titles – this is preferred titles regardless of current titles.

- Surveys completed: 146 (hundreds of abandons)
- No data on participants (current titles, etc) – anonymous ranking only without additional questions
- Request to participate sent to: IxDA, Refresh, Agile-Usability, Facebook, Twitter

RESULTS
Prefix Rank (Most preferred to least):
1. User Experience
2. Interaction
3. User Interface
4. Usability
5. Web
6. Other

Suffix Rank (most preferred to least)
1. Designer
2. Architect
3. Engineer
4. Developer
5. Other

CONCLUSION?
“User Experience” and “Designer” were the preferred terms, but not necessarily in conjunction. Although this doesn’t surprise me, I continue to question the long-term survival of “user experience” as a title term. To me it is so ambiguous that it is essentially meaningless, an opinion that is supported by its misunderstanding outside (and within) our circles.

Most Doctors cite Usability as critical to Electronic Health Record Adoption

Joanna Bawa — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The healthcare industry has been awaiting a formal definition of electronic health record (EHR) 'meaningful use' ever since the language of the HITECH Act within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was made public, according to a Nuance Communications survey. According to the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association, the company noted that the federal government is expected to publish criteria pertaining to the definition of 'meaningful use' any day now.

In anticipation of definitive criteria, Nuance Communications, Inc, a supplier of speech solutions that help clinicians with the transition to and utilization of EHRs, engaged physicians via a survey to better understand how "meaningful use" should, from their point of view, ultimately be defined.

EHRs have been recognized as a core component to national healthcare reform. Beginning in 2011, physicians and hospitals can receive incentive payments under Medicare and Medicaid, but only if they are found to be "meaningful EHR users." The EHR Meaningful Use Physician Study was meant to explore and measure physicians' opinions related to the value of the EHR from an adoption, feature-set, productivity, patient care and cost benefit value perspective.

Glossy monitors look good but can hurt

Rupert Goodwins — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Reflections and glare on high gloss monitor screens and their relation to the angle of the monitor screen, could cause the operator to adopt awkward postures when viewing the monitor screen and using related equipment. These reflections on the screen can be from internal and external sources such as the overhead lighting and/or position of windows.

Awkward postures adopted by the operator may in turn lead to an injury.

Users of the high gloss monitor screens should conduct an assessment of the area where the monitor is to be placed on the desk top and ensure the sources of reflections and glare are eliminated or minimised to reduce the potential for injury by considering the following-

- Consider the amount of time that the monitor is being used during a work day – if used minimally then some of the control options may not be applicable. If the monitor and other screen based equipment is being used frequently during day then the potential for injury should be managed.
- Place the monitor so that the high gloss screen is at 90 degree angle to the overhead lighting to minimise glare and reflection; and/or adjust the tilt of the monitor screen slightly so that the reflections from both internal and external sources are minimised.
- Close venetian blinds or lower screens to reduce glare and reflections from windows.
Adjust the contrast. A ’ low brightness’ setting on the high gloss monitor screen in combination with the glass increases the readability for the user,
- Consider positioning of the high gloss monitor on another section of the desk top which is not affected by reflections and/or glare.
Consult and advise with your manager, local supervisor and/or Workplace Health and Safety Officer, Workplace Health and Safety Representative to assist with the assessment and management of risk.
- Consider consultation with a Facilities Management Lighting engineer to determine if overhead lighting can be modified e.g. tube removed and still provide adequate levels of light to enable reading, writing and screen based equipment work tasks to be performed.
- Consider the purchase of other types of monitors which are not high gloss.