- How does usability increase revenue?
Satisfied customers + With new customer needs = Buy
more products.
When a customer experiences good usability, they often
notice. When they experience frustration and limited satisfaction,
they really notice! With clever designs, products will
meet end-user expectations for ease of use and influence
customer behaviours toward organizational goals.
- How many end-users do I need for a usability test?
The number of end-users depends on the number of user
classes and the scope of the test. About 8 end-users per
user class will reveal nearly all usability problems and
provide the breadth and depth of data to make design decisions
with confidence. When combined with an expert
usability evaluation, a usability test conducted with
as few as 4 end-users will reveal a wide-range of usability
problems at a reduced cost. Find out more about usability
tests with end-users.
- What is the best time to evaluate for usability?
A usability test or evaluation should never be thought
of as rubber stamping. The results will always reveal
usability problems and will always invite design improvements.
Since it is most costly to begin code changes at late
stages of your development cycle, the best time for usability
is early in the cycle, during conceptual stages of design.
This is when usability work can have the highest impact
for the lowest cost.
Is your product almost ready to go live? We can still
help! An expert usability evaluation right
away will provide practical guidance for planning your
next step. This could be a few small changes for now,
with a vision for more substantial design improvements
in a future release.
- Do we need a usability lab to conduct a usability test?
Not necessarily. Most usability work today is conducted
without ever entering a usability lab. Usability labs
became popular in the late 1980s when unobtrusive observation,
statistical significance, and analysis of minutia were
thought to be of paramount importance. The drawback is
that precious time is used up by analyzing miles of video
tape after having conducted tests with too many end-users.
We now know that most usability problems can be identified
in the first few end-users that are tested. And because
our experts can interpret findings as the tests are being
conducted, you can benefit from a debriefing session at
the end of each day of testing.
- How much does usability cost?
Someone will design the user experience of your project
so there is always a cost. Hiring a usability expert simply
means you have the right person for the job and allows
your systems designers and developers to focus on what
they do best.
Don’t forget about the costs of poor
design! Frustrated end-users, missed opportunities,
inefficient work-arounds, and costly last-minute code
changes will inevitably increase costs over time. Invite
an expert to join your team who will think about usability
early, test with end-users often, and create a simple
and elegant design solution.
- What are the costs of poor design?
The costs of poor design are measurable, as in the following
example:
A financial institution has 25,000 customer records with
roughly 2 data entry errors in one-third of them. It takes
front-line staff about 15 minutes to sporadically catch
and correct each error. After user interface design improvements,
the rate of data entry errors is reduced by half. That
results in a savings of 52 person-weeks!
Avoid the costs of poor design with attention to usability
and a commitment to user-centered design:
- Reduce human error
- Increase end-user productivity
- Reduce training costs
- Reduce customer support costs
- Avoid the high cost of re-design in late stages of
development
- What if our budget and schedule are very tight?
Begin with an expert usability evaluation
of a few important tasks that your end-users will perform.
We can evaluate a design on paper, a prototype, or an
existing system. The results will provide practical guidance
for planning your next step. This could be a few small
changes for now, with a vision for more substantial design
improvements in the future.
The next step could also include a quick usability
test with end-users. The results will generate relevant
and reliable data about the usability of your product
or prototype so that informed design decisions can be
made. Then we can work with your team to make design improvements.
- We are new to usability, where do we start?
An informative place to begin is with an expert
usability evaluation of a current design on paper,
a prototype, or an existing system. For an introductory
experience, we can reduce the formality of this approach
and invite members of your cross-functional team to participate
in the review. They will benefit from seeing usability
experts in action and you will be benefit by understanding
the level of usability for your current project.
- What is PIPEDA and privacy legislation?
In 2003 the Canadian government extended the Personal
Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
to include all businesses in Canada. This sweeping legislation
obligates businesses to protect
the personal information they gather and restricts
how that information may be used. At Design | Strategy Inc we will work closely with your organization’s
privacy policy advisors to ensure their input at early
stages of design. An overview of
PIPEDA can be found at the Department of Justice Canada.
- Want to expand your customer base by 20%?
The number of technology users with special needs is
growing. Nearly 20% of adults have functional challenges
that make it difficult for them to perform tasks such
as view screen content or use a mouse. People also use
technology under diverse conditions:
on a noisy factory floor, in a surgical theatre, or on
a delivery truck. And they use a wide-range
of technologies, such as mobile or audio-only browsers,
eye-trackers, head-up displays, hands-free, and other
non-traditional input devices. Products designed without
attention to accessibility risk alienating a growing
end-user population. Furthermore, governments are
now legislating accessibility standards for their federal
agencies, such as Section
508 in the United States. At Design | Strategy Inc
we will ensure that your software initiatives meet the
accessibility needs of your end-users.