Information Software Systems 18 May 2007 Information Software Systems Roman Yagodka ISS Test Leader...

Information Software Systems

Information Software Systems18 May 2007

Information Software SystemsInformation Software Systems

Roman YagodkaISS Test Leader

Usability: A Good Thing To Think About

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ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007(c) Information Software Systems 2007

Contents

Introduction to Usability Why Usability is important Case study: www.turne.com.ua

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Introduction To Usability

Term usability has several meanings. We will consider three of them, which are directly connected with software development: Usability as some quality of a product Usability as an empirical science Usability as an ideology

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Introduction To Usability (cont.)

Usability as a quality is a property of software product which shows how well it fits end-user needs, how much its behavior corresponds to user expectations and how pleasant is to work with the software

Usability itself is not actually any metric and can not be measured directly

To compare usability of software products or to confirm improvement from product redesign you need to measure additional related parameters, such as: Time to complete a task Percentage of tasks that were failed to complete Other domain-specific metrics

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Usability as an empirical science actually checks software product for being usable

Usability has the following empiric methods: At the pre-design and design stage: field studies, user

prototype testing At the development stage or at complete product: user

testing

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Usability as an ideology is the set of principles, which should drive development of every user-friendly software product (after J. Nielsen): User shall be superior to technology User shall have control over the software Software shall be as simple as possible

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Why Usability Is Important?

The answer is very simple:

If your software is too difficult – your user will finally leave it

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Case Study: www.TURNE.com.ua

Following case study covers usability oriented redesign of the e-commerce web-site, which was held in year 2005

Redesign was conducted by web-site team in strong cooperation with usability consultant

Redesign took about three weeks, excluding time for graphical design and programming

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Brief Overview: www.TURNE.com.ua

One of the first electronic travel catalogues in Ukraine About 5000 visitors daily One year online before redesign

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Brief Overview: Main Page

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General use-case

Tour package

Find

User

Make online order SuperSuper

Tour IncTour Inc

Travel company

Contact

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Existing web-site problems

Finding a tour Unclear navigation Confusing tour search function Absence of the full-text search

Ordering a tour “Fear” of online ordering Frequent calls to support

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Main Redesign Goal

Increase number of online orders Subgoal: Increase number of users successfully reaching

tour details page

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Redesign Plan

Preliminary analysis Structure development Draft design of main pages Create paper prototypes for testing User prototype testing Results processing, design update Implement changes

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Preliminary Analysis

Following inputs were analyzed: Search keywords history Website routes (2-3 levels deep)

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Preliminary Analysis (cont.)

About 1000 search requests were analyzed and grouped into 8 main categories of interest

Запити по категоріях (всі запити)

фірми5% Інше

5%

Конкретні готелі/курорти

41%Певне місце25%

Певна країна/регіон

15%

Без конкретики

7%

Круїзи1%

Авіа1%

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Preliminary Analysis (cont.)

Users routes starting from the main page were analyzed to discover existing good and bad solutions

Прямая ссылка на описание тура (Горящие путевки) 12943

Горящие туры 1651

Оранжевый блок / Турция 1439

Страны 1299

Оранжевый блок / Крым 1253

Крым 987

Туры 861

Курорты 289

Отели 287

Каталог туркомпаний 217

Карпаты 142

Блок Топ 10 отелей 116

Рекламные блоки 205

Погода 98

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Structure Development

Structure development was conducted in a series of meetings, involving all the team

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Draft Design of Pages

For each structure element was developed draft page design

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Paper Prototypes

Why paper prototype? It’s cheap It’s easy to update on-the-fly It works at least not worse than electronic one

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Paper Prototype Example

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User Prototype Testing: Tasks

Each user was given a several tasks to complete Tasks were mainly related to the main redesign goal –

user shall successfully find desired package tour and make an order

Other tasks were intended to check some ideas, generated at the design stage

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User Prototype Testing: Process

10 users were involved in testing, each test took 40-50 minutes to complete

Each user was told to speak aloud about what he thinks when trying to complete the task

All content, which could not be prepared in advance, like search results, was generated manually on-the-fly

As it was expected, two main types of user behavior were discovered: “searching” and “exploring”

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Results processing

Meeting was conducted the next day after testing In general design was accepted, except extended tour

search form, which was then redesigned. “Top 10 Countries” block was declined despite of very

good results due to marketing reasons

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Results

One month later after new version was launched: Number of tour details views grew up for 15%

Number of online orders grew up for 38% It must be taken into account that measurements

were made at the peak of low-season in the tourist industry, so the website has 11% less visitors than before launching a new version

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The EndThank You For Attention

Information Software Systems 18 May 2007 Information Software Systems Roman Yagodka ISS Test Leader...

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