R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 1

i

INF 385G – Week 3

September 13, 2004

Randolph G. Bias, Ph.D.rbias@ischool.utexas.edu

cell: 512-657-3924

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 2

iObjectives1 - Offer a little background regarding usability

engineering

2 – Address user-centered design

3 – Cover the first three chapters

4 – Check out some Web resources

5 – Level-set re the requirements for the rest of the semester

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 3

iUCD – What?

• UCD vs. “the old way” (see Fig. 1.1, p. 2)– Technology/user driven– Component/solutions focus– Multidisciplinary work– Internal/external design (architecture vs. UI)– Specialization (customer experience specialist)– Competitive focus (Remember Norman: “Usability – the next

competitive frontier”)– Validation (“Looks good to me”)– View of quality (More than just “defects”)– User measurements– Customers

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 4

iUCD – Why?

1) Who ARE all those people? How do you test all representative users?

2) If I had a hammer, I wouldn’t necessarily be a carpenter

3) The tug of “Internet time” How much will it cost, in lost sales or increased

customer support, if the hurried design is hard to use?

4) The old “get something out there” approach doesn’t work anymore

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 5

iMore “Why”? -- #5 - The dangers of amateur usability engineering• Task analysis• Cost-feature tradeoff analysis• User profiling• Heuristic evaluation• Usability walkthrough• Co-discovery• Paper-and-pencil testing• Lab testing• Group facilitation• Survey generation• Naturalistic observation• Field study• Remote usability testing• Automated usability testing• Which method when?

• Human perception, cognition, learning, memory

• Decision-making• Motivation• Mental modeling• Anthropometry• Descriptive and inferential stat• Cost-justification methods• Research ethics• Advocacy

– Written/oral communications– Prioritization of issues– Software development process

• Science– Correlation ≠ Causation– Response bias– Do NOT accept the null

hypothesis

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 6

iUCD – More why.

6) More capabilities means more novice users

7) The world is more complex, and so it is harder to know what all the possibilities are

e.g., Local configurations

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 7

iUCD Roadmap

• Prepare organization• Ensure alignment from practitioner to executive• Develop new roles• Educate execs, managers, practitioners• Establish corporate goals (“business objectives”)• Review progress and provide consultancy help• Start at grassroots• Define UCD broadly – total customer experience• Establish multilevel views – principles, process, tools• Reduce cycle time/resource• Start with a pilot project• Establish UCD as an internal brand and advertise it• Communicate successes companywide• Review feedback on approach (practice what we preach)

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 8

iIBM’S “Integrated UCD”

• Total customer experience, from the ads, through customer support (not just GUI).

• Variety of techniques (not just EUT).• Focus on affective (i.e., emotional) as well as

cognitive and behavioral aspects.• Measurements throughout.• State-of-the-art tools and technologies.• Attention to how to get started.• Process – Team – Product.

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 9

iSix Principles of UCD

1) Set business goals

2) Understand users

3) Design the total user experience

4) Evaluate designs

5) Assess competitiveness

6) Manage for users

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 10

iCh. 3 – Introducing the Approach

• Here’s how to do it WRONG:– Whine.– Think usability is just EUT.– Collect some user data, throw it “over the fence,”

and sit back and cross your arms.– Assume that everyone knows the contributions of a

group or person who writes zero lines of code.– Move straight to righteous indignation, when people

don’t get it right away.– Esteem usability above functionality and schedule.– Ignore organizational structure.

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 11

iAn important distinction

• From p. 100,– Ease of use is an attribute of the product

(Web site, whatever) we’re trying to achieve.

– UCD is the method we use to achieve it.

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 12

iWeb resources

• Useit.com (I-Fan)• Microsoft (Hans)

http://www.microsoft.com/usability/default.htm• www.gerrymcgovern.com (John)• www.usabilitynet.org (Anuj)• http://www.corante.com/totalexperience/ (Terry)• usability.gov• useit.com• upassoc.org• http://www.stcsig.org/usability/

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 13

iClass StuffTerry Aesthetics and usability EUT of Web site with

changeable look and feel

I-Fan Automated test tools Utopia

Hans Paper prototyping, industrial usability, assessment design in instructional technology

Supreme Court?

John Content development Supreme Court?

Anuj Usability in pervasive computing

Supreme Court?

Sabeera E-commerce vs. info sites World Bank

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 14

iHomework

• Read rest of the textbook.

• Come to class on Sept. 28th ready to ask textbook author Scott Isensee some questions about – UCD– what he thinks has changed since the book

came out– what’s on the usability horizon.

R. G. Bias | School of Information | SZB 562BB | Phone: 512 471 7046 | rbias@ischool.utexas.edu 15

iNext Week

• Pretty special collection of stuff:1 – Sam Burns (iSchool doctoral student) will

give a demo of Morae, a usability testing tool.2 – Patrick Williams (iSchool doctoral student)

will give a presentation on some usability testing he and Sam did on a collection understanding tool.

3 – Shannon Lucas (iSchool master’s candidate) will give a presentation on some usability testing he did on an Ion Storm game (Thief 3).