How Usable is YOUR World?

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French Writer and Aviator

That’s a lovely one, especially when we see so many features proliferating  everywhere…

I attended a Workshop (at Webstock 2010) called Data Visualization that was very insightful. Wikipedia defines data visualization as “the study of the visual representation of data“. It’s incredible how you can present data in different ways and how it can affect the level of reader’s understanding. In fact, data visualization is used to make a point, to communicate raw / unfamiliar data.

One of Toby Segaran’s projects was to show openings of new WalMart stores from 1962 to 2007 with the first one in Arkansas. It’s quite funny to see how it spread. By watching his video, it’s much more easier to understand the evolution of WalMart in USA than by just looking at a table showing new store locations by year and by city.

He mentioned two tools that can be used freely to make your own data visualization:

• yFiles - The one he prefers.
• Graphviz

I haven’t tried these yet, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s important to be able to translate raw (dull) data into something meaningful to the reader.

He also talked about good and bad visualization, for example, a 3D pie chart is usually not a good idea if you want to compare figures. Let’s see with the following example of a 3D pie chart that shows 5 companies and their market share, which one from A and C have the biggest market share?

The answer is both companies (A and C) have a 20% of the market. In that case, a 2D bar chart might be a better idea if you have to compare these data. Some readers might say that you only have to add percentages to the pie charts, yes it would help but still, visually, there will be a favorable bias toward company C which seems to have a much bigger pie chart.

Presenting data in a way that is easier to understand is important but be careful to not create a bias in your graph.

If the user can’t use it, it doesn’t work

- Susan Dray – President of Dray & Associates

It is as simple as that, if your company designs products (web application, car, camera, etc) that can’t be used by the targeted users, you just fail. In her quote, the term user implies specified or targeted user even if that specified group of users could include a wide range of the population. I’m saying that because you won’t expect anybody to be able to use the flight deck of a helicopter for example.

This quote leads me to tell you that you must understand your users (behaviours, environment, goals, etc) before you design your product and must test your ideas (wireframes, prototype, etc) with real end users. If your manager tells you, we don’t need to effectuate usability testing. Well, you know what, your product will eventually be tested by your users… you want it or not! Believe me; it’s better to test it before it goes on the shelf!

Here are two Flickr groups that show broken products:

This is Broken - Flickr group

Everyday Usability - Flickr group

For the last post of 2009, I want to share 3 quotes that I really like!

Watch people in their own environments

— Peter Merholz, Founding partner of Adaptive Path

That’s so true, if you really want to improve a product, watch people using it in their own environment. That’s why, when we facilitate usability testing sessions, we should try to mimic their environment, or in an ideal situation, effectuate the testing in their environment. For example, remote usability testing, either moderated (e.g., Userview or a simply screen sharing application such as Adobe ConnectNow) or automated (e.g. Chalkmark) help you discover a lot of insights about how they use their devices (e.g., browsers and its number of toolbars).

On the other hand, before starting to develop a product, it’s always valuable to run a field observation which is basically watching people doing their tasks in their environment, taking notes and, sometimes if you can, ask them questions. For example, I have done some field observations of call center agents and I found out that agents were writing down, on a piece of paper, crucial information for the booking. By watching them doing so, I came up with ideas about how to design the new application that will lead them do their job better.

—————————–

‘Intuitive’ interfaces are easier to build when designers have a deep understanding of the users

— Jared M. Spool, Founder and principal of User Interface Engineering

This quote is a complement to the previous one. It’s easier to achieve intuitive interfaces when you know very well your users and how they will interact with your product / application. Having a deep understanding of the user means primarily knowing and understanding the impact of their goals, their values and their environment on your product. How they will (or why they won’t) use it will be defined by these characteristics.

—————————–

I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone

— Bjarne Stroustrup, Creator of C++

Bjarne said and thought that in 1990’s while attempting to use a “feature-rich” telephone. Mobiles and smart phones include more and more features and allow its owner to interact with the world in different ways; phone call, SMS, MMS, email, Facebook updates, etc. Sometimes, users get lost with this myriad of possibilities and accomplishing basic tasks such as adding a new contact becomes complex and unusable.

Don’t get me wrong, there are 3.1 billion unique mobile users around the world, which is a lot. Mobiles and smart phones are more and more used to access the web and might become the main primary device for accessing the web in 2020. It’s already influencing how we design web sites. But, we shouldn’t forget ease of use for primary tasks.

If you are interested in facts and trends about the media industry, I suggest you to watch the following video - Did You Know 4.0.