Results of testing initial page designs

I developed my initial page designs and have showed them to three potential users. To do this I printed the pages and asked the users the following questions (from Krug 2006; 87):

• What site is this?
• What page are you on?
• What are the major sections of the site?
• What are your options at this level?
• Where are you in the scheme of things?
• How can you search?

I also asked them what they thought of the general layout and design...and got some really good responses! They were generally quite positive:

• All users understood that it was a site for mentoring female academics (though, admittedly, I did have to prompt them on this, but this is expected to come about more through the use of graphics and logo etc. rather than the actual design of the site. Nevertheless, they could all tell from the navigation structure that the site had to do with mentoring).

• The breadcrumbs and page headings identified the pages - they could all tell where they were in the heirachy

• The navigation structure identified all the major sections of the site to all users. However, I identified that there were some problems with the navigation structure, especially on the long pages (e.g. Resources). One user commented that there needed to be an easier way of getting around the page than scrolling - and I think I'll fix this problem with a 'back to top' link.

• Interestingly, they liked the fact that they did not have to go 'back' on the 'find a mentor' page to search again - that the search, results and specific results were all on the same page. I was cautious about this because I thought they might not like having to scroll so much - but I think the addition of a 'back to top' link should overcome this problem.

• The breadcrumbs and page headings made all users feel as if they knew where they were. All users understood the function of breadcrumbs.

• All users familiar with how to search, using the search button in the top right corner. Two of the users looked here intuitively for it, the other looked for a while on the main page but eventually found it.

The users also commented that they didn't like the 'login' bar and buttons on all the pages. They commented that it took up too much room and that it was ugly and unnecessary. This is really good feedback! I've decided to have a separate login page, with only a link to the logi from every page.

Workflow for 'become a mentor'

Another workflow - this time for becoming a mentor. They're very high level but it helps me to think about the process people go through to ensure that my site will facilitate this process.

Workflow for 'find a mentor'

Since I have incorporated some element of interactivity into the site, I think it is important to develop a diagram of the way that a user will go about interacting with the site. By thinking about how the user would go about such a process, it focusses the detail more on the user and less on the screen design, and hopefully increases the usability of the site. I have used myself as subject, incorporating suggestions from users during the usability review of the two mentoring sites.

Results of testing information architecture

I emailed three people with the list of elements that I wanted to include on the site. They responded with their groupings, and with the names of the groupings that they thought best represented the associated content.

User 1
group 1: 'information'
guidelines
policies and procedures
docs to help with process

group 2: 'faqs'
what is mentoring
what makes a good mentor?

group 3: 'about this site'
aims and objectives
description of site
contact us

group 4: 'interact with others'
registration
notice board
find a mentor
become a mentor


User 2

group 1: 'resources'
guidelines
policies and procedures
docs to help with process
what is mentoring
what makes a good mentor?

group 2: 'about us'
aims and objectives
description of site
contact us

group 3: 'registration'
registration

group 4: 'meet your mentor'
notice board
find a mentor
become a mentor

User 3
group 1: 'resources'
guidelines
policies and procedures
docs to help with process

group 2: 'information about mentoring'
what is mentoring
what makes a good mentor?
aims and objectives
description of site
contact us

group 3: 'register and find a mentor'
registration
notice board
find a mentor
become a mentor

Two important comments arose from their comments:
registration is important for becoming a mentor or mentee: therefore, 'become a mentor' should be subsumed under the registration category
the 'aims and objectives' are really the same thing as the 'description of site' - this would just be double up of content so 'description os site' should go


The users had trouble combinging and naming some of the categories. For example, User 3's 'register and find a mentor' category doesn't really capture the full range of elements in that category. Also, because of the [relatively small] size of the site, I don't think it would be a problem to break it up and have most levels accessible from the home page (i.e. 2 levels of navigation max).

Considering these recommendations, I have come up with the following groupings:

Group 1: 'Resources'
guidelines
policies and procedures
docs to help with process

Group 2: 'About us'
aims and objectives

Group 3: 'Contact Us'
contact information

Group 4: 'Noticeboard'
noticeboard with job listings etc.

Group 5: 'find a mentor'
search function

Group 6: 'become a mentor'
registration function

Website functionality ideas

After conducting my usability review of other sites with similar topics (i.e. Mentoring Australia and Australia Women's Mentoring Network) and with a visual style I admire (i.e. Leriot) I've found that information architecture is one of the most important things to get right at the start. So many of the problems that I identified with the sites were caused by ill-informed information architecture. So, I have thought about how I can manage this and decided that a card sort task using three people that know little about mentoring would be useful. This requires me to get together a list of the elements of the site - the things I want to include on it. This is the list of 'elements' that I would start with - the site would hopefully grow in the future as more people got involved and user's demands increased.

Basic information:

• what is mentoring?
• list of research articles showing the effect of mentoring on job performance/satisfaction/pay, etc.
• guidelines for mentoring
• suggested policies and procedures
• what makes a good mentor
• description of this site, its aims and objectives (though make this short - minimise happy talk! [Krug, 2006])
• documents to help with mentoring process (e.g. GROW [goals, reality, obstacles, wrap up] model of coaching)
• contact us

Interactive elements

• registration for mentor/mentee matching (use recommendations and insights gained through usability testing here)
• notice board to discuss general interest topics, post advertisements, etc.

Originally I had considered having a very interactive site where participants could communicate with their partner in real time. I have since reconsidered this after reading Krug and talking with users about registration and use of such sites. I think that the process would be better facilitated by having the chat through email - it could possibly even be like dating sites where you communicate through email but the site doesn't let each person know the actual email address it's going to. I'm not sure that confidentiality like that would be SO necessary but would like to offer users the possibility.

The next step is to discuss with users how they see the groupings.

Another Eureka moment with Krug...

I love this point (made in the Forward by Roger Black):

"...while these conventions may change, there is one constant that never changes: human nature. As radical and disruptive a social and commercial force as the Internet has been, it has not caused a noticeable mutation in the human species." (p. xiii).

Simple, yet something that all too often gets left at the way side in web development.

Online mentoring questionnaire

Dear diary...

I have developed the questionnaire to be used during the market research phase of site development. Ultimately, I would have liked to start with some focus groups with key stakeholders to determine things they liked/didn't like about academic life/mentoring in general, rather than proceed with the questionnaire. The questionnaire is about gaining a more quantitative representation of user requirements, and I think it should be informed by the focus group. Anyway, not to matter.
The questionnaire will be distrubuted to academics and post-graduate students at my University. I'm hoping to get a good sample size (at least 40) though with current time pressures this may be a little optimistic ;) We'll see.
I'm not sure if the questionnaire will load properly here because I can only attach an image - if not and you want to see the whole thing before I put it in with my assignment, please email me at cpitts@psy.unsw.edu.au.

[insert a couple of very frustrating minutes...]

OK, I can't upload it because it won't take a pdf and the jpeg only displays half of it. How frustrating! Will determine a solution soon.

Site analyses for NED23

As part of the NED23 course we're asked to analyse a couple of sites with usability in mind. Some of the sites were appalling and I acted as if this were an everyday situation - got myself outta there.

http://www.elementk.com/

What draws your eye - 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
The first thing that drew my eye was the changing picture. It was quite attractive, initially.
The second thing to draw my attention was the ‘element k’ logo in the top left corner.
The third was the picture – again. It had changed and caught my eye.

Note if something draws your eye again - or causes you to avert your eyes
The picture keeps drawing my attention, but unfortunately it doesn’t tell me anything about what the company does! I gather they don’t specialise in mountain climbing gear, but the animation on the picture makes it difficult for me to focus on anything else.

What role is white space playing?
The white space makes the whole page look ‘cleaner’ – and works to delineate the text from the rest of the page.

Can you determine if the design is intentionally directing your eye? How?
The page seems to be intentionally drawing my attention to the pictures – though this isn’t telling me a whole bunch about what the site is about.

What is the purpose of this site?
Element K specialise in helping companies develop learning and development solutions.

Is this site of value to you? Would it be of value to anyone else? Why?
This site is valuable to me because I have a special interest in learning and development, especially online learning. It would be valuable to companies wanting to design and implement a targeted, internal training program, particularly if the company was large or was geographically distributed because they could deliver the training online.

How is this site organized?
The site is organised into products and services – though there seem to be other things on the site which should be a ‘product’ or ‘service’ so I’m not sure why they’re listed separately.

How does it work? How are people supposed to use it?
Customers are supposed to navigate around the site to see if Element K can help their company with training solutions.

How long did it take for your partner to figure out what the site was about, or "Get It"?
Still don’t know if I get it properly, but spent probably five mins looking around.

http://www.convergys.com/employeecare_learning.html

What draws your eye - 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
The first thing to draw my eye was the Convergys logo, placed in the top left corner. The next was the picture of the woman along the banner, and the third was the heading of the page: “Learning: Driving performance improvements and better return on investment”.

Note if something draws your eye again - or causes you to avert your eyes
Nothing ‘kept’ drawing my attention except the text – I was actually motivated to read it!

What role is white space playing?
The whote space makes it perfectly clear where I’m supposed to be looking – there’s little redundancy on the page and the white space is used to good advantage.

Can you determine if the design is intentionally directing your eye? How?
It seems as if they want me to read the homepage text. It describes what they do – as well as why they do it better than anyone else – and it’s in a slightly larger text than the rest of the page (including left nav). The text has clear headers which make scanning easy.

What is the purpose of this site?
The purpose is to advertise the products and services of Convergys.

Is this site of value to you? Would it be of value to anyone else? Why?
Yes, because I’m interested in training and development. It would be valuable to companies if they need organisational development.

How is this site organized?
The site is organised much more simply than the other – into the different services they provide, by ‘division’, e.g. ‘business support systems’ and ‘customer management’. It would be easy to navigate around the site if you had a clear idea of what your business required.

How does it work? How are people supposed to use it?
Companies would use it to find out information about the company, and to discover its relevance to the success of their company (i.e. it does a good sell job!)

How long did it take for your partner to figure out what the site was about, or "Get It"?
Almost immediately. The text was clear and non-redundant and explained what the company offered, and how it was better than anyone else.

http://www.madxs.com/

What a pain. This site will not load, and they have lots of instructions about how to make it load – all of which I can’t be bothered to take. They want to me download Flash and other software (even though I’m sure I have it) and they recommend IE 5.0 or above – I have 7 and its not working. Leaving!

http://www.virtualflowers.com/home.asp?se=1

What draws your eye - 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
The flowers pictures in the middle of the screen draw my attention first, then theVirtual Flowers logo in the top left corner (its flashing). After that, the flashing banner-something in the top right corner.

Note if something draws your eye again - or causes you to avert your eyes
The flashing! I’m trying to avert my eyes but it keeps drawing me back to it. Annoying!

What role is white space playing?
The white space seems to be nothing more than a background colour. The site would be worse with a coloured background, but at the moment it doesn’t particularly seem to be adding anything to the site.

Can you determine if the design is intentionally directing your eye? How?
The site is using a lot of animated signs – too many. They’re detracting my attention away from their products.

What is the purpose of this site?
To make me read their advertisements? Presumably to sell flowers, though they’re not doing a very effective job.

Is this site of value to you? Would it be of value to anyone else? Why?
The site is of value to me because I occasionally send flowers to people. I’m not sure though that it’s utilitarian value would overcome the site’s poor design though.

How is this site organized?
Badly! The site’s organised into the ‘types’ of flowers people might want to send – though these are not mutually exclusive so you’re left thinking – something Steve Krug would never have! For example, they have a link to both “send fresh flowers” and “birthday flowers”. This leaves me thinking:
Are birthday flowers not fresh?
Can I not send birthday flowers?
Why would they put “send” there? Isn’t that self evident from the site?
I’m annoyed with this site and at this point in my shopping expedition, I’d be outta there…

How does it work? How are people supposed to use it?
People are supposed to navigate around the site, select the flowers they like and send them to people after paying for them. Whether this happens in reality is another question.

How long did it take for your partner to figure out what the site was about, or "Get It"?
It’s easy to figure out what the site is about – selling flowers. They make the actual process of choosing and paying for your flowers a little more difficult.


http://www.ibm.com/us/

What draws your eye - 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
The first thing to catch my eye was the text on the left – though it changed almost as soon as the page had properly loaded. The second was the IBM logo, and the third was the detail in the picture.

Note if something draws your eye again - or causes you to avert your eyes
Nothing really ‘grabs’ my attention except the changing picture across the top third of the page, though it changes slowly so it still gives you time to read the [very small] text.

What role is white space playing?
The white space creates strong contrast between the text and the surrounding area. It’s really important here because there’s a lot of text (all links) and you need to be able to read them easily and understand where you want to go.

Can you determine if the design is intentionally directing your eye? How?
The page is directing my attention to the top banner, but it seems only because everything else is really difficult to read. I just noticed that the picture changes with my moving the mouse over separate icons on the page – it took me a while to realise this though!

What is the purpose of this site?
To ‘learn about’, ‘shop for’ and ‘get support’ for IBM products. The site is organised well – information, e-comm and support. It’s user focussed in that respect.

Is this site of value to you? Would it be of value to anyone else? Why?
The site doesn’t have great value to me because I’m a Mac-er (!), though I can see it having great value for people wanting to find out about IBM products, purchase them, and then find out what’s wrong with them ;)

How is this site organized?
The site is organised in the same way as people would want to come and use it (its purpose).People either want to find out about the products, buy them or get support for them, and its organised in exactly the same way – its organised by the user’s tasks and goals.

How does it work? How are people supposed to use it?
See above – all very consistent.

How long did it take for your partner to figure out what the site was about, or "Get It"?
I ‘got it’ almost immediately – though that was probably only brand recognition. The site fulfilled my expectations about what I thought I should be finding on such a site.


http://www.disney.com.au/#

What draws your eye - 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
There’s an AD in the middle of the screen! Get me out of here! Sorry, at this point I’m totally turned off. I don’t mind inconspicuous advertising, but this is appalling – it completely dominates the whole view, and it’s for a product that I find disgusting (kids lollies marketed as ‘fruit’). I’m out of here on ethical grounds.

Market Research ideas...

I've been thinking about a site I could design. I have a couple of options:

1. My Dad's business desperately needs a new website. He imports electronic pipe organs from Italy (quite a niche market!) and sells them to churchs and some private buyers (even more niche!). His website at the moment is - to say the least - quite 'elementary' in style and functionality and I think it could do with an overhaul. It's an informational site - rather than a transactional, e-comm site (mostly because no one is going to fork out $80K online for an organ without playing it!) - which makes it (for me, with more experience with e-comm sites!) a little harder to conceptualise. But I love a challenge and I'd love to be able to help him out. The cons to this idea are that (1) it's an already existing site (though I'd almost be working from it 'not' being s site considering the amount of overhaulin' needing to be done) and (2) it would be very difficult to distribute questionnaires to the target audience. Being a niche market, there would have to be things on the site that appeal to and are understood by 'pipe organ' types - though I think an advantage of me designing it (with little pipe organ knowledge) would be that it would be from the perspective of someone that knows nothing. So, someone without pipe organ know how could understand and appreciate the site.

2. My second idea (and one that I'm a little more taken with) is to develop a 'mentoring and meeting site' for female academics. I like this idea for several reasons:
- There is a finite, contained 'problem' that I believe could be addressed by this site. In short, female academics (at least in my department) suffer from feelings of disenfranshisement with the general academic community because of the strains imposed by competing demands - family life, mostly - and, from my experience, they can really benefit from being mentored, and mentoring others. Mentoring is an opportunity for people to connect with and learn from the experience of people that may have 'trodden their path' already. I've found it immensely helpful with my research, yet I think there are opportunities still to be addressed. These are particularly for females in smaller or more remote areas that don't have access to established mentoring programs.
- Being online, it could avoid the time commitment needed by attending formal meetings - a synchronous discussions, like we have on WebCT, could be a really useful forum for airing concerns and discussing issues without having to commit to meetings.

OK, so that's what I'm working with at the moment. Questionnaire questions to follow :)

Moments with Krug - Eureka!

Steve Krug's book, Don't Make Me Think, is candid, fresh and original. My first (of a few!) eureka moment happened early on in the book - page 19.

"Your competitor is only one click away" is bandied about almost to the point of being trite as the first and foremost reason for companies to invest in usability. Krug suggests another, more basic reason, which is backed up by psychological research.

His argument is that "making pages self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: it just makes everything seem better" (author's emphasis). It's so true! As usability practitioners, we witness users getting increasingly frustrated as they struggle to navigate their way through badly designed sites. People simply don't just switch sites when they encounter frustration - they have spent some time and energy getting to the site in the first place and they want this to pay off. Only when the frustration becomes too much do they throw their hands up in the air and move to another site. So in fact, your competitor may be more than one click away, but a user's negative exp[erience on your site could have even worse ramifications (e.g. never visiting again, or even worse, associating a poorly designed site with poor quality products).

On the other hand, a good experience at a website could have great consequences for brand image and product awareness. Dion et al's (1972) famous article "What is beautiful is good" argued that people ascribe positive personality traits and life outcomes to more attractive people. I tend to think that the same would happen for websites - a more positive experience on a webiste that looks better would probably have an effect on people's perceptions of the products and services offered by the webiste. Shoddy website = shoddy products: easy, usable and attractive website = great products and services (see my post on usability and aesthetics for a more in depth look at this).

A recent study by Everard and Galletta (2005) supports this notion. They found that poor style, hypothesised errors and incompleteness were inversely related to users' perceptions of the quality of the online store. This relationship also held for their level of trust in the store, as well as their purchase intention.

So the moral of the story is: your competitors are only a click away. But most users won't take this opportunity. Instead they will persist with your unusable, badly designed site and transfer their negative affect from the experience onto your products, brand, services, etc. Perhaps its time to see usability not as a service associated with IT, but marketing?

Refs:
Dion, K., Berscheid, E. & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 285-290.
Everard, A. & Galletta, D. F. (2005). How presentation flaws affect perceived site quality, trust, and intention to purchase from an online store. Journal of Management Information Systems, 22, 55-95.

The secret: Read this for lasting happiness!

After discovering the Positive Psychology movement about six months ago, I would like to pass on some of its findings to others because I really think they have the potential to change the way we think. Here I've reviewed an article by Seligman et al (2005, complete ref below) so you can get a bit of a flavour for what's happening in the field without having to read the whole thing yourself! I've also included a little at the end about this theory's relevence to The Secret, a [very!] popular 'motivational' style dvd that draws from 'laws of attraction', among other things (personally I think the science might be a bit suspect but it provokes some interesting thoughts...)

Seligman (and colleagues) have been investigating interventions for making people ‘lastingly happier’; an endeavour that is almost squashed at the outset by the popular opinion that people have a baseline level of happiness, and that while some things may increase it temporarily, that ultimately everyone returns to their normal, baseline levels. Seligman et. al (2005) conducted a randomised control trial over the Internet with 411 participants over a six month period. The sample was slightly biased in that they were mostly White, of average or above average education and income, and were slightly depressed at the outset.

They used a number of interventions:

Placebo control: Early memories
Participants asked to write about their early memories every night for one week

Gratitude visit
Participants asked to write and deliver a letter of gratitude in person to someone who had been especially kind to them but had never been properly thanked

Three good things in life
P’s asked to write down three good things that went well each day and their causes every night for one week. Note that they were asked to provide a causal explanation for the good thing,

You at your best
P’s asked to write about a time when they were at their best and then to reflect on the personal strengths that they had displayed.

Using signature strengths in a new way
P’s asked to take Seligman’s inventory of character strengths (available at www.authentichappiness.org) and to receive individualised feedback about their top five (“signature”) strengths. They were then asked to use one of these top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week

Identify signature strengths
A truncated version of the one just described, without the instruction to use the strengths in a new way. Instead they were asked to use them “more often”.

Results
The results were quite astounding. Two of the interventions – Three good things and Using signature strengths in a new way – increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms for six months. That’s right – after using them for only one week, people were statistically significantly more happy and less depressed six months on, compared with the placebo controls. The effect size was ‘moderate’ or larger. All other groups, except Gratitude visit, experienced increased happiness the week after they finished the intervention, but this was not maintained. The Gratitude visit participants were significantly happier for one month after the intervention. Participants who, of their own accord, decided to continue with the intervention, experienced even greater happiness six months down the track than those that had done it only for one week (I think it’s incredible that people were seeing improvements after only seven days of reflecting on positive aspects of their day!).


The link with The Secret is that this has major implications for how we treat and manage depressive (and other) disorders. Current psychotherapy best practice is talk therapy, based around challenging negative thoughts, to argue against negative thoughts, to gain insight into the sources of conflict, etc. Note that this is focussing on the negative thoughts. Of course, these methods are quite successful. But I think that I’d much prefer to spend my time thinking about how things were good, and about my strengths, rather than ruminating on my weaknesses.

Finally, it was interesting to note that these participants saw an improvement without the help of an experienced therapist or coach. The authors suggest that even greater improvements may be made with the help of a coach.

I found this article very enlightening and wanted to share it with you!

Abundance and flourishing to you all ;)

PS: The article, if you would be interested in reading the whole thing, is as follows:

Seligman, M. E. P, Steen, T. A., Park, N. & Peterson, C. (2005) Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. Annual Review of Psychology, July-August, 60, 410-421.

Usability and Aesthetics

Thanks for tuning in to this, the first edition of my blog. I hope to make this an interesting and informative experience for us both.

Here's something interesting about usability...for a long time, usability professionals have thought aesthetics to be irrelevant, or even detrimental, to usability. But recent psychological research suggests that this may not be so. Noam Tractinsky, an Israeli academic, replicated a study originally done by a couple of Japanese researchers who found that perceptions of how attractive an ATM layout was (yes, you can have sexy and not-sexy ATM layouts), as well as perceptions of its usability, correlated more strongly with people's performance than actual usability, which did not correlate with performance. Amazing! It suggests that the more attractive something is, the more usable people perceive it to be, AND the more usable it actually is.

This has links with another psychological finding, published back in the 70's, that 'what is beautiful is good'. That is, people that are perceived to be more attractive are also perceived to be better people.

So, maybe it's time to start rethinking the whole aesthetics/usability dichotomy.

If you're interested in this, look at the following article:

Tractinsky, N., Katz, A. S. & Ikar, D. (2000) What is beautiful is usable, Interacting with Computers, 13, 127-145.