User Experience Re-Mastered Your Guide to Getting the Right Design- P9

User Experience Re-Mastered Your Guide to Getting the Right Design- P9: Good user interface design isnt just about aesthetics or using the latest technology. Designers also need to ensure their product is offering an optimal user experience. This requires user needs analysis, usability testing, persona creation, prototyping, design sketching, and evaluation through-out the design and development process.
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User Experience Re-Mastered Your Guide to Getting the Right Design- P9 Analysis and Interpretation of User Observation CHAPTER 11 337INTERPRETATION OF USER-OBSERVATION DATAOnce you have analyzed your data – for example, by grouping them accordingto a coding scheme – your final step is interpretation: deciding what caused thedefects that you have identified and recommending what to do about them. InTable 11.4, we suggest a template for gathering defects and interpretations. Again,some sample data have been entered into the table for the purposes of illustra-tion. For the example task, because the defect is related to the first action of thetask and the task cannot be accomplished until the user chooses the right menuitem, we have assigned a severity rating of “High.” Notice that this form carefullypreserves the distinction between our observations and our comments on them.Some practitioners prefer to gather the defects and the good points about theinterface on a single form, whereas others prefer to deal with all the defects and allthe good points in two separate passes. Choose whichever method you prefer.Assigning SeveritiesThe process of summarizing the data usually makes it obvious which problemsrequire the most urgent attention. In our form in Table 11.3, we have included acolumn for assigning a severity to each defect.Bearing in mind our comments about statistics, one important point to remem-ber is that the weighting given to each participant’s results depends very muchon comparison with your overall user profile.Recommending ChangesSome authorities stop here, taking the view that it is the responsibility of thedevelopment team to decide what to change in the interface. For example, theCommon Industry Format for summative evaluation does not include a sectionfor recommendations, taking the view that deciding what to do is a separateprocess when undertaking a summative evaluation: Table 11.3 Data Interpretation Form for User Observations Session Date: February 11 Task Scenario No. 1 Session Start Time: 9:30 a.m. Evaluator’s Name: John Session End Time: 10:20 a.m. Usability Evaluator’s Comments Cause of the Severity Rating Observation Usability Defect, if There Is One The user did The user was not sure The menu name is High not select the which menu item inappropriate, as right menu item Options was in. it does not relate (Options) to to the required initiate the task. action. – – – –338 User Experience Re-Mastered: Your Guide to Getting the Right Design Stakeholders can use the usability data to help make informed decisions concerning the release of software products or the procurement of such products. (http://zing.ncsl.nist.gov/iusr/documents/whatistheCIF.html) If your task is to improve the interface as well as to establish whether it meets the requirements, then you are likely to need to work out what to do next: recom- mending the changes. So we suggest a template in Table 11.4 to record the recommendations. In the table, the “Status” column indicates what is being planned for the recommended change – when the usability defect will be rectified, if it has been deferred, or if it is being ignored for the time being. It is hard to be specific about interpretation of results. Fortunately, you will find that many problems have obvious solutions, particularly if this is an exploratory evaluation of an early prototype. Evaluations are full of surprises. You will find defects in parts of the interface that you thought would work well, and conversely you may find that users are completely comfortable with something that you personally find irritating or never expected to work. Equally frequently, you will find that during the analysis of the results you simply do not have the data to provide an answer. Questions get overlooked, or users have conflicting opinions. Finally, the experience of working with real users can entirely change your perception of their tasks and environmen ...