National usability day

World Usability DayTHE MAKING OF OUR FUTURE

TRACEY NOLTE | SLALOM CONSULTING

Agenda The curse of usability

Defining Usable

Poor Usability

Glass Past and Future

Group Activity

The

Curse

of

UsabilityAt work, I am paid to look for and fix usability problems.

The curse is that I always find them, even when I’m not looking.

4Usable - fit or ready for use or service

Usability is defined by 6 quality components:

Expectations: Meets the anticipated /needed use (Utility/Efficacy)

Learnability/Intuitive: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?

Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?

Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?

Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?

Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

5

Trivia

Who is this man and what is his nickname?

6

Answer

Who is this man and what is his nickname?

Jakob Neilson“King of Usability”

www.useit.com

7

Where is Usability?

Interfaces– what kind?

Physical things – what things?

Concepts – which ones?

Any others??

8

Poor Usability

“Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.

Everyone makes design decisions all the time without realizing it ...good design is simply the result of making these decisions consciously, at the right stage, and in consultation with others as the need arise."

Douglas Martin

9

Tools

“Tools used to be an extension of the physical self, now they are an extension of the mental self.” Amber Case is a cyborg

anthropologist, examining the way humans and technology interact and evolve together. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html

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ThisIsBroken.com

NOT USABLE

Seth Godin: This is brokenhttp://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_this_is_broken_1.html

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Serious Impacts to poor usability?

12

GlassThe past future

an

d

13

Our Past

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXK7MeCE77g

14What does GLASS

usability?

Have

To d

o

WITH

15

Glass in the year 2020

http://www.youtube.com/v/OptqxagZDfM?version=3&hl=en_US

16

Trivia

Who can name the most Jakob Nielsen’s Usability fighting styles - without using your mobile or laptop to look it up?

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Answers

Everyone hold up your favorite fighting style…. Keep it held…

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ACTIVITY: Invent Usability

1. Group with 2-3 people with the same fighting style

2. Select something you are passionate about as a group: Can openers, bookshelves, wheelchairs, phones, video games, etc.

3. On a sheet of paper, collectively list the low usability attributes

4. On a separate sheet of paper, brainstorm about how that thing may be used in 2020. Your turn to invent a more usable future!

5. List the impact of making it more usable and how it will change our culture, society or the world.

6. Share with the room

19A brave new world beyond 2020

Envision 2020 – 2030

http://www.youtube.com/v/1Lmd3l0W5JI?version=3&hl=en_US

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Quotes

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else. (Plato)

Usability testing is the killing field of cherished notions. - David Orr

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. - Albert Einstein

The joy of an early release lasts but a short time. The bitterness of an unusable system lasts for years. 

21

Thanks!

Tracey NolteUser Experience Practice Lead

Slalom Consulting

@traceynolte