Usable Usability Simple Steps For Making Stuff Better 1st Edition Eric Reiss - Solutions

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I’ve heard of an old saying: “Faster, cheaper, better—pick two,” but doesn’t that mean it’s a double constraint?
Why are these things in a triangle?
When you make a change to one of the triple constraints, the other two are also affected. Can you figure out which of the three constraints is going to be affected the most in each of these problematic situations?
Most of the work you’ll be doing is contract work. You’ll put together three different teams of software engineers, and you’ll need to make sure that they build everything our customer needs. And don’t forget: you’ve got to stay within budget, and it’s got to be done on time! It’s a
We have a project coming up that’s needed by our customer service team. The project is a real technical challenge for us, so we’ve assembled a team of top-notch programmers to come up with a good solution. We need a project manager to work with the programming manager on this one. You would be
We need someone who can manage the whole effort, start to finish. You’ll need to work with the client to establish goals, choose the team, estimate time and cost, manage and track all of your decisions, and make sure you keep everybody in the loop on what’s going on. We expect the project to
We’re looking for someone who can work with our development manager to deliver our products on time. We have a good programming team;they just need a little encouragement to meet their deadlines. You’ll be expected to keep really good status meeting notes. If you run into any trouble with the
What are the goals of your stuff? Do you have a clear idea? If not, spend a quiet half hour thinking this through and then test the tasks involved to see if you can actually accomplish what you set out to do. (You may identify several goals and related tasks. Check them all.)
Do you have a form people have to fill out? Are you asking for information people might not have, such as a fax number?
If people are interrupted during an interaction with your stuff, will they be able to resume their tasks when they return? If not, what can you change to make things easier?
Can you think of any “edge” cases? What if someone doesn’t live in your country? What if the person doesn’t have a five-digit ZIP or a seven-digit phone number or needs both letters and numbers to provide a postal code? Will the visitor be able to fill out your form? If not, can you
Are your forms “forgiving”? Or are the back-end business rules dictating overly rigid input patterns?
If something doesn’t work, are you giving users an alternative course of action?For example, is there a dedicated e-mail address or phone number to supplement an online contact form?
If you put something in a shopping basket/cart on an e-commerce site, is the item really getting placed in the cart? Can you complete the check-out process?Can your mother?
Will your stuff become less functional over time (like an overfilled trash can)?Do you actually have a functional problem or is this a question of redesigning a process or service?
Does your stuff work across all browser platforms? Does it work well on different devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops)? Pay particular attention to mission-critical stuff such as online forms, video and audio controls, and dashboard-type widgets.
Are your photos and graphics taking too long to load? Is it possible to optimize them to reduce the size of the individual files?
When a button is clicked, can you see that it “reacts”?
When a file has been saved, can you see that it has been saved?
If your cursor rolls over a link or other interactive object, does the cursor change shape to indicate that something is clickable?
Can your site be resized on a computer screen? What happens when you look at it on a tablet or smartphone? Will it work on a smart TV?
Try to complete some basic tasks, such as downloading a file or clicking through a check-out procedure. Are there any times when you wish the site had acknowledged some action on your part?
Are all lengthy procedures, such as downloading a file, providing ongoing feedback regarding the progress that has been made?
If you are dealing with a physical object, is it providing feedback? Do you know when something has been switched on or off? Or turned up or turned down?
Is any feedback you receive arriving in a timely manner? Or are you first getting messages long after an action has been undertaken?
Are the response mechanisms understandable? Or are icons and other signals forcing users to guess? Are you applying established best practices or are you inventing them from scratch? Would your next-door neighbor understand them?Or your family?
Does the layout and quality of the content reflect the limitations of the particular device on which it is viewed? If the content is different from one device to another, has it been scaled up or cut down to fit appropriately? Scaling up is generally the better choice.
Are the buttons big enough to click easily with a mouse?
Are they still big enough if you need to use your finger on a touchscreen?
Are the drop-down menus easy to “catch” with the cursor? Are there timing issues that need to be addressed?
Are you providing keyboard shortcuts as alternatives to mouse movements?
Can users tab from one form-field to the next?
Are elements that must be used simultaneously also visible simultaneously?
Do you have elements on the screen that are getting in the way of each other?
Can you provide the equivalent of a “silent usher” to help people figure out what to do?
Are visual gimmicks making your stuff more difficult to use?
Are there any illogical task sequences or workflow interruptions that you can change or avoid to make things easier for the user?
Consider the tasks your users will be trying to complete. Without looking at your stuff, make a list of three things necessary for the completion of each task. Now look at your stuff. Are all of the things needed available to the user?
Can you group related content so it is easier to find?
Can you use colors or other visual signals to differentiate areas on an interactive page or device?
If you have multimodal experiences, can you make sure that the different processes don’t get in each other’s way?
How much do you know about the various users of your stuff? If you close your eyes, can you envision one of your users? If not, you need to know more about them. If you can see someone, create a quick persona, perhaps building on details from a real person you already know. Now go back to question
Can you eliminate unnecessary jumps from online to offline experiences? For example, letting people submit a form electronically rather than requiring them to print and fax a form.
Write down five reasons why a user should like your stuff. If these are difficult to identify, can you invent a few reasons? Now go back and figure out if anything is missing in terms of content or context that would make your new reasons viable.
Are you providing useful content? If not, what is missing? Opening hours? Contact information? Detailed product descriptions? Contextual links? Something else? Refer back to question 1 for inspiration.
Are you guilty of “For your convenience . . .” types of spin? If so, don’t spin, fix!
Can you eliminate areas where users are forced to give you the same information several times?
Can you give people several different ways in which they can respond so if one thing doesn’t work, they still have an alternative?
Did you find any error messages or instructions that you needed to read twice to understand? If so, there’s an opportunity to improve your written communications!
Can you speed up response times so that people are not likely to repeat an action (like the story in Chapter Two in which I ordered three Rolls-Royces)?
Can you build in a physical deterrent, such as a child-proof cap, barricades, or some other technique to prevent people from harming something—including themselves? Do you know what the harm could be? You can’t prevent harm without understanding it first!
Do you have error messages or alerts that could be confused with system warnings? If so, can you create a more unique design for these? Or even eliminate these messages entirely?
Are you doing anything “helpful” that is actually getting in people’s way as they try to accomplish the task at hand?
Does your stuff include personalization features, such as adaptive menus, that could cause confusion by remembering behaviors that may not be relevant the next time someone uses something?
Are you providing cognitive clues and guideposts to point people in useful directions as they interact with your stuff?
Have you kept instructions to a minimum? Have you made sure that information(such as confirmation numbers) is available when and where people actually need it?
Is someone’s idea of a “foolproof solution” actually worse than the problem it was designed to solve? If so, can you smooth out the roughest edges or perhaps even drop the solution entirely?
Does your stuff suggest that information is available when it really isn’t? Or you’ve hidden it somewhere folks aren’t looking?
Is something physically blocking the view to your information? Pop-ups? Physical hindrances? Something else? Get rid of these!
Does important information look like junk to be ignored, such as a banner ad or something else of questionable relevance?
Did you simply forget to include important information that people need in order to complete a task of some kind?
Does your stuff feature a “fold”? If so, is information grouped so things the user needs simultaneously are all on the same side of the fold? Or does the fold separate name and address, input and output, cookies and milk? Or is important stuff, such as a key contact link, hidden below the fold?
Are your long onscreen pages sending out a strong signal that you expect folks to scroll?
Is your paywall getting in the way of the free part of the experience?
Can every page on your website, every door in your building, every new view and vista of your stuff meet the demands of Eric’s Enlightening Elevator Examination?
Is your design team reducing clutter because it makes stuff better or because it just makes things prettier? Better is better.
Are you using internal or proprietary branded terms instead of generic words that help people accomplish a task? For example, do you say “sign up for our Total Flexibility Plan” instead of “buy insurance”?
How are your written descriptions? Are they accurate and comprehensive? Pick a page at random. Does it pass the “lightbulb” test? Try it on a family member or neighbor—someone who is not connected with your enterprise.
Define three typical users of your products or services. Create a short story for each of them describing how they interact with your stuff across all channels.Can you see touchpoints that can be improved?
Are you using abbreviations, company language, or difficult words that might not be understood by the folks who use your stuff? Can you eliminate this language or improve it?
Can you find images that don’t properly build the shared reference? Can you redo these images so they provide a better sense of size, function, and so on?
Currency, sales tax, shipping charges, and even service charges at a restaurant—if you list prices, do people know what these include or don’t include?
Are there online pages or offline processes that are difficult to understand for folks outside your local or geographic area? Can you add a few words to make things more understandable?
Do you have icons that do not have accompanying descriptive words? If so, add some, including alt attributes (those little yellow boxes that pop up when your mouse hovers over a word or image).
Are there physical limitations from a visual design perspective that are preventing you from creating a full-blown shared reference? (For example, a text box that is too small to contain all the text it should). Is a redesign of certain elements possible?
Are you making comparisons or creating analogies to help people understand your products and services? If so, do people understand these comparisons?
Is there anything in your written or visual descriptions that could actually mislead people? Assuming you’re not out to cheat folks, what can you do to spin things in a more useful direction?
As you review your project, are there any functional issues that make you stop and ask “Why did we do that?”
Are there responsiveness questions that also make you wonder why something is happening (or not happening)?
What about ergonomics? Are you being forced to scroll unnecessarily or need too many hands to accomplish something? Remember, if you ask “why,” you could be on the track of something important.
Can you spot any situations related to convenience that cause you to ask yourself, “Why can’t we make this easier?”
Did you make a mistake at some point? If so, can you think of a way to avoid the mistake? What about asking a family member, friend, or colleague to look at the same thing and see how they react?
Is there anything in your stuff that looks like one thing, but is actually something very different? Can you do something to reduce the design dissonance?
Try mapping out three or four sunny day use cases for your stuff. Now create a simple flow. Are there any things that seem unclear? Are the flows difficult to map out? If so, you might have spotted a key usability flaw.
What about the logic of the flow? Is each step on the way bringing you closer to the goal? Or are some flows taking you off on unnecessary tangents? If so, can you eliminate any of these detours?
Take a look at your stuff from the standpoint of shared-reference building (see Chapter 7). Are there places where better communication of an invisible process will help make things seem more logical to others?
As always, make sure the back button on the Internet browser does not “break”a routine that is already in progress.
Are there any things in your design that look the same, but actually act differently? Make sure things that act different look different.
Are there things in your design that act the same but look different? Make sure that things that act the same look the same.
Is there anything in your stuff that seems different from similar stuff you’ve seen somewhere else? Is there some kind of design best practice that was overlooked or ignored?
Is the consistency of any object or function being sacrificed for the sake of creativity? What are these functions and objects? Can you see a quick fix that won’t thoroughly offend the designers?
Do you have physical buttons and knobs and levers that are expected to do different things at different times? Would it make sense to add more buttons or levers?
Are there icons that are being reused for different functions? If so, either redesign the icons or get rid of them.
Can you increase the consistency of any objects or processes? Quite apart from adopting the best practices developed by others, try increasing functional uniformity within the context of your product or service.
Does your stuff require prior knowledge of similar products or services in order for folks to figure out how to use it? If so, will folks recognize this similarity when they encounter it? Make sure you give people strong visual clues that will trigger the knowledge they’ve picked up somewhere
Can you use colors and the physical grouping of buttons and other controls so that folks can immediately see that they are related in some way?
Has your stuff been “patched” at some point as a way to quickly fix an underlying consistency problem? If it’s possible to actually fix things and eliminate the patch, maybe now is the time to do so. (See the photo of the Cuban elevator in Chapter Eight. It’s a great example of a “patch.
Are you helping people draw on past experiences? If not, can you create the cognitive trigger?
Are there things people should know ahead of time? Can you find ways to let them know in a logical, unobtrusive way?
Have you let people know what you expect of them? Do they need special talents or to meet some prerequisite? If so, is this clearly communicated before they get too deep into a process?

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Usable Usability Simple Steps For Making Stuff Better 1st Edition Eric Reiss - Solutions

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