Using standards to increase usability

in web applications

MCC. Mary Carmen GarduñoApplication Developer Manager Professor at the Information Systems Department

Agenda

• Introduction– México: Tecnológico de Monterrey– Web pages at Tec of Monterrey– User Interfaces

• Standards– Software Development – Usability : ISO 9241 and ISO 9126– Web Standards

• Conclusions

Tecnologico de Monterrey• As of 2004, Tecnologico de Monterrey

has 33 campi in Mexico and a Virtual University with presence in Mexico and other countries. It has an enrollment of 96,832 students - 28,986 in high school, 57,181 in undergraduate programs and 10,665 in graduate programs- and 8,253 faculty members, of whom 1,208 have doctoral degrees.

Web pages

• We have a web page developed by the Public Relations department and hosted by the IT department.

• These pages have “templates” design en the PR.

• We have several java developed in-house applications using WEB INTERFACES.

Web site: http://www.cem.itesm.mx

Usability and Interfaces

• Usability means ease of learning and ease of use.

Daniel McCracken• The HFES states (1957) that as

humans we have to promote that devices and systems of all kinds, will meet human being characteristics.

http://www.hfes.org/web/Default.aspx

• As in the late 1970's and 1980's computers began to became accesible for many people. Non- expert users began to use computers so manufacturers started to think in creating products that were friendly to users.

• Researchers and practitioners had make vital contributions to apply human factors to interface development.

User Interfaces

Interfaces

• The developing of web pages was first the job of software designers. The software designers main purpose was to make information systems that would meet the requirements of the clients, but without taking care of the look an feel.

• At the beginning, formal education didn't encourage to join concepts of perception, psicology and web page development.

SW developers and usability

• The main factors that make software engineers not aware of usability concepts were: – Old plain interfaces for end users– Old fashioned development techniques

where functionality and time compliance were the main interests.

– No contact with end users, only managers – No contact with business objectives or

company goals – No real measurements of clients' “feelings”

about systems

Do you remember?

MAC System 1.1

Apple II desktop 1.1

And this?

Windows 1.01

And then.....

We evolve....

Information systems began to use web pages as user interfaces......

But ... not only software engineers develop web pages !!!!

A big question:

Is a web page an Information system?

If it is, can we use the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to create it?

• Software development formal methodologies didn't include the end users during the software development life cycle (SDLC), “the users don't know about computers”

SDLC

Two of them

• Analysing formal development methodologies – especially MSF, RUP – the main purpose was to develop information systems on time, meeting the most user requirements.

• MSF contained good guidelines based upon experiences and best practices for having the roles of various team members in a software development project clearly defined.

SDLC

• The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is an iterative software development process, in which all the stages have documents and key facts for having success in building software.

• Documentation is the aim for having a good development process.

• MSF and RUP encourage during the requirements and analysis phases to caption common vocabulary, find actors and task analysis but.....

• What about....– colors– fonts– metaphors– mental maps

USER = PERSON

But...

Things began to change

• In 1982, the ACM, create a special group on Computer Human Interaction (SIGCHI). This was the result of researchers studying human factors that involve human behavior, especially in specific workplaces.

• Their main goal was to make people's experience with computers more productive, more time efficient and more pleasant.

Goals of HCI

• As a result: 7 principles were developed as Human Computer Interaction appears:

• Safety, utility, learnability, effectiveness, efficiency, ease of used, attitude of users towards a system.

User Centered Development

• On the other hand, UCI is an iterative approach which includes the users as their main focus during their analysis stage.

• It includes elements that help users to figure out how the interface may look.

A quick view

DESIGN

EVALUATE

PROTOTYPE

MEET USABILITY

?

READY TOIMPLEMENT

YES

Another approach: ISO

• There have been a couple of efforts for making standards for increse “quality” in creating Information Systems an Software development.

• Two of them are:– ISO 9241– ISO 9126 I S O

ISO 9241

The document ISO 9241-11 (1998) Guidance on Usability

ISO 9241Usability: the capability of thesoftware product to be understood,

learned, used and attractive to the user, when used under specified conditions.

Principles used:

Understandability Learnability Operability Attractiveness

One more: ISO 9126

It is an international standard for evaluating software.

Usability - A set of attributes that bear on the effort needed for use, and on the individual assessment of such use, by a stated or implied set of users.

Learnability Understandability Operability

Finally.... web standards!

• Technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web (W3C)– Xhtml– Html– CSS– Javascripts– Their mainfocus is on making web pages

portable, efficient, they talk about accesibility, but usability?

– Effort are done en the W3C for meeting usability specifications.

Joining all together

HAPPY USERS

I S O

H C IWeb Standards

SW Development

?

Standards? Which ones?

Conclusion

• Usability is now recognized as an important software quality attribute, earning its place among more traditional attributes such as performance and robustness. Indeed, various academic programs focus on usability.

Taking the best of all

1) USABILITY CONCEPTS:Trainning designers, SW engineers (and

anyone who is making web interfaces) to conduct usability and accesibility analysis.– Reading:

• “Heuristic Evaluation of User Interfaces”, Jacob Nielsen y Rolf Molich

• “How C.R.A.P is Your Site Design?” by Mike Rundle

Answer the question

• What is....?– Understandability– Learnability– Operability– Attractiveness

STEP 22) USABILITY POLICIES:A web page is the entrance to a new

world, a world in which everything is possible so...

Treat this world as a professional one!!!!

a) Implement changes in the SDLC to increase usability on information systems. Use an Hybrid: UCD & .... whatever.

• Read the article:Integration of Usability Techniques into the Software Development Process by Xavier Ferre

Step 2

b) Put this words into the real world– eg.To gain knowledge, comprehension, or

mastery of through experience or study.“put the save button on the bottom of the

form”

STEP 33) USABILITY EVALUATIONApply evaluation on the existing pages

for verifying the application of the usability and accesibility policies

Recomendation: Checklists are designed for trainning web pages developers in “knowing” usability concepts and for evaluating their work.

ITIL: Quick overview

• ITIL provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT service management.

• It promotes a quality approach in the use of information systems.

• ITIL is based on the collective experience of commercial and governmental practitioners worldwide.

ITIL

Application Management

Requirements Stage

• There are three types of requirements for decision-makers to consider:

• functional requirements• non-functional requirements• usability requirements.

ITIL – Usability• The primary purpose of usability

requirements is to ensure that the system meets the expectations of its users with regard to its ease of use. The work product is used to:– provide baseline guidance to the user

interface developers on user interface design

– establish performance standards for usability evaluations

– define test scenarios for usability test plans and usability testing.

ITIL- Design Stage

• Design for non-functional requirements means giving non-functional requirements a level of importance similar to that for the functional requirements, and including them as a mandatory part of the design phase.

ITIL- Recomendations

• It is now inconceivable in modern application development projects that User interface design (usability requirements) would be omitted as a key design activity. However, many organisations ignore or forget manageability.

What to do?

• Establish usability guides for the requirement stage.

• Establish design considerations for the design stage.

• Establish checklist for testing usability compliance.

Give customers what they need, not necessarily what they ask for...

LISTEN TO THEM!!!!!