Usability in Higher Education IT: A Moral Mandate and an Attainable Goal

Copyright Stacey Krejci and Cordelia Geiken 2007]. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of

the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

Usability: A Moral Mandate

What Is Usability?

What Is Usability?

Forget what you know for a moment.

People are more important than technology.

People are more important than technology.

In other words, technology exists to serve the goals of human beings.

People are more important than technology.

In other words, technology exists to serve the goals of human beings.

Obvious? Not really.

Technological change is stressful for most people.

Technological change is stressful for most people.

Not so obvious to us in IT.

Technological change is stressful for most people.

Not so obvious to us in IT.

Even when we try to think about “the users,” we underestimate the burden we impose.

Why?

Our natural inclinations toward the coolness of the new

The nature of our jobs Our daily interactions with colleagues in IT, which

tend to reinforce our preferences

The Irony:

The people we are trying so hard to serve are often the farthest removed from us.

It’s About PEOPLE

But this central truth is often obscured by competing priorities.

The people who count are underrepresented in our projects.

This is a moral tragedy.

Higher Education: An Institution with a Higher Moral

Purpose

Does anyone remember?

It’s based on the premise that a liberal education can make us better people.

Higher Education: An Institution with a Higher Moral

Purpose

Does anyone remember?

It’s based on the premise that a liberal education can make us better people.

Our work must be consciously centered on serving people, helping them accomplish their goals, and improving their quality of life.

But how do we focus our work on serving people?

Go out there, ask, watch, and listen.

But how do we focus our work on serving people?

Go out there, ask, watch, and listen.

We in higher education have a humanistic moral mandate to do this.

To sum up:

Being inside an organization makes it difficult to imagine what it's like to be outside the organization.

Yet the products and services we produce are usually for people outside the organization.

Thus the people that we most need to hear from are the very people that we are most removed from.

Therefore, to serve the people who will use our products and services, we must actively seek to talk to them, listen to them, and observe them.

So what is usability?

Usability practices are merely various means for obtaining information from people outside the organization about how they think, how they work, and what they need from us.

So what is usability?

Usability practices are merely various means for obtaining information from people outside the organization about how they think, how they work, and what they need from us.

As IT professionals in higher education, this is a crucial application of our calling.

How can we obtain this information?

Card sorting Video usability testing Paper prototyping Contextual inquiry

Others

Common Theme:Listen to users think aloud about what they’re doing

Are there any practical benefits to the organization?

Usability increases goodwill toward the organization. Usability practices can reduce costs.

– Increases value– Anticipate costly problems– Less tech support required = fewer Help Desk calls, simpler

documentation, and fewer modifications

Usability testing can be done very inexpensively.

Usability Testing: An Obtainable Goal

Usability Testing is painless! It doesn’t take a lot of money or resources and anyone can do it.– Card sort = deck of index cards or pad of post-its.– Paper prototype = sketches on paper.

Develop a Test Plan

Define the purpose of the testing.– Set goals and objectives.

Create a User Profile.– Who do you WANT to use the site/tool?– What kind of background(s) do they have?– What level of technical experience are they likely to

have?

Create a Task List

What are the top three to five things you want them to do on your site?– These tasks may be very different from the top three to

five things they are currently doing on your site!

Define Method and Mode

Define the method of testing.– Card sort, paper prototype etc.– One-on-one and/or as a group.

Define the desired testing environment and necessary equipment.– Home, office, lab– Mac, PC, mobile device

Set Your Evaluation Measures

What data do you want to collect? How will you collate the data? How will you evaluate the data? How will you present the results?

Observe

Train a couple of facilitators to administer the test.– They need to be objective, patient and observant.– Their job is to record what happens as the subjects go

through the tasks.

Stakeholders can make good observers. – They are not involved directly in the test, they just sit

quietly and observe.– Nothing drives a point home better than watching

someone struggle with a problem first hand!

Test Subjects

Gather a group of subjects who fit your user profile to perform your test.– Five to seven subjects for one-on-one testing are fine;

results begin to be the same after that.– Consider group tests.

You can learn a lot from the interaction between participants as they try to work through the tasks in a group.

Administering the Test

Assure the subjects that you are testing the website/tool and not them! In other words, they cannot fail!– It is vital that the subjects be comfortable.

It is important to remember NOT to lead the subject through the test.– They want to please you, to give you the “right” answer.– Don’t let them get too frustrated; if they get stuck, make

a note of it and help them to move on.

Gathering Results

Have the facilitators and observers write down their observations during and right after the test so they don’t forget anything.

Videotaping or screen capture is another more advanced option, but is not necessary to perform a good test.

Consider conducting an exit interview with the test subjects to get their reactions to the test.

Rewards

Be sure to reward your subjects for their efforts! Make sure the reward matches the user’s

interests and the amount of time/effort they have put in.– A gift card to the local coffee shop, free music

downloads, flash drive, rain gauge, etc.

Analysis

Compile your data and look for patterns. You will also need to consider how you will report

the results.– Will you include an interpretation / suggestions of what

worked and what didn’t?– Will you make suggestions of how to fix problems?

Documenting the results will keep you from making the same mistakes next time!

Implementation

Implement what you have learned and reap the rewards!

Re-test when things change!– This is an iterative process! Whenever content or

audiences change it’s a good idea to test again.

Test before you make changes.– If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Just one more thing. . . .

Usability testing is valuable because it can be brought in at any stage of a project.

It is even better if a user-centered design perspective is present at the very beginning of projects.

Interaction Design

Envision the interaction that we want users to have with the product or service,

and only then think about the interface that we want to create in order to achieve the type of interaction we have envisioned.

Interaction Design

Start with the PEOPLE who are to be served by the product or service.

Distill information about various user groups down to a set of composite descriptions, which will guide our design and development.

ONLY THEN start thinking about the interface.

Interaction design is the next step into a user-centered perspective in IT.

The Big-Picture Conclusion

Every person working with IT in higher education should take seriously the institution's stated mission as a humanistic, person-focused, soul-enriching influence in the lives of students, faculty, and staff.

And this seriousness should take the form of an abiding interest and pursuit of information about those people and how what we do affects them every day.

Resources

Alan Cooper, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think

TechSmith’s Morae Usability Testing Software

Professional Organizations

Usability Professionals Association (UPA)

http://www.upassoc.org/

Society for Technical Communication (STC)

http://www.stc.org/