XXXXXX Application SuiteDesigning for 2006 and Beyond

Human Factors and strategies for implementation: Effective Prototyping, Branding, and Style in the XXXXX Application Suite.

• Current online presence across YYYYY businesses provides a disjointed and inconsistent user experience.

• Sites don’t reflect the “Live Richly” brand campaign or position ZZZZ as an advocate for a healthy approach to money.

• Internet branding guidelines are outdated and inadequate, and businesses have adapted them to fit their individual needs.

– Guidelines address minimum and average user assumptions (screen resolution, platform, color depth, etc.), which have become dated.

– Standards address the brand from an outdated perspective that’s more in synch with print media.

– Standards are often unclear and seldom offer useful guidelines for online media.– Lack of template structure and global navigation guidelines create an inconsistent

look and feel across business units.– Specifications for blue wave and business unit logos consume a large amount of

valuable vertical space usually reserved for persistent global branding and navigation elements.

– Design specifications for color usage are dated and is largely ignored.– Font usage specification is not web-appropriate and is largely ignored.

The Result – Inconsistent Overall Experience

Sites vary widely in visual design.

Human Factors Talking Points

• The XXXXX Desktop ‘look and feel’ is primary to the support, rapid integration and effective use of the XXXXX Desktop

• Prototyping insures issues of usability are addressed early in the development

• Branding insures ownership and builds loyalty for the application

• Building a relationship with the end user is as important to our efforts as existing heuristics

• Designing for flexibility not only maximizes software capabilities, but saves money in development & deployment

• ‘Forward Vision’ insures that new technologies are built into the application growth cycle

Human Factors?

"Human factors“ or Ergonomics, is an umbrella term for several areas of research that include human performance, technology, design, and human-computer interaction. It is a profession that focuses on how people interact with products, tools, procedures, and any processes likely to be encountered in the modern world.

Human factors practitioners can come from a variety of backgrounds; though predominately they are Psychologists (Cognitive, Perceptual, and Experimental) and Engineers. Designers (Industrial, Interaction, and Graphic), Anthropologists, and Computer Scientists also contribute.

Whereas ergonomics tends to focus on the anthropometrics for optimal human-machine interaction, human factors is more focused on the cognitive and perceptual factors.

Areas of interest for human factors practitioners may include the following:

workload, fatigue, situational awareness, usability, user interface, learn ability, attention, vigilance, human performance, control and display design, stress, visualization of data, individual differences, aging, accessibility, shift work, work in extreme environments, and human error.

Simply put, human factors involves working to make the environment function in a way that seems natural to people.

Why Prototype?

1. One of the best ways to test the usability of a product while there is still time to make changes is to develop a rapid prototype. The idea is to build a mock-up of the product, which simulates the look and feel of the interface and brings many of the complex interaction problems out in the open.

2. Once such a mock-up exists, you can show it to our customers to determine if it was really what they had in mind. If the prototype does not meet their expectations, it is early enough in the development cycle to redesign and still make development milestones.

3. A prototype allows you to find out what you need to change. Just run a usability study with customers on the prototype's user interface, and you can have your answer in time to change the design if necessary before the product is fully developed.

4. Developing a software prototype frequently leads the software development team to a greater understanding of the application requirements, thus improving the system design.

1. Prototyping is a highly recommended approach, because review of the prototype enables users, project managers, and developers to agree on how an application should look (e.g. screen layouts, reports, branding) and behave (e.g. flow of control, error handling).

Prototype EffectivenessE

ase

Functionality

Screen Mock-up:

Visio

PowerPoint

Screenshots

Coded Prototype:

HTML / JavaScript

Java /.Net

Database

When demonstrating the application to potential users, the efficiency of the prototype is often subconsciously effects the users view of the finished product. A good prototype increases the following factors: Speed, Flexibility, Cost, Quality, Risk.

Application Branding

In marketing, a brand is the symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a product or service. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, fonts, color schemes, or symbols. It also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise in the minds of people. Such people include employees of the brand owner, people involved with distribution, sale or supply of the product or service, and ultimately consumers.

XXXXX & Application Branding?

As long as it works, they will use it…right?

The users biggest complaint about using new software is that it doesnot look like the old software. As strange as this sounds, it is becausefamiliarity of a existing software trumps the perceived gains from anunfamiliar application.

But what does this have to do with branding?

Well, branding adds the familiarity to the user. It let’s the user know that the software was designed for them to do their job. It has the ‘Seal of Approval’ from ZZZZ group rather than an alien experiment on their desktop.

Assisting the Brands

Application Branding & Support

The success of the project can be linked to how our users ‘feel’ about the XXXXX Desktop. We can design and build the best application, but if the users do not take ownership of the application, it lessens our success.

How do we give the users ownership?1. User input from Focus Groups

2. Use Contextual Inquiry to understand our users needs

3. Strengthen Customer-Developer links through iRise

4. Balance Design Validation with Design Verification

Application Heuristics Evaluation/Review

Also known as an expert review. Systematic inspection of the application interface, measuring it against our existing set of usability heuristics in order to identify and prioritize our focus on usability issues.

How do we apply Heuristic Evaluation/Review?1. Collect accurate heuristic standards and issues ( i.e. hardware )

2. Build and maintain an active database of heuristic issues

3. Continually compare heuristics against user experience

4. An absence of standards is an opportunity to create excellence

5. Remember: Expert reviews do not catch all interface issues

Interface Shock!

1. Sudden Anxiety

2. Overwhelming Confusion

3. Increased Heartbeat & Perspiration

4. Disorientation

5. Disbelief

6. Anger

7. Resignation

8. Apathy

Prevent Interface Shock!

1. Inform users of applications scope & purpose

2. Incorporate users suggestions into design

3. Cubicle Yoga

4. Allow select user to preview application (iRise)

5. User focus groups

6. Less Coffee

7. Demonstrate application effectiveness (iRise)

8. Demonstrate application efficiency (iRise)

Style Sheets

• Automatically format browser pages• Decreased page reload times• Maintains style integrity• Effect global format, layout & design changes instantly• Predictable control of presentation• Overall integration with the ZZZZ group Branding/Marketing Initiatives• Increased Memorability by following established web styles

Style sheets allow you to control the rendering, e.g. fonts, colors, leading, margins, typefaces, and other aspects of style,

of the application without compromising its structure.

The iRise Factor

iRise allows project members to visualize the application functionality on a fully interactive prototype. It also allows database functionality by use of comma-separated values file (CSV) which are exported from a Microsoft Excel file. The process is as simple as: 1. Identify Data fields

2. Add Values

3. Add Functionality

4. Run application.

iRise Login Screen:

iRise Project Directory

The XXXXX Desktop Application Suite

Icons: Not just pretty pictures

An icon (from Greek, eikon, "image") is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or by analogy, as in semiotics; in computers an icon is a symbol on the monitor used to signify a command; by extension, icon is also used, particularly in modern popular culture, in the general sense of symbol — i.e. a name, face, picture or even a person readily recognized as having some well-known significance or embodying certain qualities.

Conclusions

• Effective Prototyping increases successful integration

• End user involvement increases application effectiveness

• Branding increases participation and decreases resistance

• Heuristic Evaluation/Review identifies/prioritizes usability issues

• Interface Shock is preventable

• Incorporating Style Sheets that reflect existing ZZZZ group initiatives, increases Memorability

• iRise will provide the XXXXX team & our end users greater understanding of the application, thus improving the system design.