Chapter 1

Usability of Interactive Systems Dr Mahmood Niazi

Objectives

Introduction to Usability Usability Requirements Usability Factors Usability Goals and Measures Usability Motivations Universal usability

What is Usability?

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a humanmade object such as software application, website, book, tool, process, or anything a human interacts with. Allowing intended users to accomplish their tasks in the best way possible. How well users can use the systems functionality?

Why is usability important?

From the user's perspective Usability can make the difference between performing a task accurately and completely or not, and enjoying the process or being frustrated. From the developer's perspective Usability is important because it can mean the difference between the success or failure of a system. From a management point of view Software with poor usability can reduce the productivity of the workforce to a level of performance worse than without the system. In all cases, lack of usability can cost time and effort, and can greatly determine the success or failure of a system. Given a choice, people will tend to buy systems that are more user-friendly.
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Usability Requirements

Every designer wants to build high-quality interfaces

Quality means features such as usability, usefulness, and universality

Everyone want user-friendly interfaces, but what do they mean?

Synonyms for user-friendly in Microsoft Word 2002:

easy to use; accessible; comprehensible; intelligible; available; and ready

These measures are still subjective and vague, so a systematic process is necessary to develop usable systems for specific users in a specific context

Usability Requirements

Managers can promote attention to user-interface design by careful planning Designers propose multiple design alternatives for consideration User-interface building tools enable rapid implementation Evaluation of user-interface designs

 Usability Requirements

Usability requires project management and careful attention to requirements analysis and testing for clearly defined objectives Goals for requirements analysis
1.

Ascertain (to identify) the users needs.

2.
3.

Ensure proper reliability.

4.

Complete projects on schedule and within budget.

Goals for Requirements Analysis

Ascertain the users needs

Determine what tasks and subtasks must be carried out Include tasks which are only performed occasionally. Common tasks are easy to identify.

Functionality must match need or else users will reject or underutilize the product
Providing excessive functionality is also a danger because the complexity make implementation, learning and usage more difficult.

 Goals for Requirements Analysis

Ensure reliability

Actions must function as specified Database data displayed must reflect the actual database The system should be available as often as possible The system must not introduce errors Ensure the user's privacy and data security by protecting against unwarranted access and destruction of data

 Goals for Requirements Analysis

Promote standardization, integration, consistency, and portability

Standardization: use pre-existing industry standards where they exist to aid learning and avoid errors

e.g. Apple, and Windows interface standards

Integration: the product should work with different software tools and packages Consistency:

use common action sequences, terms, units, colors, etc. within the program compatibility across different product versions compatibility with related products and other non-computer based systems

Portability: allow for the user to convert data and to share user interfaces across multiple software and hardware environments
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 Goals for Requirements Analysis

Complete projects on time and within budget

Late or over budget products can create serious pressure within a company and potentially mean dissatisfied customers and loss of business to competitors

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 Goals for Requirements Analysis

Complete projects on time and within budget

It has been reported that on average the percentage of software projects completed on-time and within budget improved from 16.2% in 1995 (StandishGroup, 1995) to 34% in 2003 (Standish-Group, 2003). Despite this improvement, nearly two-thirds of projects were still not successful in 2003.

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 Goals for Requirements Analysis

Complete projects on time and within budget

A study conducted by a group of Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and British Computer Society, shows that despite spending 22.6 billions pounds on IT projects in UK during 2003/2004, significant numbers of projects still fail to deliver key benefits on time and to target cost and specification

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 Usability Factors

There are six factors

Fit for Use (support tasks what user wants) Ease of learning (learn for various groups of users) Task Efficiency (Quick tasks for frequent users) Ease of Remembering (remember tasks for occasional users) Subjective Satisfaction (how user will satisfy overall?) Understandability (understand what system or each individual module does?)

5. 6.

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 Usability Measures

The ISO 9241 standard focuses on admirable goals, i.e. effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction.

Usability

The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments. Effectiveness

The accuracy and completeness with which specified users can achieve specified goals in particular environments. The resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness of goals achieved. The comfort and acceptability of the work system to its users and other people affected by its use.
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Efficiency

Satisfaction

 Usability Measures

The following usability measures lead more directly to practical evaluation:

2. 3.

4.

5.

Time to learn How long does it take for typical members of the community to learn actions relevant to a set of tasks? Speed of performance How long does it take to carry out the benchmark tasks? Rate of errors by users How many and what kinds of errors are made during benchmark tasks? Retention over time How well do users maintain their knowledge after an hour, a day, or a week? Frequency of use and ease of learning help make for better user retention Subjective satisfaction How much did users like using various aspects of the interface? The answer can be ascertained by interviews, free-form comments and satisfaction scales
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 Usability Measures

Trade-offs (an exchange that occurs as a compromise) in design options frequently occur. Changes to the interface in a new version may create consistency problems with the previous version, but the changes may improve the interface in other ways or introduce new needed functionality. Design alternatives can be evaluated by designers and users via mockups or high-fidelity (quality) prototypes. In some applications, subjective satisfaction may be the key determinant of success; in others, short learning time may be important. The user manuals and the online help can be written before the implementation to provide another review on the design.
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Usability Motivations

The interest in interface usability arises by looking at the poorly designed interfaces and the benefits of elegant interfaces. Interfaces can be seen in different domains: Life-critical systems
Air

traffic control, nuclear reactors, police & fire dispatch systems, military operations, and medical instruments High costs, reliability and effectiveness are expected Lengthy training periods are acceptable despite the financial cost to provide error-free performance Subjective satisfaction is less an issue due to well motivated users
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 Usability Motivations

Industrial and commercial uses

Banking, insurance, order entry, inventory management, reservation, billing, and point-of-sales systems Ease of learning is important to reduce training costs Speed of performance is important because of the number of transactions Subjective satisfaction is fairly important Retention is obtained by frequent use

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 Usability Motivations

Office, home, and entertainment applications

Word processing, electronic mail, computer conferencing and video game systems, educational packages, search engines, mobile devices, etc. Ease of learning, low error rates, and subjective satisfaction are very important because use is often discretionary and competition is intense Infrequent use of some applications means interfaces must be intuitive (natural), and comprehensible online help is important Choosing functionality is difficult because the population has a wide range of both novice and expert users

A level-structured design is one approach (e.g., search engines)

Competition cause the need for low cost

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 Usability Motivations

Exploratory, creative, and cooperative systems

Exploratory: Web browsing, search engines, simulation and business decision making Creative: Artist toolkits, architectural design, software development, music composition, and scientific modeling systems Collaborative: enable two or more people to work together, even if they are separated by time and space These systems are difficult to design and evaluate because:

users may be knowledgeable in task domain but novices in the underlying computer concepts. Benchmark tasks are more difficult to describe because of the exploratory nature of these applications.

The computer should "vanish" so that the user can be absorbed in their task domain
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 Usability Motivations

Socio-technical systems

Complex systems that involve many people over long time periods Voting, health support, identity verification, crime reporting

Trust, privacy, and security are issues

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Universal Usability

The diversity of human abilities, background, motivations, personalities, cultures, and work styles challenges interface designers. Understanding the physical, intellectual and personality differences between users is vital for getting participation by broadest set of users Sometimes accommodating the needs of one group benefits other groups as well.

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 Universal Usability

Physical abilities and physical workplaces

data about human dimensions comes from research in anthropometry (measurement and study of the human body and its parts and capacities) is no average user, either compromises must be made or multiple versions of a system must be created

There

Examples

Keyboard people with small or large hands display

Physical

measurement of human dimensions are not enough, take into account dynamic measures such as reach, strength, or speed of finger press
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 Universal Usability
Physical abilities and physical workplaces
Differences

in perceptual abilities

Vision: depth, contrast, color blindness, and motion sensitivity Touch: keyboard and touch-screen sensitivity Hearing: audio clues must be distinct (easily understood)

Workplace

design can both help and hinder work performance

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 Universal Usability
Physical abilities and physical workplaces
The

draft standard Human Factors Engineering of Computer Workstations (2002) lists these concerns:
Work-surface and display-support height Clearance under work surface for legs Work-surface width and depth Adjustability of heights and angles for chairs and work surfaces Postureseating depth and angle; back-rest height support Availability of armrests, footrests, and palmrests (The inner surface of the hand)

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 Universal Usability

Cultural and international diversity

Accommodating cultural and international differences will increases the market share of interactive products. User interface design concerns for internationalization:

Characters, numerals, special characters Left-to-right versus right-to-left versus vertical input and reading Date and time formats Numeric and currency formats Weights and measures Telephone numbers and addresses Social-security, national identification, and passport numbers Capitalization and punctuation Sorting sequences Icons, buttons, colors Etiquette (rules for correct or polite behaviour between people), policies, tone, formality

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 Universal Usability

Users with disabilities

must plan early to accommodate users with

disabilities

Vision-impaired hearing-impaired mobility-impaired

Elderly Users
Including

the elderly is fairly easy; designers should allow for variability within their applications via settings for sound, color, brightness, font sizes, etc. elder people can use the technology easily, we have more opportunities of knowing about their experiences
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If

 Universal Usability

Children
Designers

need attention to their limitations. They may not always do mouse-dragging, doubleclicking or pointing on small targets. Usual instructions and error messages might not be effective Parental control over dangerous content

Accommodating hardware/software diversity

interaction on high-speed (broadband) and slower (dial-up) connections Access to web services from large displays and small mobile devices Easy or automatic conversion to multiple languages
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Objectives

Introduction to Usability Usability Requirements Usability Factors Usability Goals and Measures Usability Motivations Universal usability

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