http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Farrell,_Tom A bibliography of works by Farrell, Tom in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Farrell,_Tom http://tc.eserver.org/27476.html http://tc.eserver.org/27476.html Research indicates that most users never find the majority of the functionality in any given application. Learning tends to reach a plateau early on, and is rarely expanded upon. And what that means is that most customers consistently undervalue the software products they purchase and use. http://tc.eserver.org/21122.html http://tc.eserver.org/21122.html Ireland’s meteoric growth and current status as the world’s largest software exporter (larger even than the US) is already the stuff of IT folklore - or at least it is over here in Europe. Such a large and fast-growing industry, which emerged from almost nothing in the space of a dozen years or so, creates an interesting environment for those practicing usability. There is certainly a sizable potential market out there, in the shape of indigenous software houses and major web developments. The question is when the consultancy sector will catch up with them. http://tc.eserver.org/19333.html http://tc.eserver.org/19333.html Forms are often an essential element of an application or website. In fact they are the most popular way of gathering information or encouraging user feedback. Given the sort of information that forms are used to collect (such as registering for a service, or placing an order), the importance of ease-of-use hardly needs to be emphasised. These are tasks central to the success of many online businesses. http://tc.eserver.org/19332.html http://tc.eserver.org/19332.html Inappropriate use of language is one of the most common causes of usability issues in interface design. When using a product (either online or offline) the words used to label functions or buttons are of paramount importance to the user attempting to understand how the object works. After all, these labels are often the only differentiator within a row of identical buttons. If a user has difficulty understanding what these words or labels mean, there is a fundamental problem in mapping functions to their relevant buttons on the interface. If a term is vague, the user is unsure about the resulting action, and if it cannot be understood, it is likely to cause a 'critical' usability error - an inability to complete a simple task. And these difficulties arise surprisingly often - not because users have limited vocabularies, but because designers and developers insist on using terms unfamiliar to them. How does this happen? The one common factor behind every language difficulty is a failure to conduct a user test, or 'phrase audit', with real end-users. http://tc.eserver.org/19330.html http://tc.eserver.org/19330.html It's a well known fact that many users - both novice and expert - have difficulty finding information on websites even when they know it's there somewhere. What is less clearly understood is why - beyond the obvious fact that there is always a challenge involved in enabling access to a huge variety of information from a single entry point. When addressing this challenge, the initial focus often tends to be on the 'navigational' structures, and how the site is mapped and organised. But in reality, users tend to rely less on these navigational aids than some web designers might imagine. Most users are more concerned with achieving their goal than understanding the logical structure of the application they are using, and tend to gravitate towards the content they are looking for by following 'scent', which can best be thought of as a clear signpost to content 'below' through links and content 'above'. http://tc.eserver.org/19325.html http://tc.eserver.org/19325.html There was a time when graphic design - or how things looked at least - was regarded as the most central part of the web experience. A 'good' website, in the eyes of management at least, involved little more than the company message accompanied by attractive pictures, ideally animated as often as possible. Nowadays, we are beginning to realise that whilst design remains a vital differentiator in terms of web experience, it is for very different reasons. Users are by now accustomed to the very highest levels of graphic design work online. This means that whilst a professional approach is essential for any organisation serious about their online presence, on it's own a 'good looking' site is not sufficient. It is in its impact on usability that graphic design is now particularly significant in the online environment. Graphic design, or visual communication, is about more than looks. The way site content is presented will have a significant effect on how easy-to-use it will be. This not only includes questions of appropriate images and styles, but also choice of colour schemes and the way different interface elements are represented. http://tc.eserver.org/19326.html http://tc.eserver.org/19326.html The success of web retailing depends to a large extent on gaining and maintaining the trust of users. 'User experience' certainly includes elements of usability, but it goes beyond this to encompass the entire customer interaction process. When focusing on the online experience, there are certain key recommendations for organisations seeking to improve user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/19331.html http://tc.eserver.org/19331.html WAP technology, which brings text-based online services to the mobile phone, is already causing considerable excitement in European markets. With the focus on 'the mobile Internet' and 'm-commerce', WAP is already being touted as central to the future of 'online' business. Perhaps as a reaction to the hype, some commentators (among them usability 'guru' Jakob Nielsen) are already lining up to burst the WAP bubble. http://tc.eserver.org/19324.html http://tc.eserver.org/19324.html With so much good advice available, and the need for user input being so much a matter of common sense, it seems fair to ask why usability issues are so common amongst websites and applications - even those which have invested significant resources in development. What is it that drives otherwise sensible organisations and businesses to build products and services that are counter-intuitive and actively annoying for many users? The answers to these questions are revealing, in the sense that they illustrate how easily usability can be subverted by alternative agendas. And they highlight the need for a user champion within the organisation, an individual outside any internal interest groups, and potentially the company itself, who acts as a corrective to the forces that can leave usability on the back burner. This list is not one of objections (no time, no money, etc.), most of which are spurious, but rather of explanations for apparently baffling decisions that are often taken without even thinking about the consequences. http://tc.eserver.org/19328.html http://tc.eserver.org/19328.html It is a basic assumption on the web that download times should be kept to a minimum. After all, the longer people are left waiting, the more likely they are to back out (quite literally) of a transaction and look elsewhere for the same service. But despite the general accuracy of this point of view, there is perhaps slightly more to it than this. What frustrates users about slow download times is not so much the wait as the uncertainty. The online environment remains somewhat unreliable - certainly unreliable enough for a user to be unsure that every page request is likely to be successful. In this situation, the lack of ability of the browser to accurately reflect progress is a serious issue in terms of web effectiveness and user satisfaction. http://tc.eserver.org/19323.html http://tc.eserver.org/19323.html On the basis that user-centred design, user testing and other forms of usability engineering are a 'good thing', it is worth asking how they are best integrated into the development process. Specifically, the issue of timing is critical to the successful implementation of a usability strategy. At what stage of development should these techniques be introduced? Of course the answer to that question rather depends on the unique circumstances of each particular project, but the general principle seems to be 'as early as possible' - with the important caveat that any user involvement is better than none, even at a late stage in the day. But the accepted wisdom that usability engineering should be introduced as early as possible in the development process has many arguments in its favour. http://tc.eserver.org/19316.html http://tc.eserver.org/19316.html Most 'usability' practitioners quite rightly put great emphasis on the ease with which sample users can complete pre-selected tasks. After all, it makes sense to ensure that common tasks, identified after research into user needs, should be completed as efficiently as possible. It is when this 'efficiency' is measured that problems can begin. http://tc.eserver.org/19319.html http://tc.eserver.org/19319.html You would be forgiven for thinking that the lifespan of the typical usability project ends with final implementation and a product or website's release into the market. In one sense it does - the user-centred design process is over, and presumably the result is an easy-to-use product or site that is already yielding results. All well and good - but sometimes even the best interfaces cannot meet the changing requirements of the typical workplace. In this case, post-implementation user testing can pick up the difficulties that were not picked up first time around. At this point the client may quite rightly be wondering why these problems weren't spotted before deployment. The reason lies in the way in which the user has developed alongside the product. First impressions, whether favourable or not, may turn out to be misleading after an extended period of use. http://tc.eserver.org/19311.html http://tc.eserver.org/19311.html If there is one subject guaranteed to get two web designers arguing, it is almost certainly personalisation. The promise is obvious - a website tailored to each individual who uses it, highlighting items that will be of interest to his or her particular profile, and consequently saving the users time and providing a superior user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/19303.html http://tc.eserver.org/19303.html Creating navigation systems, and the information structures that underlie them, is obviously a central aspect of the development of any product or web interface. Although some users may prefer not to use navigation systems, or even ignore them entirely, for many they will be an invaluable means of discovering content or functionality. Getting these structures right is an important element in designing a successful interface. Unfortunately, getting them right isn't particularly easy. In some instances it can be, but usually there is no simple way to short-circuit the process of categorisation and presentation that constitutes a navigational system. However, in this short article we do attempt to provide some brief pointers. Although we focus on web navigation, many of these suggestions are equally relevant in software interface design and indeed other technologies. http://tc.eserver.org/19312.html http://tc.eserver.org/19312.html Is your organisation in need of a user champion? It might not be the perfect solution, but as a first step it can have far-reaching consequences. If your organisation already has significant resources assisting with interface development, but tends to make key decisions on the basis of hunches or personal opinions, a single individual with a remit to judge the interface from the users point of view may be beneficial. Of course, any appointment must be more than a gesture. A user champion must be confident of management support and fully involved in the development and design process, at every stage. http://tc.eserver.org/19298.html http://tc.eserver.org/19298.html The Internet hype may be dying down, but one area in which productivity gains can still be a reality is intranet development. Intranets could hardly be described as the sexy end of web development, but many companies around the world are experiencing real value from improved efficiency in terms of internal communications. Intranets can be big business. But unfortunately, Intranets often illustrate everything that is worst in web design. I imagine most readers of this article will be familiar with those corporate Intranets that become little more than a collection of department websites, each with its own navigational structure, look and feel, and content. Some organisations even pride themselves on this laissez faire approach to Intranet development, seeing the intranet as an opportunity for departments to express themselves online. http://tc.eserver.org/19283.html http://tc.eserver.org/19283.html Of all the disciplines that go together to create a 'usability strategy', user requirement gathering is undoubtedly the most frequently misunderstood. Many product managers or webmasters will believe that they already know their users, perhaps because they have conducted some form of market research, or have a formal complaints and customer feedback programme in place. However, these techniques, discussed below, although similar in aspiration, should not be relied upon as a replacement for a full user-requirement gathering programme. That isn't to say that they do not have their uses of course, but rather that in terms of assisting in application or site design they can be unhelpful or even misleading. http://tc.eserver.org/19290.html http://tc.eserver.org/19290.html Usability testing is a powerful tool in identifying problems and issues that users may have with a website or software application. But for all its benefits, traditional testing does not necessarily give a complete picture at how effective a site or application is in terms of meeting business goals. http://tc.eserver.org/19295.html http://tc.eserver.org/19295.html Why is usability such an important factor in the success of e-business developments? A key concept in understanding the value of usability is often called the 'conversion rate'. Simply put, it represents the percentage of unique visitors who go on to interact with the site in a pre-defined way. Usually this means make a purchase, but depending on the site in question it could mean registering for more information, placing a bet or opening an account. Conversion rates are usually low. That isn't particularly surprising - they are low in almost any industry, online or offline. What is particularly relevant in the context of usability is the huge benefits that a small change in the rate can offer. http://tc.eserver.org/19296.html http://tc.eserver.org/19296.html In an ideal world help text would be unnecessary - users would never get stuck in an application or site. It should be enough to provide clear design, carefully chosen titles and labels for the various functions, appropriate field prompts when user entry is required, helpful feedback, a glossary, and 'embedded' help such as default values, example input, on-screen step-by-step instructions and explanatory text next to fields or functions. Help features should certainly be a last resort. Anyone embarking on adding it to an application or site should be sure that they have already followed the best practise listed above. In most cases (certainly online) a help option should not be necessary. http://tc.eserver.org/19291.html http://tc.eserver.org/19291.html Obviously it isn’t true that download times don’t matter. Presumably the research methods used to arrive at such conclusions are flawed in some way – or alternatively Jared is so keen to convey the importance of other factors than simple speed of download (a noble aim in itself) that he is willing to inaccurately dismiss download speeds as completely irrelevant. Either way, this kind of statement is hardly a good advertisement for the usability industry. http://tc.eserver.org/19284.html http://tc.eserver.org/19284.html In the near future the number of mobile Internet access devices will surpass the number of PCs in the world. This obviously has a number of implications for the future of the Internet and what form it will take in this changed environment. A recent article in the Economist compares the transition to that from the telegraph to the ‘speaking telegraph’, or what we now call the telephone. In both instances a technology which had been the preserve of specialist operators was passed into the hands of the public. And in both cases, this transition caused huge changes despite the underlying technology remaining largely unchanged. New usage models emerged as the user base changed. http://tc.eserver.org/19285.html http://tc.eserver.org/19285.html Search engine position is an important element of online marketing. Obviously your company is at a significant advantage if you come top of a search for ‘cheese’ (assuming you are a cheesemonger that is – if you aren’t you have a problem). Not only will this drive traffic to the site, but this traffic is also highly targeted, being people who have already expressed an interest in your product or service. Given that this is the case, a whole industry has developed around ‘optimising’ a site’s position on these search rankings. In the past, most search engines have referred to the HTML itself in order to judge how relevant a site is to any particular search. So our hypothetical cheesemonger would be advised to include the word ‘cheese’ in the Title, meta tags, content and header of his or her homepage, whilst avoiding elements such as frames and splash pages which may confuse the automatic 'spiders' which collect this information. http://tc.eserver.org/19293.html http://tc.eserver.org/19293.html Usability, and professional interface design, is often presented as a long-term strategy for those involved in software development. There is a common perception that as effective as user-centred interface design can be in terms of creating satisfied end-users, brand loyalty, and repeat business, it lacks something of the ‘wow’ factor and will not affect the bottom line in the short term. In our experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Particularly in today’s software market, many of our customers report significant and immediate improvements in terms of product sales. It doesn’t take long to figure out why. The typical software sales process could almost have been designed to favour those products that present a clear, intuitive, attractive and easy-to-use interface to the user. http://tc.eserver.org/19281.html http://tc.eserver.org/19281.html More than one reader has pointed out that our recent article 'Alternatives To User Requirement Gathering' spent plenty of time illustrating why certain methods were inappropriate for the task of requirement gathering, without actually detailing the correct way to undertake this type of research. In way of compensation, this week we provide some (brief) advice on this absolutely crucial area to successful application or site development. http://tc.eserver.org/19287.html http://tc.eserver.org/19287.html There is no doubt about it – usability is now a mainstream concern of those charged with managing the development of a website. The benefits that accrue from taking a user-centred perspective, and involving those users in the design process itself, have convinced large sectors of the industry that ‘usability’ is something they want. Unsurprisingly, given the demand, usability is also something that on the surface is in plentiful supply. Any web development company who knows the market will be reassuring their customers that they ‘do’ usability – just as two years ago they did video streaming and flash animation. Many of these companies will do a good job, but others are merely jumping on the bandwagon. http://tc.eserver.org/19282.html http://tc.eserver.org/19282.html Regular web users will almost certainly be aware of an increasing amount of ‘invasive’ advertising appearing online. A variety of methods are now being used to make online advertising almost unavoidable for the user. http://tc.eserver.org/19279.html http://tc.eserver.org/19279.html Should usability work be provided by external consultancies or provided in-house? This is a question that we often encounter when working with clients, many of whom are keen to establish their own usability departments. Of course there is no short answer – depending on the client’s situation either alternative may be valid. But there are good reasons for thinking carefully before making a decision either way. http://tc.eserver.org/19280.html http://tc.eserver.org/19280.html As in any downturn, most businesses are examining expenditure and looking to cut back in any areas that may not be deemed essential. For better or worse, spending on usability engineering is often under the spotlight in this environment. There may be a feeling that the company has survived without such flights of fancy in the past, and can no doubt do so in the future – ‘usability’ is a luxury that can be done without. http://tc.eserver.org/19286.html http://tc.eserver.org/19286.html One industry that seems to be weathering the current online storm – and which has a reputation of being ‘recession proof’ in any case – is bookmaking. A combination of established offline players (William Hill, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power for example) and online-only companies (such as Blue Square) continue to provide plenty of choice to punters. This in itself is hardly surprising, as bookmaking is one industry tailor-made for the Internet environment. http://tc.eserver.org/19289.html http://tc.eserver.org/19289.html Improving ‘brand experience’ online is not normally regarded as the primary goal of a usability strategy. In some circles usability and branding would even be seen as mutually exclusive, based on the assumption that successful branding relies on ever more garish visual design and an extensive use of animation, audio streaming, or whatever the latest cutting-edge technology might happen to be. http://tc.eserver.org/19292.html http://tc.eserver.org/19292.html In CRM, user acceptance is a huge issue. End users, who are rarely the same people who choose applications in the first place, can be extraordinarily resourceful when it comes to undermining or working around new products or implementations introduced by manager. All this means that creating applications that are efficient and enjoyable to use is imperative for both ISVs and CRM implementers. http://tc.eserver.org/19040.html http://tc.eserver.org/19040.html Once an organisation decides to go ahead with a user testing programme, the questions really begin. Is it really necessary to undertake testing in a 'usability lab'? And what exactly should a fully functioning lab consist of anyway? As one might imagine, opinion is divided on these issues. We take a quick look at what a typical lab might consist of and the pros and cons of lab-based testing. http://tc.eserver.org/19048.html http://tc.eserver.org/19048.html At the heart of any good user-centred design process is the practice of prototyping. By creating and testing interfaces in rough format, designers are able to feed through improvements and feedback from users quickly and easily. This in turn helps to ensure a final product that is an evolved solution, in the sense that it has been through a number of iterations and emerged as fit for the job in question. http://tc.eserver.org/19041.html http://tc.eserver.org/19041.html It used to be a given (amongst those in the know at least) that ‘micropayments’ were the only sustainable business model for those providing content on the web. Micropayments work by charging a tiny amount for access to web content, and are touted as the alternative to giving content away for free (which doesn’t make any money) or charging for subscriptions (which is unlikely to appeal to Internet users now accustomed to freedom of movement online. The theory goes that small amounts to each individual consumer will add up to sufficient funds to keep online publishing firms in business. In recent times, however, any consensus there was surrounding micropayments as ‘the way forward’ has begun to dissolve. There is a growing feeling that the slow introduction of this method of payment is less to do with technical constraints than user requirements. Put simply – micropayments are not emerging as a ‘web standard’ because users dislike them. There are certainly a number of good arguments against their implementation. http://tc.eserver.org/19047.html http://tc.eserver.org/19047.html The concept of the 'persona' has interesting implications for software design. It is particularly effective for reminding designers of the importance of designing for an individual, rather than the population at large. Without a concrete impression of who exactly the user is, it is easy for designers to add features continuously because 'the user' demands them. For 'user', read 'marketing department'. http://tc.eserver.org/19042.html http://tc.eserver.org/19042.html Usability does not begin and end with the web. In fact, long before the Internet was a gleam in the Pentagon's eye, computer professionals were already aware of the need for human-computer interaction to be as natural and intuitive as possible. In fact, there are many compelling reasons to suggest that usability is even more critical to successful application design than it is for winning websites. http://tc.eserver.org/19046.html http://tc.eserver.org/19046.html As we have pointed out before, understanding the user is a pre-requisite of high quality interface design, whether online or offline. This means taking the time to find out what motivates typical user groups, what they expect from a given site or application, and how they prefer to work (or play). The alternative to proper user profiling is simply plucking an imaginary 'user' out of the air - usually to add weight to personal preferences or prejudices. The latter situation often consists of a so-called expert dismissing design features because 'the user wouldn't like it', when he or she is really saying 'I don't like it'. This common reference to a single undefined 'user' conjures up amusing images of a God-like entity casting judgment on interfaces from on high. In the real world, as we know, things are a little more complex. If 'the user' is frequently invoked but never defined, it may be time to rethink your usability strategy. Of course, after profiling has taken place, or when talking in generalities, there is nothing wrong with 'the user' being used as a convenient shorthand. But during specific projects it is essential to think in terms of real people rather than abstracts. This approach creates both better design and makes usability more understandable, in concrete terms, for others involved in the development process.