Problem: LOW PRODUCTIVITY

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Problem LOW PRODUCTIVITY

• Solution Usability Engineering
• poor user interface design can have a significant
  effect on user productivity. consider a very
  simple transaction, such as filling in an on-line
  data entry form.

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on-line data entry form

• Suppose an organization has 20 users, who perform
  this transaction approximately 80 times a day
  (quite typical for data entry clerks or other
  high frequency users), This adds up to 368,000
  transactions per year(20 users working 230 days a
  year, performing 80 transactions per day).

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Problem LOW PRODUCTIVITY

• Solution Usability Engineering
• If a screen could be redesigned to reduce the
  transaction time per screen by 10 seconds, a
  savings of 1022 hours, or 25.5 person-weeks could
  be realized. If improvement on a single screen of
  the system could increase productivity by ½ of a
  person-year, clearly improvements across the
  whole system will have a very dramatic effect on
  productivity.

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Problem HIGH TRAINING COSTS

• Solution Usability Engineering
• Training courses for new systems typically run
  between 3 days and 2 weeks. Suppose a company has
  20 users, and each one must learn to use two new
  systems a year. If the training time per user
  could be reduced by 1.5 days through
  easier-to-learn user interfaces and/or better
  user documentation, then a savings of 60 days, or
  12 person weeks would be realized.

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Problem COSTLY USER ERRORS

• Solution Usability Engineering
• Ordinary user errors, such as entering commands
  incorrectly or pressing the wrong function key,
  can cut into productivity. More serious user
  errors, such as inadvertently deleting data, or
  entering data incorrectly, can be very costly,
  resulting in real financial loss.

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Problem COSTLY USER ERRORS

• Solution Usability Engineering
• Suppose, for example, that 12 serious errors
  (costing an average of 17 minutes to recover
  from) per user per year could be identified and
  eliminated through usability engineering. If
  there were 600 users, this would result in a
  savings of 51 person weeks per year.

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Problem CAPTURING/MAINTAINING A COMPETITIVE EDGE

• Solution Usability Engineering
• In the past, vendors competed for product sales
  by increasing functionality, performance,
  reliability and support, and decreasing cost.
  More recently however, a new aspect of software
  has emerged as a dimension of a competitive edge
  the quality of the user interface.

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Problem CAPTURING/MAINTAINING A COMPETITIVE EDGE

• Solution Usability Engineering
• Suppose the profit margin on a software product
  was 100, and 250 more systems would be sold if
  the user interface were more competitive. This
  additional usability would then be worth 25,000.

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Problem HIGH CUSTOMER SUPPORT COSTS

• Solution Usability Engineering
• Poorly designed user interfaces carry a cost not
  only in customer satisfaction, but also in real
  overhead in customer support. Supporting
  customers with trouble-shooting and data recovery
  can be very expensive. Designing a less confusing
  and less error-prone interface can reduce the
  need for customer support.

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Problem HIGH CUSTOMER SUPPORT COSTS

• Solution Usability Engineering
• Supposing a vendor has 600 customer organization,
  whose users call in for help and need an average
  of 15 minutes per call to solve their problems.
  And suppose 4 calls per customer per year could
  be eliminated by engineering a more usable
  interface. This represents a savings in customer
  support time of 15 weeks per year.

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TIME IS MONEY! Usability Engineering is a good
investment.

• User Profiles
• Good software user interface design is premised
  in part on a clear understanding of the critical
  characteristics of the intended user population.
  We apply such techniques as structured interviews
  and questionnaires to gather pertinent data on
  skill set, educational level, job experience
  level, technology literacy, attitude and
  motivational level, and demographics from which
  we draw implications for interface design.

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Task Analysis

• Good software user interface design is also
  premised on a clear understanding of the users
  current job and tasks, underlying goals, and
  mental models of their work process and products.
  Structured and unstructured interviews. Field
  observation, goal structure analysis and usage
  studies are among the techniques we apply to
  uncover key aspects of the tasks being automated
  and translate them into user interface
  requirements.

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User Interface Style Guides/Standards

• To achieve quality and consistency in software
  user interfaces, a set of standards which adhere
  to sound user interface design principles needs
  to be developed and applied, within and/or across
  products. We have extensive experience developing
  corporate, product family and application style
  Guides, and can work with your in-house staff to
  both develop and implement user interface design
  standards at the appropriate level.

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User Interface Design Consulting

• Drawing upon our knowledge, experience and
  expertise in cognitive psychology, usability
  principles and the design process, we can manage,
  facilitate and consult to your design team to
  help generate an optimal first pass at interface
  design for your product or application.

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User Interface Design Consulting

• While no one can optimize a user interface
  without applying usability testing and evaluation
  techniques (see below),
• Usability experts can help focus the design
  effort effectively, and provide invaluable input
  so that the first draft design is closer to the
  mark, minimizing the iterative testing and
  redesign effort down the line.

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Quick User Interface Assessment

• Applying our experience and expertise, we can
  evaluate your prototype interface or interface
  specification document, identify potential
  problems and opportunities for improvement, and
  offer specific recommendations for change.
  Studies have shown that such heuristic
  evaluations by usability experts usually predict
  a large percentage of what would be revealed by
  formal usability testing techniques.

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Quick User Interface Assessment

• Independent assessments by more than one
  usability expert have been shown to catch the
  majority of problems which would be revealed by
  testing. When budgets preclude formal testing, a
  quick Assessment can provide a very
  costly-effective alternative.

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Usability Testing

• We are skilled and experienced in designing and
  conducting formal usability tests on paper and
  pencil simulations, prototypes and complete
  systems. We uncover key usability goals, design
  appropriate test scenarios, supporting materials
  and facilities, recruit appropriate test users,
  collect, analyze and interpret performance data
  and subjective user reactions, draw conclusions
  and make specific recommendations for design
  improvements.

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User Feedback

• If you are about to start development of a new
  release of an installed product, or the
  development of a product that will integrate with
  an installed product, or even just entering the
  maintenance and enhancements phase for a product,
  gathering feedback from users of the installed
  product can provide valuable insights on how to
  design the user interface for the new release or
  product. We are skilled in a variety of
  techniques, including structured interviews,
  focus groups, questionnaires, usage studies and
  formal usability tests, which we can apply to
  obtain critical feedback from users which will
  allow you to improve the usability of new
  releases and products.