Many of you already know the story of Optimal Usability. The short version is that Sam Ng and I started out sharing a desk at the CreativeHQ business incubator in Wellington. We spent $500 on branding, and then went out and had 165 coffee meetings in our first year of business, trying to convince people of the benefits of usability.

Four years later, life is quite different. We are now New Zealand’s largest usability consultancy company and had the honour of winning the Start-up of the Year award in March 2006. The main reason for this success is that we have been able to attract a great set of clients. Here in New Zealand at least, most of them are well known brands.

A lot of people have asked us what we put in our secret sauce to win work with these organisations, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts on how we’ve muddled through. We’ve made our fair share of mistakes along the way and learned a lot.

One key thing we did was to explicitly choose the clients we wanted to work with. We drew up a wish list of some of our favourite brands, or companies whose usability drove us nuts, and targeted them.

Every year we also think about the "watershed" projects that we’ve done, the ones that have really made a difference, or have been a lot of fun, or were really interesting and challenging. We try to figure out what made them so good, and aim to get that kind of work again.

Do these two things often enough and you eventually come up with a picture of your Ideal Client. For us, they usually have most of the following characteristics:

• Customer focused. There is no point working for clients who see their customer experience as an expense.

• Want a partnership. Our Ideal Client would prefer to have an ongoing relationship that involves multiple projects rather than one-off assignments.

• Many customer touchpoints. Our Ideal Client has several interesting interfaces to get stuck in to: a call centre, website, IVR, store, out-of-the-box experiences.

• Large number of employees. This means that they are more likely to have large internal systems, and could benefit more than smaller companies from increased employee productivity.

• Global links. This gives us opportunities to work for overseas parents, subsidiaries and partners.

Identifying the right clients is really just the start of the sales process, and I could rant about it a lot more than I have. If you are interested in learning more about the next steps, I recommend the following books:

• The Trusted Advisor by David Maister

• Clients for Life: Evolving from an Expert-for-Hire to an Extraordinary Adviser by Jagdish N. Sheth and Andrew Sobel

• Making Rain: The Secrets of Building Lifelong Client Loyalty by Andrew Sobel

- Trent

On my way to Australia last week I read a great article in the Harvard Business Review entitled "Defeating Feature Fatigue." The article discussed a complex user interface for driving a BMW that, with over 700 features, required a "cheat sheet" for anyone who didn’t normally drive the car.

On the same overseas trip I had two experiences that reminded me careless design makes even easy things hard to use.

The first incident was at Auckland Airport, when I opened the door of a toilet that I thought was vacant. Imagine my surprise when an elderly foreign lady greeted me enthusiastically. She seemed relieved to have been rescued. You see, to open the door you couldn’t just operate a manual latch and pull the door. Instead you were required to press a button on a side wall some distance away, then pull the door. The woman had obviously figured out that she had to do something with the button, but who knows how long she had been standing there waiting for the door to automatically open.

Opening a door ought to be a simple operation. Instead, the airport authorities had installed a part-automatic, part-manual solution that was so unintuitive that it required instructions. The button was surrounded by verbose, ambiguous signage indicating what it was for, which was further reinforced by recorded instructions piped over a crackly speaker in a strong kiwi accent. All of which is useless for non-English speakers.

The second incident was at Sydney airport. A confused older gentleman, standing at the basins with lathered hands, was looking around. It was apparent that he couldn’t operate the tap. Once again there was a large sign above each of the basins indicating that the taps would automatically turn on when hands were placed underneath.

The need for signage to operate such simple devices is a classic indication of a usability problem. One of my favourite examples of this is the Evian "Nomad" water bottle that requires opening instructions. However, the bigger issue in my opinion is the complete disregard for foreign travellers. The main reason the gentleman couldn’t operate the tap was because he obviously couldn’t understand the sign. Surely non-English speakers must make up a significant number of those using the bathroom in international airports?

As a recent Slate article [1] discussing auto-flush toilets mentioned, you should never replace a technology with an inferior technology. We’ve taken a simple technology and made it so unintuitive that we now need written instructions to understand how to operate it. There are enough complicated interfaces in the world as it is, without having to be toilet trained all over again.

[1] http://www.slate.com/id/2137256/nav/tap1/

- Trent

Metaphors have a powerful role to play in helping us make sense of our world. According to Gerald Zaltman, "they help us see new connections, interpret our experiences, and draw meaning from those experiences." [1] He points out that we use almost six metaphors per minute of spoken language. Just as they permeate everyday life, so metaphors also permeate human-computer interfaces.

Metaphors are the representation of one thing in terms of another. Complex user interfaces can be more easily understood if they are depicted in terms of some commonplace system that users are familiar with. Like the humble desktop metaphor, which is the "single most important design decision of the last half century." [2]

The desktop concept was invented in 70s by a group of researchers at Xerox’s high-end computer science lab in Palo Alto. Originally multiple windows used to compete for space on a screen that wasn’t much bigger than a sheet of paper. The breakthrough came when a researcher named Alan Kay began thinking of the screen as a desktop. "People in offices got around the same problem of too much paper and not enough room by piling pages on top of one another." [3] Kay simply transferred this real world solution to the computer and overlapping windows were born. No-one looked back from there.

Part of the reason for the staying power of this particular interface metaphor was that it was extendible. It is not a huge mental leap to incorporate other familiar office concepts such as a trash can and files.

Of course, like with most things, the use of metaphors can go too far. It’s easy to imagine the desktop metaphor being taken too literally, with piles of unordered paper, scattered business cards and coffee mug stains. That’s the beauty of the metaphor, it can be used to help understanding without being tied down by the limitations of the real-world equivalent.

(For those interested in the history of the modern PC user interface, I would strongly recommend reading Dealers of Lightning, the story of the Xerox PARC lab. It’s a very interesting account of the invention of the first personal computer and graphical interface.)

[1] From How Customers Think by Gerald Zaltman
[2] Interface Culture by Steven Johnson
[3] From Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik

- Trent

Happy New Year everyone!

Here at Optimal Usability we are currently in the throes of our yearly strategic planning. It’s an important and exciting time of the year. Here’s what we have in store for 2006:

Reports. To date we’ve focused mainly on the consultancy side of our business. This has meant we’ve amassed a sizeable amount of experience in specific industries, with particular technologies. As a result, we tend to see the same mistakes repeated over and over. We are now compiling industry and technology specific reports to outline these common issues, and how to resolve them.

Training. Our training was a hit last year, and this year we are ramping up. We believe that for an organisation to be truly user centred, the skills need to come from within. So we’re working on a number of courses this year, which we will be presenting in public and in-house seminars. The courses are designed to be very practical. For example, a user testing course we ran with the Department of Conservation late last year saw them in training one day, and successfully running their own user tests the next.

IVR design. We are very passionate about the future of automated phone systems. You know that a technology is rich for improvement when it leads to a phenomenon called "phone rage". One of our resolutions is to work more in this area.

Free Presentations. These will continue in 2006. It is very rare that we charge for these hour-long, in-house presentations. We see it as an investment in our own future, and are always happy to preach the usability gospel. Unfortunately, here in New Zealand the awareness of usability isn’t as high as it is overseas. If you’d like for us to speak to your group, please give us a call. (You can see the sort of presentations we give online at http://www.optimalusability.com/presentations.php)

After six hours of Christmas shopping on Saturday, I couldn’t help but notice how little attention retailers seem to pay to the customers’ in store experience. Finding a DVD was the worst, mainly because I couldn’t tell how the movies were categorised in any store I visited. But then I started wondering.  With all this rampant commercialisation, is it a good idea that things are easier to buy? Can usability and market research be used for evil instead of good?

For example, supermarket design is evil. Most supermarkets make it deliberately hard to get to commonly purchased items. They ensure that milk and bread are at the furthest corner from the store entrance. This means customers must travel the length of the store to find them, hopefully making more impulse purchases on the way. Essentially, they are being enticed into buying items which usually yield a higher profit than the staple products.

Here’s the thing. We all know that knowledge is power. So when retailers understand human behaviour, and use this knowledge to influence customers for their own ends, it is easy to abuse that power.

In 1937 a New York ad agency executive urged his colleagues to inject "a little fear in advertising…fear in women of being frumps, fear in men of being duds." There is no denying that in a society flooded with mass advertising we can’t really hope to avoid this influence. Everyone knows that marketers are out to get us, and we struggle to escape their snares.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t study and understand how people behave. The key is to use this knowledge responsibly, in a way that respects the consumers’ best interests.

For example, usability takes into account users’ goals, as well as the business goals. If my goal is to buy a present for my father, and a store helps me to achieve that goal, then that’s perfect. That’s why those little tickets that say ‘Good for Him’ can be very useful signposts. That’s what I want.

As Gerald Zaltman writes in How Customers Think, using knowledge about unconscious processes to better understand and satisfy customers is good. It’s only when this information is used to influence them involuntarily that it’s evil.

[I recommend looking at Inconspicuous Consumption: Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design for a fascinating 3-part series on applying real life shopping experiences back to the web.]

- Trent

Recently we were asked what we thought the most widespread web usability issues were. We have evaluated over 140 websites in the last 18 months, and repeatedly see the same website design mistakes, most of which are easily corrected. The Top Ten mistakes are:

1. Poor categorisation and labelling of information.
Problems with site structure and the names of the main categories are among the most damaging problems for a website. For example, the <a href="http://www.pumpkinpatch.co.nz">Pumpkin Patch website</a> has ‘Shopping’ and ‘Product Guide’ categories - neither of which actually show the range of kids clothing that they have for sale. Too often websites reflect the internal structure and labels used by the organisation, rather than those of their customers.

2. Poor navigation design.
Even if a site is well organised and information is in clearly labelled categories, the design of the navigation elements can undo all the good work.

3. Cluttered page layout.
Many pages are difficult for users to scan because the design is cluttered. Information isn’t aligned and there is too much unused space. The most important information on a page isn’t clear at a glance. Few pages make effective use of section headings and sub headings so that it is obvious how the information on a page is structured.

4. Inconsistencies with web design conventions.
People spend most of their time at other sites. That’s why it’s crucial that your site follows standard design conventions and behaves as visitors would expect. Inconsistencies will make your site harder to use and less intuitive.

5. Too little content.
It is amazing how little thought goes into understanding who website users are and why they are using a site. A luxury lodge website we worked on earlier this year, for example, did not tell visitors how many people could stay at the lodge at one time, or whether they could bring their own food.

6. Too much content.
While too little content can be a problem, we more often hear complaints about too much content. Users balk at the idea of reading long pages of text online. Overseas research has shown that people read up to 25% slower from a computer screen as opposed to paper. Our own experience supports this - at ACC, for example, people preferred pictures and diagrams over words to illustrate injury prevention principles.

7. Poor use of links.
People move around on the web by clicking on things. That’s why it’s got to be obvious what a user can and can’t click. Sites should link useful pieces of information together. For example many university sites don’t link their subjects pages to useful pieces of information such as timetable details, or pre-requisite papers.

8. Poorly implemented forms.
Despite their popularity, most online forms still make basic mistakes. Compulsory fields aren’t highlighted and users aren’t given instructions on how to enter dates and phone numbers in the correct format. My personal favourite - entered information is not saved until the form is complete - forcing users to re-enter all information if they make a mistake.

9. Poorly written error messages.
An ideal website prevents people from making mistakes in the first place. At the very least a website should help users to diagnose and recover from errors. Instead most error messages are terse and impolite and use obscure jargon and vague phrases.

10. Poorly implemented search.
Many people browse for information on a website and use search engines only as a last resort. Your search engine needs to be bullet proof, or you risk irritating already exasperated users.

Note: Jakob Nielsen has also recently released his Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005

The project is about to go into launch.  Weeks, months, if not years, of planning, designing, development and testing has gone into it.  Project managers, business analysts, developers, designers, testers and contractors have all been putting blood sweat and tears to make sure things go smoothly.  Of course, it’s seldom that everything is perfect – there is some smoke and mirrors (but only a few!).  But it’s version 1.0.  Version 1.0 always has problems we know about – we’ll fix them in version 2.0.

Then it happens.  Someone finds a problem because she had her friend use it when she was showing off her work – and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to work it.  He didn’t even notice the fancy new functions that took the team spent a lot of time arguing over.  Worse still, he is using one of the basic functions for something completely different to what the project team had intended.  There is a slight moment of panic.  Perhaps he’s an exception.  How could he not know how to work it?  It seems blindingly obvious.  A few more ‘corridor tests’ reveal the same worrying problem – no one seems to know to use it properly!

Just to be safe, the project manager gets someone to do some usability testing.  That should fix it.  They will come up with some ‘quick fixes’ and everything will now be fine.

Most readers on this newsletter will be familiar with similar stories, or have experienced it themselves.  While this narrative is somewhat dramatized, it’s not uncommon.  Say hello to the usability band aid.

In real life, band aids are messy.  They are seldom big enough to cover the wound.  It’s sticky, and it hurts to take it off.  They can increase the risk of infection and can even slow healing.   Unfortunately, the usability band aid is very similar to its real life counterpart.<p>

Fortunately, it is possible to prevent the need for a band-aid altogether.  We’ve been fortunate enough to work with some clients who employ usability not as a messy band-aid near the end of the project, but more like vitamin supplements.  Vitamin styled usability is not only a good preventative; it can also serve as a powerful competitive advantage.

Good usability demonstrates respect for users.  It shows that customers’ needs have been considered from the start rather than added on as an afterthought.  While this simple truth is nothing new, it is surprising how seldom we see it exercised with websites, intranets, software and the plethora of consumer electronic devices.

Just like real vitamins, proactive usability needs to be taken in daily doses and takes commitment.  But that doesn’t make it hard.  Besides, consider the benefits.  In the end, the products that standout all share common design traits, including good usability that has been planned for.  Google, iPod, Nokia mobiles, Tivo, Amazon, Flickr - all products that are easy to use and enjoyable.

What about what you’re working on now?  How can you start taking usability vitamin supplements?

It’s all about consistency.  Or is it? When it comes to communications, organisations are concerned about delivering a consistent branded experience.  However, sometimes it is easy to lose sight of the purpose of communication itself.

Here’s an example - yesterday I changed telephone accounts.  I must say it was a good experience on the phone.  Despite being on hold for 20 minutes, the person on the other end was friendly, chatty but also professional.  It was as pleasant as you could expect with such a mundane task - until she started reading from the company script.  All of a sudden it was as if somone had replaced the person talking to me with a corporate machine.  Admittedly, it was the part about the legal stuff where it is important to get it right.  It could be argued though that such obvious reading from a script on this topic only makes it worse.

Up until that point, I was having a conversation with a person, who I was aware represented a large company.  After that point, I was only aware of the large company.  A pity.

Technology wastes our lives. How much time is spent waiting for computers to boot? How much time standing in front of fax machines wondering if anything was actually sent? How much time trying to get through to an operator when you’ve called a toll free number?

Apparently we get mad at all this time wastage - a 2,600 person international study found that consumers damage or destroy about 10 percent of all high-tech gadgets. Reported acts of rage included punching, hammering, incinerating, shooting, driving over and microwaving these devices that are supposed to help improve our lives.

My impression is that it’s getting worse. Firstly, the tendency for devices to have more and more features makes it harder for us to figure out how things are supposed to work (is it a cellphone? a camera? a razor?). And secondly, we are getting increasingly impatient as our lives get busier and busier. We have lower tolerance levels and less time to waste on understanding technology. We’re spending more and more time on the web, and on the web we’re used to being in control. Page taking too long to load? Click away. Not finding the information you need? Go to Google.

Essentially, the web is making us impatient with anything we can’t skim. This includes being on hold, which is why customers love self service. It’s a well known phenomenon in customer support that people would rather find the answers themselves on your web site than have answers delivered to them by picking up the phone and calling your call centre. It’s because the customers are in control of their own time.

These customer goals marry up perfectly with the business goals, because rather than paying for an employee to reset a password or change an address the customers do it themselves. Organisations can get away with fewer frontline and call centre staff.

Of course, it’s not just technology that wastes our time. Oftentimes it’s people who use technology poorly who waste our time. Michael Dertouzos suggests that "prolific email authors should think of each message they send as an instrument that reduces the recipient’s life by 2 to 3 minutes." Good idea, especially since a UK survey found that some of the UK’s biggest companies spend an average of 10,000 pounds per person per year paying employees to read and write unnecessary emails.

Many usability issues are related to respect. Designers need to have more respect for the user’s mental and physical effort. Technology needs to have more respect for our time. It’s the ultimate limited resource. We only have 24 hours a day, so it should be treated as a precious, precious thing.

- Trent

As a consultancy company, our findings and recommendations from usability testing typically end up as a report. Microsoft Word is an important tool in producing these reports, but I still fight with it. It crashes on me. Tables are routinely corrupted. Headings sometimes seem to choose a random numbering scheme (it’s certainly not Base 10). It selects unexpected directories when I ask it to save a document. It thinks I’m an American.

Taking a step back for a second, let’s think about this. What is a word processor? As Michael Dertouzos said it "does what a pencil used to do, only somewhat differently, and comes with a 600-page manual". Sure it can do a lot of fancy formatting but at the end of the day the user’s goal is the same, communicating the content.

So we fight with the software. A 6000-person US study found that on average users wasted more than five hours a week frittering time away on their computers: waiting for programs to run, or for help to arrive, or double checking print outs for accuracy and formatting ( http://tinyurl.com/7m6cl ). Rather than lobbying software developers for change, most of us simply decide to put up with and work around the difficulties and frustration inherent in much of today’s software.

Often the trouble comes from having megabytes of software features that we’ll never use stuffed into our computer, making the features we do want to use hard to find, slow, and prone to crashes. They even have a name for this - "creeping featuritis". Too often we get software that has "little to do with what users actually need and more to do with following the competition, providing feature checklists to IT departments or making guesses based on user surveys or customer wish lists" (Alan Cooper).

It’s refreshing to see Vodafone buck this trend and launch the Simply cellphone in New Zealand - a cellphone with fewer features. (See it online at http://tinyurl.com/covv2 ). The really great designs are the ones that eliminate needless choices. You know you’re doing your job as a designer when you figure out a way to take a complicated feature and make it simpler.

Now, if only Microsoft could release Word Simply.

- Trent