1. Information Software Systems 18 May 2007 Information Software Systems Roman Yagodka ISS Test Leader Usability: A Good Thing To Think About

2. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 2 Contents  Introduction to Usability  Why Usability is important  Case study: www.turne.com.ua

3. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 3 Introduction To Usability  Term usability has several meanings. We will consider three of them, which are directly connected with software development: Usability as some quality of a product Usability as an empirical science Usability as an ideology

4. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 4 Introduction To Usability (cont.)  Usability as a quality is a property of software product which shows how well it fits end-user needs, how much its behavior corresponds to user expectations and how pleasant is to work with the software  Usability itself is not actually any metric and can not be measured directly  To compare usability of software products or to confirm improvement from product redesign you need to measure additional related parameters, such as: Time to complete a task Percentage of tasks that were failed to complete Other domain-specific metrics

5. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 5 Introduction To Usability (cont.)  Usability as an empirical science actually checks software product for being usable  Usability has the following empiric methods: At the pre-design and design stage: field studies, user prototype testing At the development stage or at complete product: user testing

6. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 6 Introduction To Usability (cont.)  Usability as an ideology is the set of principles, which should drive development of every user-friendly software product (after J. Nielsen): User shall be superior to technology User shall have control over the software Software shall be as simple as possible

7. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 7 Why Usability Is Important? The answer is very simple: If your software is too difficult – your user will finally leave it

8. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 8 Case Study: www.TURNE.com.ua  Following case study covers usability oriented redesign of the e-commerce web-site, which was held in year 2005  Redesign was conducted by web-site team in strong cooperation with usability consultant  Redesign took about three weeks, excluding time for graphical design and programming

9. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 9 Brief Overview: www.TURNE.com.ua  One of the first electronic travel catalogues in Ukraine  About 5000 visitors daily  One year online before redesign

10. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 10 Brief Overview: Main Page

11. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 11 General use-case Tour package Find User Make online order Super Tour Inc Travel company Contact

12. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 12 Existing web-site problems  Finding a tour Unclear navigation Confusing tour search function Absence of the full-text search  Ordering a tour “Fear” of online ordering Frequent calls to support

13. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 13 Main Redesign Goal  Increase number of online orders Subgoal: Increase number of users successfully reaching tour details page

14. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 14 Redesign Plan  Preliminary analysis  Structure development  Draft design of main pages  Create paper prototypes for testing  User prototype testing  Results processing, design update  Implement changes

15. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 15 Preliminary Analysis  Following inputs were analyzed: Search keywords history Website routes (2-3 levels deep)

16. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 16 Preliminary Analysis (cont.)  About 1000 search requests were analyzed and grouped into 8 main categories of interest

17. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 17 Preliminary Analysis (cont.)  Users routes starting from the main page were analyzed to discover existing good and bad solutions Прямая ссылка на описание тура (Горящие путевки) 12943 Горящие туры 1651 Оранжевый блок / Турция 1439 Страны 1299 Оранжевый блок / Крым 1253 Крым 987 Туры 861 Курорты 289 Отели 287 Каталог туркомпаний 217 Карпаты 142 Блок Топ 10 отелей 116 Рекламные блоки 205 Погода 98

18. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 18 Structure Development  Structure development was conducted in a series of meetings, involving all the team

19. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 19 Draft Design of Pages  For each structure element was developed draft page design

20. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 20 Paper Prototypes  Why paper prototype? It’s cheap It’s easy to update on-the-fly It works at least not worse than electronic one

21. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 21 Paper Prototype Example

22. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 22 User Prototype Testing: Tasks  Each user was given a several tasks to complete  Tasks were mainly related to the main redesign goal – user shall successfully find desired package tour and make an order  Other tasks were intended to check some ideas, generated at the design stage

23. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 23 User Prototype Testing: Process  10 users were involved in testing, each test took 40- 50 minutes to complete  Each user was told to speak aloud about what he thinks when trying to complete the task  All content, which could not be prepared in advance, like search results, was generated manually on-the-fly  As it was expected, two main types of user behavior were discovered: “searching” and “exploring”

24. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 24 Results processing  Meeting was conducted the next day after testing  In general design was accepted, except extended tour search form, which was then redesigned.  “Top 10 Countries” block was declined despite of very good results due to marketing reasons

25. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 25 Results  One month later after new version was launched: Number of tour details views grew up for 15% Number of online orders grew up for 38%  It must be taken into account that measurements were made at the peak of low-season in the tourist industry, so the website has 11% less visitors than before launching a new version

26. Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 2007 26 The End Thank You For Attention