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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems Case Study:  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

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

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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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) 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

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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems User Prototype Testing: Process  10 users were involved in testing, each test took 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”

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

Information Software Systems ISS Modern SW Development Practices: Processes and Technologies 18 May 2007 (c) Information Software Systems 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

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