USEworthy March 2002
The monthly Newsletter from The Usability Company

Welcome. Our aim is to give an overview of the main events and debates in the Usability world. This time we've included a couple of press releases describing recent developments at our company.

The RNIB/Marcomedia Conference

On Friday 25th January the RNIB hosted their quarterly conference raising the profile of web accessibility. This quarter, Macromedia joined RNIB on the platform. Macromedia are proactively trying to help web designers and producers to make not only fun and cool but also USABLE and ACCESSIBLE websites for the 21st century. They demonstrated a range of offerings that represent a real commitment to increased accessibility.

These include plugins for Dreamweaver that will automatically check the accessibility of the given pages against WAI guidelines and settings in Flash that will dump the plain text within a movie into the HTML that embeds it. They are also working on functionality in Flash that will allow the "Back" button to work in a more traditional fashion within movies rather than replaying them from the beginning. All these developments should help accessibility for the visually impaired and the overall usability of new sites.

This is warmly received.

The Launch of WebIQ

The Usability Company and Usability Sciences Corporation (USC) announced in March the UK launch of WebIQ, the only online, client-side technology that can be easily and cost-effectively deployed to gather intelligence on ALL the key qualitative metrics of website effectiveness. This announcement follows the release by the two companies about their recently agreed transatlantic partnership.

"WebIQ is a remarkable piece of technology that meets an emerging need within the online world," said Catriona Campbell, founder and CEO of The Usability Company. "WebIQ has already been successfully deployed on two of the world's top ten brands, and six of the top one hundred. It has been deployed on multiple sites for Procter & Gamble, the world's second largest brand portfolio."

"As the demographics of the web move closer to that of the general population" said USC president Jeff Schueler, "websites must move closer to conventional marketing models. Initial web marketing focused on driving traffic. That evolved into analysing traffic patterns as a way to improve the site. Site "analytics" spawned the need for user experience testing, generally with a recruited panel. In today's environment, panel-based feedback is not enough. Sites need insight from and about their actual visitors."

"That's where WebIQ comes in," said Campbell. "It creates a direct, real-time feedback channel to the actual visitor. It's not about site data any more. It's about customer intelligence. Site managers need to know exactly who visits their site, why they came, and how successful they were. Recruited panels can't provide that kind of feedback. Web analytics packages don't engage the visitor in a dialogue. WebIQ does."

WebIQ collects feedback in small, discreet samples from visitors who volunteer to participate. Opt-in rates average eight percent. The highest rate has been a staggering 12%. "It's a reflection of brand strength and the visitor's affinity for the site," explained Schueler. "The stronger the relationship between the brand and the visitor, the higher the participation level."

The software, which is downloaded and runs from participants' computers, asks specific conditional and contextual questions depending on, for example, the respondent's demographic information, what they identify as their intentions at the site, and their various navigation choices.

WebIQ's entry-level online product, the e-Mission Scorecard, is data-rich and inexpensive for companies to use, Schueler said. A typical e-Mission project can be up on the site within 48 hours and completed for less than $10,000. USC advises that sites collect the sample over a one-week period so that daily usage patterns do not skew the results. "What really endears WebIQ to our clients," said Schueler, "is that, unlike most survey technologies, we inflict no pain on their IT departments. We give them two lines of JavaScript to insert into the home page and that's it. We handle everything else."

The information drawn from the surveys is invaluable to market researchers and company executives, said Schueler. A recent Forrester Research report backs up those convictions.

"Executives need insight into what drives - or hinders - the business success of their (Web) sites. Instead, they settle for traffic reports and then struggle to make them fit their needs," the report stated. "Metrics alone can't answer the right questions... Forrester believes that firms must shift from reactively analysing traffic to proactively monitoring scenario completion - the rate at which users are able to accomplish their key goals."

Dick Buck, president of US market research firm BusinessInsights, has implemented WebIQ for a number of his customers.

"It's marvellous because you're dealing with real visitors to the Website, (and while) they're performing actual activities, you're questioning them... you're doing it on the click," Buck said. "That's far superior to taking a survey at the end of a Website (session)... you get insights that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It's more valid than people trying to rely on their memory."

BusinessInsights uses WebIQ on a project basis - when a client has specific needs and issues - and on an ongoing basis for tracking and monitoring what's happening on the site, Buck said. "I've seen nothing else that does what (WebIQ) does."

"WebIQ is a perfect addition to our service portfolio. Our strategy is to encompass any aspect of website operation that has an impact on the visitor experience and therefore limits businesses' ability to achieve their goals. We are confident that WebIQ will be enormously successful in the UK market and are delighted to be the exclusive UK agent for Usability Sciences Corporation" said Paul Blunden, Sales & Marketing Director, The Usability Company.

Transatlantic Partnership

A Transatlantic Partnership Providing Clients With a Consistent Approach to Website Usability Testing and Research.

London-based "The Usability Company" and Dallas-based Usability Sciences Corp. (USC) announced in early March a transatlantic partnership designed to provide global clients with a consistent approach to website usability testing and research. The Usability Company will become the exclusive UK agent for USC's European clients. USC will reciprocate for North American units of The Usability Company's European clients.

The Usability Company is building a European network of usability specialists in order to deliver services and consultancy to clients with pan-European requirements. "Our strategy from the outset has been to focus on large multinationals and blue chip organisations and the natural extension from the pan-European business model was to look globally. With Usability Sciences Corporations' US coverage and links into Asia, we are beginning to see for the first time a truly global delivery capability" said Catriona Campbell founder and CEO of The Usability Company.

Jeff Schueler, founder and CEO of Usability Sciences Corporation said, "The Usability Company offers the standard of service and depth of expertise we were looking for in a European partner. We feel comfortable entrusting our clients as well as our technology to them."

Both organisations employ the latest techniques and technologies in providing usability services and consulting to their clients. "When we compared the processes and the quality of the deliverables we found there was a great deal of similarity" said Jeff. And it was Usability Sciences Corporations' focus on ROI (return on investment) and actionable recommendations that convinced The Usability Company that the partnership would flourish. "Our customers expect us to understand their business and be able to deliver against their business goals and visitor objectives. They also want us to deliver actionable recommendations rather than weighty tomes. The fact that Usability Sciences Corporation shared this way of working was of key importance to us," said Catriona.

Might look good but does it work

Usability is a term new to many, but it is a science rooted in the cold war era of military research. From the earliest days of the jet fighter, scientists employed usability techniques to optimise the ability of a machine's user. Today these techniques are practiced across the full spectrum of digital platforms. For example by making an Intranet easier to use, businesses are finding that the productivity of their personnel can grow, support costs are lessened and staff morale is bolstered.

Usability testing is a simple process to understand, but difficult to implement. A Usability Specialist must first audit the platform; this could be Internet, Intranet, WAP, Interactive TV and just about any other interactive digital platform. They will then develop a series of tasks to do on the site, select a user group (composed of the average demographic) and evaluate the individual's ability to use the service.

This can throw up all kinds of inconsistencies, pitfalls and plain old problems. In the case of an intranet, it could translate to hours of lost time as employees become immersed in an unusable system, when they are simply trying to locate a phone number.

Or in the case of an Internet service, the common design for credit card numbers is to feature four sets of four numbers. When users type in these numbers they often add a space between the sets. When companies realise the amount of lost revenue by the user giving up during a payment process can cost them, they are astounded. This can stretch to millions.

In a recent study of online banking sites we found that users looking for a telephone number to guide them through the NatWest site, were led onto The Royal Bank of Scotland page, where the number they were presented with was in fact Edinburgh based. We called this number and were given a London number; they then directed us to the correct website help line. In terms of wasted time, none of our users were willing to pursue the help line hunt further than Edinburgh. Had they done so, they would have had the combination of 2 national rate calls, an Internet bill and a great deal of hair pulling.

When the basic rules that such research teaches us are applied to the likes of Stepstone, Monster, and Total jobs or even off line recruiters such as Reed or Manpower, it seems that there are those who recognise the needs of their user and those who ignore them.

If Amazon is the benchmark of usability and scores a theoretical 9 out of 10, then UK jobsites score 4 or 5.

The cases for implementing usability guidelines on a recruitment area of a website are quite glaring, our research has found that a number of multinationals have highly unfriendly sites. Sites that deter some of the best-qualified job applicants, as only the most persistent, or desperate, will devote the required time to the application process.

Sion Mooney, a Recruitment Consultant well versed in usability issues has said "the main barrier between an ideal candidate and your company can very often be a cumbersome process in the online application. A thorough test of the site irons out these problems and can increase enquiries by around 500% so it certainly makes our job easier."

Usability: An Introduction
Part III - A Variety of Usability Research Techniques

Usability research comes in many forms and varieties. It can be as simple as "peer review" a technique where the designer may ask a colleague, preferably from another team or someone not associated with the project, to comment on a design or section of a design with a fresh attitude, right up to complex integrated testing of  for example, air traffic control systems with real flight controllers.

As mentioned the simplest form of evaluation is that of peer review. This could be very informal or could result in a more formalised change management procedure. The next level of testing might be that of a Usability Audit. In this type of research a Usability Specialist would assess a product against standard heuristics (or design rules of thumb) some of these have been published by Jakob Neilson and can be found on his site at www.useit.com. Usually a formal report would then be written with recommendations so improvements could be made to the product.

The most valuable form of research is user observation. This is also the most common type and is also referred to as usability testing or evaluation. Neilson has determined, through research, that between 5 and 8 participants is the most cost effective number of participants and our own research suggests 8 is the optimum number. This is due to the law of diminishing returns. Users should come from appropriate and previously outlined demographics. They would then be placed in front of the product and asked to complete given tasks that are representative of those they would want to complete with the product in the real world. The findings from the user observation would then be complied into a report again with recommendations to improve the product.

Next month we will consider the role of usability in benchmarking performance...

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