Usability
Scaling up usability
The organization used in this paper to study how to scale up
usability is the Felleskjøpet, FK in short. FK is The Norwegian
Agricultural Purchasing and Marketing Co-operation (FK), a part of
Norwegian farm co-operative system. This is the largest supplier of
feed concentrate, agricultural implements and fertilizers in Norway.
Such a large business entity of course needs to increase usability in
their communication system for this purpose FK uses an indirect
groupware system, which has different functions. They are taken care by
the R&D department of the organization. As the system is large and
still expanding, scaling up usability may be key to efficient operation
and cost effectiveness of this Groupware. I became motivated to use
this case study in my master thesis, which also motivated me to write
about scaling up usability. It is a very interesting topic to do some
researches on and write about. This paper will mainly focus on how to
scale up the usability. In the first chapter, the concept of scaling up
usability is defined, explained and the need to scale up usability is
justified. There is also a discussion about how to measure usability
and which metrics are to be used in measuring. The features of a
Groupware needing improvements for scaling up usability are also
outlined in this section. In the second chapter one goes deeper into
the problem through an empirical study. It will be clearly mentioned
and analysed the challenges such as: which aspects are to be modified
and which parts need a redesign. Following this section it will be
presented two case studies which outline the methods used for
implementation of suggested changes. The last part is conclusion.
Concept of usability & scaling it up
Usability has been defined in many ways. For instance: Jakob Nielsen
(2003) defines usability as the following:
“A quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use.
The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use
during the design process. Usability is defined by five quality
components:
- Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the
first time they encounter the design?
- Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they
perform tasks?
Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not
using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?
- Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors,
and how easily can they recover from the errors?
- Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?”
Usability is a term used to denote the ease of use with which people
can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to
achieve a particular goal. It is a measure of the quality of a user's
experience when interacting with a product or system, whether a web
site, a software application, mobile technology, or any user-operated
device. The international standards organization formally defines
usability:
"[Usability refers to] the extent to which a product can be used by
specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness,
efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of user." ISO
9241-11]
Scaling up usability of a system means to make it more powerful, bigger
and easier to use. It is necessary that the level of usability is
measured and stored from time to time. It has been proved that the
interpretation of experimental data based on only one or two usability
aspects leads to unreliable conclusions of overall usability. The
usability measurements must be used in a particular situation and
should be considered carefully due to be accurate. If they are
considered critical in a particular situation, then they should be
recognized as a central part of any evaluation of usability. It
requires a firm understanding of how tasks, users, and technology
interact in constituting the usage within the particular application
domain. Usability concept has been perceived well in the industry and
it seems that there is a very direct relationship between Usability and
Return on Investment (ROI). This has prompted many multinational firms
and companies to shell out millions of Dollars on usability
professional and labs.
To scale up & measure the usability
The biggest problem facing the usability field is how to scale up
massively so that we can impact all the user interface designs in the
world. Before scaling up, there is a need to measure usability. This is
a challenge in itself, how can we measure usability? In fact we have a
range of metrics to help us measure our design improvements. We need to
use these measures to see whether the improvements are:
-More efficient for the users
-Easier to learn
-More satisfying to the users
We usually conduct what is called a “Usability Testing” to measure
usability. The three most common factors measured in usability testing
include: effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. The data that we
need during usability testing can be of two types. These include:
-Performance data (How data is or will be executed?)
-Preference data (what are the participant’s thoughts and ideas?)
Once the metrics are gathered, there may be need to evaluate the
usability of the product,which in many cases might be for example: a
groupware or a web site. Then we need to make the recommendations for
scaling up usability. A baseline or benchmark usability test is usually
conducted before making the design. The recommendations, which are
based on the usability test, can be implemented in order to fix
usability issues. Then, the re-tested product will be measured by their
effectiveness of improvements. One should never forget that all
organizations will not follow a general pattern. Thus talking about a
general procedure may be irrelevant!
One area where usability has been widely used in recent years is
Groupware. The recommendations for groupware are extendible to any
product for that matter. The nature of recommendations for groupware is
generally to improve the following attributes:
-Easy to access or start-up: The Groupware should be easy to access and
start-up if it is to be widely used and to keep on being used. Users
will not use the Groupware if they are able to communicate more easily
some other way.
-Easy to learn and operate: If a Groupware is perceived to be difficult
to operate or time consuming due to learn how to operate, then it will
not be used widely. Hence, a Groupware should be easy-to-use for all
users.
-Easy- to Customize: Groupware must be suitable for each user and
group. It should be customizable for each member of the group. Each
group has its own demands and way of working and Groupware must take
care of accommodations. Another possibility is to design Groupware that
copes with broad user demands.
-Quality and Speed: Quality of the system is a criterion in any design.
Quality also scales up usability. Good quality and quick output is a
great plus for any usable system.
With the initial ideas in place let’s move on and apply them in actual
scenario.
State of the art
In this section I am focusing mainly on what are the techniques used to
scale up the usability.
When developing a new website, intranet, or groupware we need to start
with greater focus on the end user. There must be clear idea as to who
is going to use the system. The developer must have a very good idea of
how varied the user group may be in terms of age, skills, time that
they want to spend on the interface, technical knowledge etc. Once we
know the user group well, we can focus on what they might need. Best
way to know what the end user needs is to ask them directly. This is
done by using the needs analysis which may involve drawing out a sample
of potential users and interviewing them. Along with needs analysis on
the user end, we must define the goals that this kind of interface is
set to achieve. Once the needs of users and the goals of interface
match, it can be implemented. After implementing the system we need to
get the feedback from users and measure the usability again.
With iterative usability testing the developer will know when to make a
change. Usability may fade down with time and this will be reflected on
the usability measures. The system designer can continuously maintain a
high usability. The whole exercise will work only if it is
participatory and both the end user and developers work together. This
is known as participatory design. It is very crucial in maintaining and
scaling up the usability of any man machine interface (FEMA, 2006).
There is another aspect which should be considered. Sometimes a person
may wonder whether or not usability can scale up. Some experts point
out that usability can not be scaled up! Because if an organisation
hire more usability professionals, it doesn’t make their products more
usable! Because a good usability depends on good design culture, not
testing! Jared contention is that “When usability is effective, are we
effective because of our methods and skills and training, or because a
company that hires us is thinking about new things and considering them
at the same time and could do it just as well without us: customer
needs and feedback, firm marketing goals, good beta testing feedback,
design process, quality” (Cherny, 2005).
In many instances, the scaling up of usability helped learn interesting
facts about the user preferences. It was found during re-designing of
US-CERT website that when multiple pathways for accessing the
information are provided, people generally get confused. They
simplified the access to information and provided fewer options.
Participants had trouble understanding many of the link titles, and
they thought the link labels were ambiguous. The numbering system was
meaningless to users and made the lists difficult to scan. They
rearranged titles on content pages, removed the numbers and dates from
the titles of non technical documents, and grouped content in
meaningful categories. These changes greatly improved usability for our
non-technical audience. They were able to quickly find the information
they needed and understood which sections of the web site were designed
specifically for them. There were problems with colour pallets too.
Users didn’t like the overuse of the red, white, and blue palette; they
felt that the site was cluttered. So it was decided to simplify the
colour palette by using only a few different shades of the same colour
throughout the site and streamlining all graphics and content to ensure
that the site had a clean look and feel (US-CERT, 2006).
While designing an instant message system for NCI’s Live Help, it was
found that users should decide the logo and graphics to be used on the
interface. In this case it was found that most users chose the question
mark. It was also found that users generally look at the top centre of
a page first, then look left, then right, and finally move down the
page systematically. Hence putting important items at the top, "above
the fold" (in the first screen of information), eased scanning and
scaled up usability. Users are less likely to click on a graphic that
does not look like a link. Hence the clickable links were replaced by
clickable graphics which were labelled descriptively (Usability.gov,
2006).
These steps helped achieve what is known as user-friendly and
accessible graphic design. While implementing a groupware for in-house
use in a corporate environment the design challenges are more diverse.
Each of their staff work on the knowledge base they have of the
subject. For example there may be several accountants who work well
because of their knowledge in accounting. Enabling each worker to share
information amongst them will be a great boon for the organization as
the efficiency and improvement of each worker. There are several
frontiers of a corporate business where this groupware can be used to
scale up the usability.
Integration of ideas from product marketing, R&D and other relevant
sources will create a pool for product requirements on which the
company can base their product features. Marketing people will pass on
the expectations of members and other consumers to the R&D which
will work on development and improvements and send the re engineered
product back to market for feedback. The overall direction of business
can be decided by each member. Information sharing can make the
organization more democratic. Whenever a new situation arises, the
organization's leaders could disseminate information about the
situation and outline several general possible approaches. The
information may be sent to front line people for review who in turn
will gain a feedback from each shareholder in the process. The matter
could be discussed and inputs would be collected and aggregated and
then incorporated into a revised and more detailed series of
alternatives, which would again be sent out for review. When nothing
new is coming out of these discussions, the leadership can select a
policy. This way shareholder’s interest in the organization will not
fade away because their usability of the company’s share increases and
the longevity of this organization would be ensured (Miller, 1993). The
introduction and withdrawal of older products can also be streamlined
by using information sharing groupware. Also preservation of historical
data will help formulate market strategy.
What are the challenges, and how can the existing system be modified?
First of all the information systems being used right now will have to
be centralized. Several localized infrastructure that make this whole
system today will have to be integrated. An often reiterated theme and
ambition with establishing a working, organization-wide infrastructure
is to finally make the world fit together, to integrate the various
applications, platforms, and information systems that exist. The older
mess has to be swept aside to avoid the chaos and fragmentation. This
poses a challenge. Despite the practically unanimous acceptance of the
need to avoid fragmentation, important user groups still have to learn
to cope with the mess. The fragmentation, however, exists for good
reasons and will not simply be swept away. The most important sources
for the all too common situation of a fragmented infrastructure are,
first, that the user’s requirements vary too much and, second, that new
information systems extend and superimpose older ones rather than
straightforwardly substituting them. Periodical measurements of
usability metrics and updating of the system based on these results
will help in scaling up of the usability of the groupware. (Monteiro
et. al.)
Everyone in a corporate environment is working as a group and is
serving to increase the value of shareholder’s as well as consumer’s
money. Two aspects of improvement are to understand the changing needs
of customers and then work in groups to work out a plan and implement
them to achieve this shift in user preferences. Both on the user end
and developer end, group work is important. In many group work
situations, awareness of others provides information that is critical
for smooth and effective collaboration. While working in groups, it is
very much essential to know who is working with you, what they are
doing, and how your own actions interact with theirs. This is called
group awareness. Group awareness is useful for coordinating actions,
managing coupling, discussing tasks, anticipating others’ actions, and
finding help. Group awareness is therefore very important tool for
scaling up usability.
Three mechanisms help people to maintain awareness in collocated
situations: explicit communication, where people tell each other about
their activities; consequential communication, in which watching
another person work provides information as to their activities and
plans; and feed-through, where observation of changes to project
artifacts indicates who has been doing what. Although group awareness
is taken for granted in face-toface work, it is difficult to maintain
in distributed settings. Studies of distributed work have shown that
much of the communication and implicit information that is available to
a collocated team does not exist for remote collaborators. Groupware is
an efficient tool to facilitate group awareness in a geographically
scattered organizational setup (Gutwin et. al., 2004).
We can implement the groupware, which will be used by the employees
only when employees are ready to accept it. So we need to take care of
the organizational factors as well when implementing the recommended
changes for scaling up usability. Researchers have suggested that there
are two main organizational elements that seem to influence effective
utilization of groupware. First one is people’s cognition or mental
models about technology and their work, and the second is structural
properties of the organization such as policies, norms, and reward
systems. It was found that where people’s mental models do not
understand or appreciate the collaborative nature of groupware, such
technologies will be interpreted and used as personal, stand-alone
software (e.g., a spreadsheet or word processing program). They will
not readily use the collaborative features of the groupware. It was
also found that where the premises underlying the groupware technology
e.g. shared effort, cooperation, collaboration etc. are not encouraged
and rewarded, or where organization’s structure is competitive and
individualistic with rigid hierarchy etc. the technology will be
unlikely to facilitate collective use and value. Therefore wherever
there are few incentives or norms for cooperating or sharing expertise,
groupware technology alone cannot make much difference. Conversely,
where the structural properties do support shared effort, cooperation,
and collaboration, it is likely that the technology will be used
collaboratively, that is, it will be another medium within which those
values and norms are expressed. Recognizing the significant influence
of these organizational elements is critical to groupware developers,
users, and researchers (Orlikowski, 1992). To understand how to use the
techniques discussed above, it will be better to take up a similar case
and study it in full detail.
Case Study
This chapter will discuss case studies on the sated topic. One of these
case studies deals with Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and its
deployment. SOA is a way to increase usability of systems.
Service-Oriented Architecture smoothes the progress and the work of the
services as well as the conversion of power. Worldwide, many industries
cover changes of basic IT services on the perception as well as the
realization of orientated services. A couple of the main technologies
used are the Extensible Markup Languages (XML), SOA and other web
services. Retailers have implemented the standard of SOA growth purely
based on what is seen on website pages. Some of the advantages are:
-Reuse: The ability to create services that are reusable in many
applications
-Efficiency: The ability to create new services and applications with
using a combination of new and old services quick and easy
-Loose technology coupling: The ability to model services independently
of their execution environment and create messages that can be sent to
any services.
-Division of responsibility: The ability to allow businessmen to
concentrate on business problems, technical people to concentrate on
technology issues, and for both groups to collaborate using the
services contract. (Newcomer et. al., 2005)
Many variations are used when creating a service and an object. With
the service, it is much larger and will switches communications with
others types of services. Services are distinctive at elevated levels
of pensiveness than an object would be due to the fact that it is
achievable to diagram service characterizations on procedure-oriented
programs such as “COBOL or PL/I, or to a message queuing system such as
JMS or MSMQ, as well as to an object-oriented system such as J2EE or
the .NET Framework (Newcomer et al. 2005).
Services are required to be classified as a useable crossing point
which can allow additional date and data power for the object. Services
that would require the use of this ability would be banks. SOA focuses
mainly on business matters or other areas that pertain to marketing. It
can respond at a faster rate, especially if it needs to happen right
away, like sudden changes in the market. SOA has a characteristic
linking it to having the ability to mix and match. Its design structure
is crucial in directing all areas of performing and via business. It
describes and provides the IT infrastructure in consenting to various
applications to trade information and contribute in everyday commerce
developments, in spite of the operating systems used or the encoding
languages fundamental to those applications. As an IT approaching
factor, an SOA is thought to be a tool which provides useful business
services with upgraded key organization and helps to align the needs of
that business.
Web services also provide a set of universal principles for various
types of software. Take XML for instance, this tool is often used for
defining a variety of date configurations and types. This is fairly
easy to use and is free from platforms. The simplistic architecture for
using this is UDDI (the registry) that is situated amid the requester
and the WSDL (the provider) as well as SOAP being between them acting
as the communicator. Also to be included is a case study on the subject
of information tools and framework of use which for the most part will
centre on the amalgamation and how technology may play a significant
part to escalating usability of systems in businesses. The case study
concerning Kling & Iacono was based upon the significance and
utilizing of the MRP system as a measurement of a line of attack to
keep control, as this is imported by those in charge. This without a
doubt stands for the use of interpretive methods in shifting
governmental organization and mounting (scaling) usability of
technology within any given organization. It was acknowledged in this
particular study that collective processes executed by people such as
developers and managers, create, utilize and/or revise such systems and
its main properties of information. The relations between each user and
the core developers can at times rely upon the joint system that
provides the communication for each, and scale them to meet their
needs. Orlikowski presented her case, as an outline which was accepted
to demonstrate the improvement of case tools. It was interpreted as a
kind of cook book for developers due to develop their systems. This
cook book provided the rules around which computer procedures of the
case tools were constructed. (Orlikowski et al 1991).
Discussion and Conclusion
Usability addresses the relationship between tools and their users. In
order for a tool to be effective, it must allow intended users to
accomplish their tasks in the best way possible. The same principle
applies to computers, websites, and other software. In order for these
systems to work, their users must be able to employ them effectively.
The key principle for maximizing usability is to employ iterative
design, which progressively refines the design through evaluation from
the early stages of design. The evaluation steps enable the designers
and developers to incorporate user and client feedback until the system
reaches an acceptable level of usability. Jakob Nielsen (2003) is an
expert who did some evaluations. He helped intranet designers improve
and scale up usability of their designs by giving them the results of
usability testing of 14 different intranets: 10 in different cities in
the U.S.; three in London, England; and one in Hong Kong, China!
Usability depends on a number of factors including how well the
functionality fits user needs, how well the flow through the
application fits user tasks, and how well the response of the
application fits user expectations. We can learn to be better user
interface designers by learning design principles and design
guidelines. But even the most insightful designer can only create a
highly-usable system through a process that involves getting
information from people who actually use the system. The case study
discussed in the previous chapter allows us to interpret and learn so
that the usability factor becomes easier to construct and manage,
allowing each user to function more easily and at a faster rate than
previous. These studies pertain to usability by way of giving basic
instructions on how to perform better, allowing each and every person
to integrate themselves on functioning within their given organization
with newer and faster service tools such as XML and keeping a strong
hold on control issues by using the MRP system. By diversifying
themselves and being open to using new programs and/or services, each
organization can then focus on producing faster times in communication
and data performance. The strategy to scale up usability is very much
dependent on the uniqueness of situation. While implementing a public
information access system, we need to focus mainly on the user’s needs.
There are only two stakeholders generally the organization
disseminating information and the users who can use information for
their benefit. On the other hand while implementing a groupware in a
corporate environment the designer faces a tougher challenge.
This is because usability becomes multi-dimensional in such a set-up.
The usability of groupware to employees and users is one issue, the
usability of products and a system as a whole can be increased by the
implementation of groupware which is a broader second issue.
Stakeholders involved here are numerous and generally there is a
complex relationship between stakeholders in corporation. Stakeholders
may include the following: customers, R&D, HR, Finance and product
development departments and the Shareholders. Each group has an
interest and usability for the organization as a whole which needs to
be scaled up by proper implementation of groupware. The challenge is
obviously greater. Moreover usability of groupware is to be taken care
of as well.
Three crucial functions may be performed due to scale up the usability
of groupware for an organization. First, it should help in getting
feedback from the users of products and services of the firm send them
to the product development team, facilitate discussion among the group
members and users. This will give deeper insight to the product
development team to acknowledge consumers need. The second aspect is to
facilitate the communication between shareholders and top brass of the
organization which will help in making decision process democratically.
Every shareholder will feel attached to the organization and as a
result the longevity of organization will be ensured. A third objective
would be to preserve historical information on which the firm can base
product introduction or withdrawal decisions and fine tune its
marketing strategy from time to time.
There are several challenges. One of them is that to integrate the
existing system into a centralized one without letting the whole system
fragment away. The success of groupware is also tied somewhat to the
group awareness. People should know whom they are working with and what
their roles are. Group awareness comes naturally when team members work
face to face but in remote systems it is often hard to implement. The
groupware only cannot ensure better usability. Organizational
attributes have to be considered too. Employees’ perception about the
new technology and organizations perception about group working is very
important in ensuring that groupware work properly.
After analysing the case studies, we can confidently acknowledge the
fact that to get an increased usability for a groupware; we cannot
implement a generalized system. We need to consider the unique features
of the situation and then decide what factors may affect the usability
of groupware. We need to focus on why the system is needed in the first
place. Very often groupware implementation challenges the authority of
the manager or tends to upset the political and social settings of the
organization. This should be avoided at any cost. When the distribution
of workload for running the system is not fair enough, success of
groupware cannot be guaranteed. Too much freedom to individuals on the
contrary may also harm the interests of the organization. We can have
several groupware for each application. The design will be easier. All
these can be integrated into a centralized system later on for better
usability of the system and least conflict of interests.
In conclusion and upon closer evaluation, it is fair to say that not
only will an organization lose focus and interest if such a thing a
groupware is utilized without safely conducting testing on the system,
then all the effort and workload will not be conducive to bettering the
business. This will in the end, lead to a lesser success rate than
originally predicted, and the organization will face many challenges.
For future success for an organization, constant control must be
maintained, while at the same time, increasing usability with new
technologies can only help to improve an already satisfactory system.
Proper maintenance and upgrades will help to ensure faster
communication and data transfers.
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