Reections on World Usability Day

2014
Jon Morgan

Reections on World Usability Day

2014
Jon Morgan

This project can be followed at:

https://www.penip.com/Ng23055/reections-on-world-usability-day-2014

2014 Jon Morgan

Contents
1 My First Time Attending a WUD Conference

I Designing and Building the User Experience

2 Incorporating User Experience Research into the Development Process

II Mobile Accessibility

3 The Importance of Accessibility on Mobile Devices

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Introduction
This is intended to be a collection of some written reactions to the topics and concepts which
were discussed at the World Usability Day 2014 Conference held on MSUs campus in East
Lansing, MI. The theme of the conference this year was User Engagement, and featured ve
knowledgeable speakers.
As I was reviewing my notes and posts on my Twitter stream, I decided that I would share
some of the insight I had gained during the conference instead of simply writing a summary for
myself.
The text original text is hosted on a site called Penip, but I will be distributing a version version
of this book with the public in dierent formats so that it can be easily edited and responded
to. Anybody who would like to contribute by sharing an article with their own thoughts can do
so by visiting the Penp site. All of the necessary links will be displayed below.
Special Note:
The rule of thumb Ive followed for referencing visuals from the conference is that
these needed to be hyperlinks unless I had ownership of a photo which was posted
on Twitter or the presenter shared a public link to their presentation online. If you
took a photo during the conference, please feel free to embed it as a part of your
article.
If you have any questions, you can always contact me at cyberlandhq@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Jon Morgan
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My First Time Attending a WUD

Conference
By Jon Morgan
The rst time I attended World Usability Day on MSUs campus, the year was 2007 and it was
literally my second week at a brand-new job. I was getting involved with some user research for
our website, and my manager suggested that I attend the upcoming World Usability Day. I
had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I had always had an awareness of the importance of usability as it related to software and web
design, but didnt understand hot critical it was until MIWUD07. It also helped me to look back
at my experiences with my previous job at Dow Chemical where I served as a technician for the
companys video conference room help desk. I had always gotten the impression that the people
who used Dows video conference rooms (called iRooms) didnt like them, and as I listened
to the rst couple of speakers I started to understand why. Considering how the systems in
the rooms had been designed, it occurred to me that the computer interface and the way that
everything else was put together just wasnt user friendly. For example, although the cart in a
standard room came equipped with a projector, VCR, and DVD player, these devices couldnt
be used if the computer wasnt running. The on-screen controls in the software which controlled
the devices via the computer were clunky and unattractive. People preferred the giant pads over
the smart boards because there wasnt an easy way to electronically capture the drawings they
created on them. Most importantly, we often received requests to be able to display video and
content at the same time, in the same way that news casters can.
I wasnt involved in the design of the iRoom systems, but based on what I knew it seemed like
a little more attention could have been paid to the users experience. Looking back at those
experiences, this concept of usability began to gel and I knew that it needed to be applied to
my work at EduGuide.

Part I

Designing and Building the User

Experience

Incorporating User Experience

Research into the Development
Process
By Jon Morgan
No one Ive worked with has disputed the importance of usability, yet at the same time it has
been dicult to gure out where it belonged in our planning and development process. Scott
Wilthews presentation on Designing and Building the User Experience sparked some thinking
for me about how this could be possible.
Scott really summed up the core purpose of user testing when he shared this quote from Mark
Twain:
Supposing is good, nding out is better.
I think a common misconception about user research is that it can be used as a sanity check
on a website or web feature that has already gone into production. But, once design and development is in motion it is almost too late to ask users for their input.
A slide Scott shared helped to illustrate how user research should overlap with the planning
and development process. Its as if the users are included throughout the planning process. This
makes way more sense than making decisions and then asking users afterwards.
Scott also talked about some of the methods which can be used during user research. These
include creating user proles (also sometimes called personae), developing user scenarios, and
conducting eld studies. All of these techniques can be used to try to get into the mind of the
sites average user and try to understand how the site or program could best work for them.
Sometimes, I wonder if the simplicity of web design works against the web development process.
Because it is so easy for anybody with a little bit of know-how, a computer, an Internet connection, and a little bit of web hosting space to build a website I think that people assume that the
process is super easy. Or, that the decisions that are made should be based on the Developer
or Designers preferences. Or, in the case of work-for-hire, the preferences of a client. Or, that
it is so easy to use the Internet that if a website is presented in a way that appeals to a small
group of people, that it would appeal its wider audience.
In reality, it would be better for the web design team (and client) to assume that the audience
they will be serving are nothing like themselves. This would make the rst step obvious: study
members of the target audience, and gure out how a website would best serve them.
In the case of Dow Chemical, I would hope that during the planning stage somebody observed
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employees during their meetings, and interviewed a sample of people to get an idea of what kinds
of capabilities they would need in a video conference room. Ive heard, via other presentations,
that this kind of research can be very insightful. During one presentation years ago, a presenter
described what it was like to design a handheld digital device for mechanics. His team realized
through observations that the mechanics often wore gloves on the job, and this impacted their
ability to use the touch screen. This lead to improvements which could have been missed.
I have learned during my time with EduGuide that users can behave completely dierent from
how I would, or how we pictured them using the site when we originally worked out the interface.
There just isnt a way to be sure without some level of user research.
Finally, a major time saver that Scott talked about was the usage of sketches and wireframes.
During the last year, EduGuide has been relying more on wireframes for its design decisions because of how much easier they are to update than hi-delity designs. Also, I feel like wireframes
are a good way to represent the generalities of a possible designs, where hi-delity graphics tend
to suck people into the details and distract from the real questions at hand. I was very interested
to hear Scotts tip about using PDFs to create interactive wireframes. There are also tools on
the web which allow designers to do this.
Following this presentation, I am more convinced than ever that we need to include more user
research in our development process, and I feel like Scotts presentation gave me a place to
start. One challenge Ive had, and accompanying question, is how does someone add user research without slowing down development work which is already in progress? And, once youve
allowed time, how do you know where you should begin with the research? Or which methods
to use?

Part II

Mobile Accessibility

The Importance of Accessibility on

Mobile Devices
By Jon Morgan
Gian Wild pointed out a lot of common mistakes which can be found across mobile apps and
mobile versions of desktop websites.
Two things that I learned from her presentation was that (1) a growth in usage of mobile devices
makes it even more important that sites are universally accessible; and (2) I will need to including
more screening for accessibility issues when I run QA testing of new features.
Accessibility also appears to be something that needs to be incorporated inside the process
of development, as opposed to being something that is checked as a part of quality assurance
testing. Some of the design mistakes Gian pointed out seemed like over sights, and some were
the results of a lack of double checking on dierent devices.
Gians full presentation can be found here

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