Real Life UX – The Power of Good Feedback

If you’ve read some of my posts, you probably know I have two sons. Unfortunately they are both inclined to Asthma. This means that since they have been tiny little babies, we’ve been required to treat them by inhalation.

This can be a very negative experience to all sides involved. Imagine you are a young child, a baby even, and your parent suddenly holds up a mask over your mouth and nose. You try to wiggle out, and your parent in response tightens his grip. What is going on? You can’t breath! why is your beloved parent doing this? Imagine you are the parent. You are distressed to begin with since your child is coughing all the time and is finding it hard to breath. You hold up the mask to his face and he tries to remove it. You hold it tighter and your child is now becoming hysterical, crying and violently pushing away. A nightmare. Twice a day.

Clearly we had to find a better way. We tried the obvious. TV as a distraction. Maybe watching “Dora the Explorer” will help him forget he has a mask over his face. It worked! for about two seconds. The solution is just not good enough because the situation is still not making sense to the child. It is hard to ignore a mask on the face.

Then we discovered feedback.A proper informative indication about the progress of the process. We hold up the mask to his face and start counting slowly to 10 in a soothing voice. After once or twice our kid catches on. He realizes that he is now able to identify a beginning of a process. He is able to follow its progress and predict when it will be finished. He counts with us and gains some control over the situation. He is not helpless anymore. If he moves the mask away, the counting stops. If he allows us to put it back – counting continues. We are not ignoring that something out of the ordinary is happening, we are providing better tools to deal with it. That and more, the feedback provides the distraction needed. Our child focuses on the counting, which is rhythmic and soothing. And yes, it works. It has been working for years and with both my kids.

So what constitues good feedback?

- Good feedback on progress has a beginning, a duration and an end.

- Good feedback  is consistent.

- Good feedback is relevant.

- Good feedback is reliable.

Feedback may also provide an appropriate distraction if needed. For example, provide relevant or interesting information for the user while he is waiting. Of course it is best to decrease or eliminate waiting, but if you can’t, at least make it a positive experience. Both our sons have learned to count to 10 pretty early, and to provide variety, once in a while we have to count in other languages. You see, Fun.

A great product is not enough – what a contextual inquiry would have revealed

Feedbox

Today I saw an interesting tool. It’s called Feedbox and I saw it as I was waiting for our car to be fixed at the garage. It was placed in the waiting room and looked simple and friendly enough. It said: “Was the service quick and usefull?” Click the face that matches your feelings and you’re done. What a great little gadget, I thought. I’m sure they’ll get a lot of positive responses.
But then two things happened that completely changed the picture. First, as the minutes went by I got more and more pressured and agitated. I could see this was true for each and every one of the people waiting with me in that waiting room. It is an absolute fact. People in waiting rooms get impatient, pressured and generally annoyed. So, where should one vent – but off course – those smiley faces are just getting to me right now, here you go, service is bad bad bad.

Then the second thing happened. 20 minutes later I was called to the front desk where I received my keys back with a smile, everything fixed. Happy and cheerful I thought to myself, this wasn’t so bad after all and walked out happily, the Feedbox long forgotten. What was wrong with this picture? Easy. The Feedbox should have been placed at the front desk.

A contextual inquiry would be the right method to reveal this bias that was caused by the context in which people used the product. There is a pretty good chance the people from my garage will learn this soon enough…or they will be wondering why they are getting so much negative feedback.

Homepage Usability by Nielsen and Tahir

Homepage Usability by Nielsen & Tahir

I love it when usability experts who write professional books organize their own book according to usability principles. This book is one of those. The first thing you see as you open is “How this book works” including text and images. Nice.
So, hopefully this is the first of similar reviews which are not actually reviews but me sharing my experience with you as I read on through the wealth of usability books out there.
This book was published in 2002. In website years a decade is a century. The sites reviewed in the book have changed considerably, as some of the principles. Still most of the guidelines specified here are worth learning.
The first part- of the book is great. It lists over 100 guidelines grouped by subject. Some of the explanations a more detailed, some very concise. This is followed by an excellent section about statistics of home-pages, such as size, design, navigation types, width of search boxes, features, contents etc. This section is summed with a shortlist of recommendations.
The rest (most) of the book is dedicated to the deconstruction of home-pages of famous and important sites. To me this section wasn’t as informative. First the sites are outdated. Second, there was a lot of references to the contents of the home-pages, which has to do more with content strategy and management than classic usability. Lastly, the tone of the “deconstruction” was a bit too negative for my taste. I think UI experts have evolved since. In the past we used a critical negative tone to accentuate the ridiculous things designed in sites and systems. Today, I feel the tone is changing towards a more constructive criticism and a less “black & white” approach of “this is bad” and “this is good”.
My 2 cents: Worth reading the first sections and enjoying the usability of the book itself. Find a used copy or a good friend (thank you Dana).

10 UX posters

Nothing makes me happier than a good visual. I selected 10 of my favorite ux posters, some old (I mean classic), some brand new. Enjoy and if you know of some other good ones, please feel free to share in the comments.

IT’S TIME TO DECORATE THE OFFICE!

#1

UPA poster: the user centered design process

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This one has been around for a while. Created by Meg Ross, Julie Nowicki, Dara Solomon, Larry Yarbrough, and Charlotte Schwendeman for the UPA (Usability Professionals Association) it depicts the user centered design process, including basic terms and pitfalls to watch out for. You can get a freebie for personal or educational use, or buy one at the UPA store.

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#2

Ten Steps to Personas by Dr. Lene Nielsen

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Part of a post that was posted on 2007 by Dr. Lene Nielsen. Dr Nielsen shares her extensive experience on the personas process. I highly recommend this post/poster for anyone who has ever had to define a persona.

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#3

UCD by Paz

This is one beautiful poster. Probably due to the fact that its creator, Pascal Raabe (Paz),  is a Graphic design student. Paz found a way to both share and visualize his understanding of the UCD process. Although he is happy to distribute it freely, I encourage the UX community to consider a donation. He earned it, and his modesty as reflected on his site makes it even more appealing.

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#4

IA's the spectrum of user experience

Not an official poster, this downloadable visual was published by IA in 2009. It refers to the place of UX within any company (I’m not sure everybody else in the company also thinks we’re in the middle). There is a first post explaining it, but I did not find any sequel to this  series, though I’d love to read one.

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#5

Margaret Mead on the art of observation

A great set of posters by Experience Dynamics . They put together 5 inspiring and informative posters, each stating insights by original thinkers, not necessarily your everyday UX gurus (Walt Disney is one…), but all expressed as usability principles. The vintage look is an added bonus.

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#6

The fundamentals of experience design

Stephen P. Anderson, an independent product strategy and design consultant, revealed this model at the IA summit 2009. Besides being visually attractive, the model is explained in varying levels of detail, so there is the “cut to the chase” version and highly detailed terms and instructions for better implementation of these ideas. all is explained in Anderson’s post. And yes, its free.

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#7

User Focus's usability quotes

OK, so it’s not the best visual on this list, but I must say, quoting Queen Elizabeth II on usability is both hilarious and effective. Just for this, User Focus earned their place with the quotes posters they showed at the 2006 world usability day (plus they have great resources). It seems you can no longer purchase these quotes, but they will send them to you via e-mail. The 2006 world usability day had a great poster campaign, but unfortunately there is no getting hold of them anymore.

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#8

Dan Saffer's Disciplines of UX

An updated diagram for the second edition of Dan Saffer’s ‘Designing for Interaction’. Saffer explains the changes from the original diagram in his post. To me it is Saffer’s incorporation of all fields of human (user) experience in the same diagram that makes it extra special. I can’t wait for it to include  ergonomics and so I will be able to present all my skills in one diagram – Yay!

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#9

10 Principles poster Dieter Rams

Dieter Rams is a renowned industrial designer. over 30 years ago he defined 10 principles for good design. Any design. The principles reflect his ‘less is more’ approach and it is quite amazing how relevant they still are. The poster, created by Bibliotheque, depicts both his principles and products.

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#10

OK, it wasn’t easy trying to choose the closing act of this list. So I decided, I am a libra, that means I don’t have to decide and rather I’ll let you choose which you prefer, or just enjoy them all.

#10A

Color theory by Paper Leaf

Visual paradise, joy to the eyes and to the soul and even practical. Jeff’s beautiful color theory poster covers the basics of color and you don’t have to be a graphic designer to benefit from it. A popular resource created by Paper Leaf, completely free with multiple downloadable options.

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#10B

UCD for Digital Products

Namahn consultancy have already designed a new poster that depicts their updated (but retro) view of human centered design, I kind of have a thing for the old, 2004, underground map one. You can find them both on their site.

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and finally, a list of even more diagrams prepared by a Luke Wroblewski (former design lead at Yahoo!)

User Experience Diagrams by Luke Wroblewski

Just let me know: Hospital UX

Dr Clooney, knows how to provide good customer experience...

Where am I?

It is common practice on the web to let your user know where he is right now. We highlight the right portion of the navigation bar, provide proper headers, a site map when needed. All this for any simple website. Why is it not common practice in our real world?

I recently had the (un)pleasant experience of taking my 4 year old to have his tonsils removed. It was a small hospital. Only 4 floors. But I didn’t know how many floors it had (do the underground floors count? are they for public use?) , or which facilities were to be found on each floor. Which entrance to use (there were two main visible ones), which elevators to take? Are there more than just the two? The jargon was misleading, “B” referred both to a floor and a unit. How do I proceed from station to station? which inner doors are for the public and which are for the staff?

A small small hospital. We were there for one day. Yet my mother got lost and my husband couldn’t find us once me moved to the next station inside. Seriously, all you need is to highlight each location in relation to the rest of the place (“you are here”), avoid jargon and provide proper headers and a site map.

What’s next?

One day. One nerve wrecking day. Is it really necessary to add to the tension by constantly surprising us with the time-frame and contents of the next step? Why must the mystery of “what’s next?” be kept? Is the hospital staff afraid I will challenge them and offer a new order for the procedure? (well, they kind of have a point there – but that’s just me).

Please please please,  rest assure, we feel helpless enough in such situations. We understand you do not have the time to

We all need a wizard to guide us in foreign territory

hold our hands and whisper reassuring words in our ears. Take an example from any basic wizard. You know, like when you purchase something online. You see how many steps there are, what is the purpose of each step and if relevant, how much time will it take to complete it.  Imagine a similar leaflet listing the medical procedures’ steps  you will be taking that day:

1. Administrative check-in, entrance floor, 20 min. Includes: Check-in, receive ID tags and medical file.
2. Medical check-in, 2nd floor, 1 .5 hours. Includes: basic medical exam and waiting for the operation.
3. The recovery room, 2nd floor, 30 min. Includes: getting ready for the opp. & wearing funny hospital clothes.
etc.

Just because the hospital staff go through it a hundred times a day, doesn’t mean they should forget about their primary, extremely anxious, users. An informed user is a relaxed user, and that is priceless! Why stop at hospitals? Such an approach is sure to increase positive user experience and customer satisfaction, not to mention the time and effort that will be spared when the service providers spend less time calming users down.

My son is fine by the way, devouring ice creams whenever he can.

Mobile: basic trends and UX tools

On user experience and meatballs

A certain client, let’s call him “Dad” (aka my husband, father of my children), approached me with a serious problem.

He had managed to create a very good product. An excellent meatball. It was round, big and of good complexion. Juicy and full of flavor from all its tomato sauce marinade. His product even ranked highly on the professional lists that count (i.e. my mom, his mother-in-law).

“So what’s the problem?” you and I both ask.

“My target user (our extremely active 4 year-old) just won’t eat it!” a frustrated Dad exclaimed, “I don’t understand, it is everything a good meatball should be. The best product on the market by far!”

The client “Dad” has already jumped to conclusions: the user is presenting early vegetarian tendencies! Please god no, not another vegetarian in the family (yours truly has been afflicted with this symptom since the age of 12).

In hopes of raising Dad’s spirit I venture a professional approach:

Me: “Does the meatball meet your user’s needs?”

Dad: “Well yes, he definitely needs meat.”

Me: “No, I mean does it fit the way he would want to eat the meatball?”

Dad: “Definitely! I would like to eat a meatball that looks just like that…”

Me: “We need to try to understand our target users’ experience”

A few observations, a questionnaire and one task analysis later we definitely feel we’ve made good progress in understanding our user. It’s the sauce. He doesn’t like the sauce, not the taste of it, but the texture. No sauce at all is the first major change to the product.

But still the dry-ish meatball doesn’t seem to do the trick.

Me: “Don’t give up just yet; let me observe him trying to eat it for a while”.

As I watch I have a thought, “Can this be? No harm in trying”. I quickly give the order: “Make them smaller! Much smaller!”.

Eureka! Success! Not only did the four year-old go for it, but his one year- old brother helped him clean-up the meatball dish.

Dad: “How did you figure it out?”

Me: “While I was observing I noticed that the original meatball was too big and heavy for his fork, it took him forever to finish and overall seemed a burden – not fun.”

By changing their size, the whole experience of eating meatballs changed. They became simpler to handle, easily held by a child’s hand or fork and did not dominate the dinner by staying on the plate forever. Eating the happily rolling-round-the-plate meatballs became fun!

Together, we’ve managed to transform a good product into a sellable product. Now our boys demand the meatballs every other day (oh, what have we done)…

Sometimes it’s all about User Experience (and having a husband who can cook).