Compete on Usability

Seeing opportunities for action: affordance theory

What if complicated visual design properties like color, contrast, and brightness could all be reduced to one factor?  If you're in charge of usability for an interactive product, they can be. Affordance is the  term for how perception of an interface influences the opportunity for action.

Affordance theory states that the human visual system is designed to directly perceive action possibilities. In other words, the first thing we see is what we can do in the world. You can apply affordance theory by taking a fresh look at your interface and noting exactly what possible actions it's communicating.

One classic example for the web is hyperlink design. Many designers consider the classic blue underlined link to be garish and dated-looking, but there's no doubt that it stands out and has a strong association with action. Therefore, never underline general text on your site (use boldface or a size change to emphasize text) and don't change text to blue unless you want it to be a link.  Conversely, be thoughtful and consistent when you make your links something other than blue and underlined.

Human vision is very good at perceiving the edges of things. Affordance theory explains this because, in a natural environment, a boundary means a change people must react to. Apply this in your design by making sure that functional elements, like buttons, tabs, and form fields, have a strong and consistent edge design. A good perceived affordance means users will immediately know what they can do with your product. They can spend their mental cycles on exploring its value, not deciphering its controls.

Microsoft Office: the de-facto UI standard

Microsoft Office's dominant market share is one of the most important factors driving business software UI, both online and off, and for better or for worse. No, this isn't the beginning of an anti-Microsoft rant. It's simply to introduce an important usability guideline: stick with Office UI standards, even when you're sure you can do it better.

Standards, though sometimes arbitrary and even senseless, are very important to effective UI. For example: few computers today still use 3.5 inch diskettes. Younger users may never have seen one, but they have no trouble associating a diskette icon with Save. The icon is such a pervasive standard that changing it to something more current simply would be more usability trouble that it's worth.

Now, this is not a Microsoft Office love letter. I sometimes use Google Documents, for instance. Though Google is directly competing with Office, they nevertheless have been smart enough to adopt many Office interface standards. Be like Google if you're designing a similar business app and resist UI innovation. Since the overwhelming majority of your users are familiar with Office, they won't want to learn a different interface in order to accomplish similar tasks.

While you ought to hew to Microsoft's standards, be vigilant about which Office standard you're applying. Office changes every few years, with the latest version having more (and more contentious) UI updates. However, businesses are very slow to upgrade the expensive software suite. Don't rush to implement the Office 2007 Ribbon, for instance. It's based on sound usability principles, but there's been great resistance to it, because it's so different than the dropdown menus and icon bar it replaces. Years may pass before Office 2007's UI becomes the new business standard.

Some specific interface features to emulate:

• Icon choices. The design can diverge slightly, but not much.
• The order and grouping of menu and toolbar commands.
• Allow saving to Office file formats.

Using audio interface features

An article on Boston.com about single-person targeted audio advertisements reminded me about the unique utility of hearing in interfaces.

Humans use five senses to experience the real world, but most computer audiences are overwhelmingly visual. Haptic interfaces are rarely used to communicate information.  After the visual channel, the second most commonly used sense is hearing. Audio has two unique characteristics:

• Sound is omnidirectional.  You have to be looking at something to sense visual information, but audio can be heard from any direction.
• You can't easily shut it off, like you can stop seeing by closing your eyes.

These aspects lead to the most common use of computer audio interfaces: alarms.  These informational noises can range from a quick beep alerting of a software error, to a shrieking squeal when a hospital machine runs out of medicine.

Some reasons not to use audio in a computer interface:

• In a business context, most people turn off computer sound because it's distracting to others.
• You can't be certain the user has speakers or headphones at all.
• Many people prefer to listen to music or talk on the phone while computing.
• Hearing is low bandwidth compared to vision. A person with normal senses can take in far more detailed information far quicker with vision.

There are two more sense I haven't discussed, but we're not likely to see computer interfaces using taste or smell anytime soon. Well, smell maybe, but when your computer starts smelling like burned toast, that's its way of communicating  it's time to upgrade.

The importance of being current

David Shen's recent update to his business blog, "Drinking the Kool-Aid Ain't So Good," brought back memories from a previous employer of mine. We called it "eating your own dog food," but the message from management was clear: use our web products, not the competition's.

Many organizations even block access to rival websites completely, to avoid contributing to their audience share, or to forestall copying accusations. Even setting aside these extreme measures, there's a great cost to discouraging employees from test-driving the competition. How else can they understand the customer's perspective?

For example, it's easy to dismiss a new entry into your market if they do things differently than you. But are you seeing a disruptive innovation that will change what users expect from you? The classic modern business example is Microsoft's drastic shift in 1995 to meet Netscape's challenge and win the web browser wars. If Microsoft had been slower to react, it might have gone the way of Digital Equipment Corporation, CompuServe, and other historic tech powerhouses sidelined by innovations.

Encourage your colleagues to disseminate interesting new products and website innovations, even if they're from the competition. Staying current means you just might learn something about usability that will save your business down the line.

The breadcrumb is back

Web usability stays interesting because, as technologies evolve and users gain experience, standards and best practices evolve over time. In the past I've recommended against relying on breadcrumb navigation for web applications. Breadcrumbs show a "drill-down" hierarchy, but most users do not construct the mental model shown by the breadcrumbs. Yes, users sometimes click breadcrumb links, but they tend to treat them like any other links on the page, since they don't learn the structure presented.

Today, however, Jakob Nielsen writes that more people have been using breadcrumbs in his usability studies, and furthermore, the use of breadcrumbs in Windows Vista means their importance will grow. I feel better about breadcrumbs ... they're very useful, and as people learn what they really mean, website usability will benefit.

Change is scary: ease transitions with parallel interfaces

I just saw Man of the Year, the 2006 movie about Robin Williams being elected president due to a bug in a computer touchscreen voting system. The film mirrors real-world voters' fears about newfangled computer interfaces leading to mass vote mistakes or enabling election fraud. 

New technology frequently faces an undue burden: compared to the old way of doing things, its flaws are magnified and its benefits dismissed. After the famous "hanging chad" presidential election of 2000, no one could say paper ballots are less error-prone than an electronic interface.

The voting machine interface folks should take their cue from the makers of standardized tests. When Educational Testing Service transitioned to their computer adaptive tests, they made their new interface as close as possible to the old #2 pencil and paper method. Testers now select the bubbles next to answers with a mouse, instead of filling them in with graphite, but the shape and relative size are comfortingly familiar. The mouse pointer has no eraser but there's an undo button, plus multiple confirmation steps. Finally, there's only one question per screen, to simplify the user experience as much as possible.

You are a problem solver

Whatever your job title is, think of your job role as problem solving. As a usability professional, your role could be described like this: "I make products work better, giving users a better experience, and helping my company save money and build repeat business."  Or, try the three-word version, "I solve problems."

Problem-solving focus is one of the key differences between the business world and academia. Academics find questions  more interesting than answers. A college course like "Democratization in Latin America" teaches students how complicated the problem is, eschewing simplistic solutions. But in the business world, problems make people so uncomfortable, they're not happy until they've identified a reasonable solution and begun to act on it.

The first day at my first professional job out of college, I learned how important it is to focus on problem solving. I was in a meeting with my new boss and I brought up the problem that our online service was very slow on dialup. "Okay, what's the solution then?" she asked.

"I'm not sure there is one," I said. "Our contract says we can't change the content ..."

"I don't want to hear about problems with no solutions," she broke in. I looked incredulous, because it was clear to me this was an important issue affecting users. She firmly continued, "We need to concentrate on things we can change." Welcome to the business world.

A problem-solving focus is critical for your company to listen to your ideas. Ideas you want to see acted upon must solve people's problems: for example, your supervisor's need to cut expenses or reduce customer service call volume.

Professionalization of usability

I read a provocative rant about "Lame excuses for not being a Web professional" on 456 Berea Street that got me thinking about the nature of being a usability professional.  A couple of years ago, it was rare to see any job postings in the field that required more than relevant experience.  It's become much more common now to see open positions requiring specific degrees in human-computer interaction, human factors, and interaction design.

I'm cheering on this trend because it fits the domain so well. Good usability is all about applying consistent, well-thought-out methodologies, and also keeping current in cutting-edge technologies.  You can't rest on your laurels because there's so much to learn and so many problems waiting to be solved.  Challenge yourself and don't settle for inconsistent visuals, substandard accessibility, and excluding potential users.

Five factors influencing usability at your company

I've seen five factors exert major influence on the depth and breadth of usability adoption. Take the pulse of your own company, and if it's lacking in any of these key areas, consider some points to address it.

1. Top management support

The most important factor can be whether or not senior managers are willing to support usability efforts in product development, including budgeting for usability testing.

Your CEO doesn't speak usability? Sell it up the chain as much as possible by talking with leaders as high up as you have access to. Always be ready with key talking points -- you never know when you'll share an elevator or lunch line with a senior manager.  Executives respond well to usability ROI statistics as well as competitors' usability marketing (see below).

2. Use of consultants

Companies that employ outside design or usability consultants often benefit from the fresh perspectives these professionals bring. Consultants are expert at communicating the value of their services.

We do it all internally here? Many consultants, hoping for repeat business, will work for cut rates if it's their first job with a company. Try to get a usability consultant hired to help with your company's most challenging new project.

3. Department usability enthusiasts

If your company doesn't have at least one usability enthusiast (you), there's probably no usability effort there at all!  However, one is frequently not enough.  To get everyone on the same page, it's best to have at least one enthusiast in design, development, product, marketing, and even sales.

Are you on a usability island? Make friends and contacts across the company. Invite everyone possible to observe usability tests. Take folks out to lunch and talk their ears off. Email them links to interesting usability articles. Take them to along to network at UPA or CHI events.

4. Shared resources

When developers, designers and other professionals split their time among several responsibilities, it's more difficult for them to put in the effort and increase product usability. Even the suggestion of change can provoke a stressed-out response.

Too much going on? Move upstream and get usability integrated with company-wide business processes. Offer to meet people more than halfway in return for their attention.

5. Market pressures

Companies typically measure themselves against a competitive set. If your competition begins marketing their product usability, it's excellent leverage to sharpen your own focus.

What are the other guys up to? Encourage your sales folks to watch the competition and how prospects are responding. Forward press releases and customer testimonials from competitors' websites.

Don't go head to head against business revenue

When usability comes up head-to-head against an advertiser-supported business model, the action is fast and furious.

User experience: If we replaced this multi-page user flow with one interactive AJAX page, we could reduce abandonment and increase user satisfaction.

Ad manager: We can't do that, because it would cut down on pageviews, and with it, ad impressions.

UX: Perhaps, but in the long run, increased user satisfaction means more repeat visits and recommendations. After all, it's in the company vision statement to delight the customer. Plus, if the competition does it first, we'll lose market share.

AD: I can't miss any of my monthly revenue goals waiting for "increased user satisfaction" to make up for a significant loss in impressions.

UX: Yeah but, it would be better for users!

AD: Yeah but, we can't risk missing our numbers!

...

Have you been there? It's tempting to fall back on a roach motel bad navigation comparison, or a Steven Covey "sharpen the saw" remark, but forbear. When the conflict is directly against business revenue, usability will go down ... so never cast your suggestions in those confrontational terms.

Instead, keep the business model, and who you're working with, in mind when offering your opinion. Don't take things away -- conceive innovative UI that makes users want to stay on your website longer.