Compete on Usability & UX

‘Over the last year online banking has attracted 6.3 million users, but a massive 3.1 million of those have closed their accounts already due to poor website design and inefficient service.’
- Internet Money Issue 4

In the last article, we discussed definitions and issues related to User Experience (UX) and Usability. Through the current article, we move ahead in UX Engineering. When designing a site, many times designers overlook the obvious. Once doled out by Mrs. Neeta Chohan Unny, I take pleasure in sharing this.

Eye tracking research has shown that while interaction with websites can vary, there are some common items to consider. The following items are taken from the post mentioned above. While the findings may not be indicative of all sites and of all eye tracking studies, they do present an interesting topic of discussion.

Using Eye Tracking for Website Design

 Initial eye movement focuses on the upper left corner of the page.

It shouldn’t be surprising that users look at WebPages in this way, as most

computer applications are designed with the top left hand side as the main

focus. You can do your website a favor by keeping this format in mind when

creating a design.

 Readers ignore banners. Ads may be the bread and butter of your

site, but studies have shown that readers largely ignore banner ads, often

focusing for only a fraction of a second. — We like to call this “banner

blindness”.

 Type size influences viewing behavior. Want to change how people

look at your page? Change the size of your font. Smaller fonts increase

focused viewing behavior while larger fonts encourage scanning.

 Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones. Information on

your page should be designed for the short attention span of most Internet

users. EDITOR’S NOTE: This depends on the user and the stage of the research

or buying funnel that they may be in. If they are early on in the research

phrase they may be more prone to compile as much data as possible (providing

that it is relevant to their interests.)

 One-column formats perform better in eye-fixation than multi-column

formats. Don’t overwhelm visitors to your site with too much information.

Simpler really is better in some cases. — Again this depends on the user.

It states the obvious, as the less content there is to view, the

higher/better the eye fixation will be. People can become easily distracted.

The less distractions they have the better the experience they will receive.

 Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixation. While they

might look good with your design, abstract and artsy photos aren’t going to

garner much reader attention.

 Users spend a lot of time looking at buttons and menus. Because of

this, you’ll want to put in some extra time making sure that yours are

well-designed. After all, they not only draw a lot of eye fixation, they are

one of the most important elements of your site.

 Lists hold reader attention longer. One way you can break up the

paragraphs in your content and keep users looking through your site is to

make frequent use of a list format for your articles. Use numbers or bullet

points to highlight important information within your content. It will make

your site more scannable and easier for users to find the information that

they’re looking for. — It’s all about user experience. Attention span for

users may vary, but if you present your content in a nice clean manner,

users will stick around longer. Site stickiness is something that most sites

need to improve.

 White space is good. While it might be tempting to put something in

every corner of your page, it’s actually better to leave some of your site

free of any text. Sites with too much going on tend to overwhelm users and

they ignored a large part of the content.

 Navigation tools work better when placed at the top of the page.

Ideally, you don’t want readers to just look at the initial page they came

to on your site, you want them to stick around and look at other interesting

things as well. You can help send them in the right direction by making your

navigation easy to find and use by placing it at the top of the page.

Revenue Impact - Usability & UX

‘It’s quite normal for e-commerce sites to increase sales by 100% or more as a result of usability. More important, they can probably avoid 9 of 10 returns by eliminating most mis-designed items (a 1000% improvement of the error rate metric).’- Jakob Nielsen-

 What is Usability and User Experience?

Definitions

Usability is a term that encompasses everything to do with “ease of use.” That is, how easily the user can use any product’s controls or displays. Usability also refers to the study of methods, measurement and principles of a product’s efficiency, elegance, and usefulness. In the computer industry, usability often refers to the ease of use in terms of the human-computer interaction. The clarity, intuitiveness, seamlessness and elegance of an application or website interface, concept and design. User Experience (abbreviated: UX) is the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific product, service, system, or organization. If a user is also a customer, user experience can be called ‘customer experience’.

 Why Usability and User Experience?

Benefits

The idea behind usability is to design products with the user in mind. The design process yields greater efficiency, learning time and satisfaction when the user is put first in the priority list. This process is often referred to as an optimized “user experience.” The goal of optimized usability is to make a product easy to understand, easy to use and easy to learn. The outcome of good usability is a greater likelihood of user acceptance. User acceptance is often the difference between a product’s success or failure in the marketplace. Users often reject a well-engineered product with great functionality if they are unable to understand, learn and easily use that product.

Facts

Leading companies like IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Whirlpool, and Proctor & Gamble have invested heavily in UXE (User Experience Engineering), which has yielded significant returns on investment (ROI). Research has demonstrated that ROI for enhancing the user experience is impressive: $1 invested returns between $3.0 and $100. Increasing product sales, enhancing user productivity, decreasing development and support costs, and reducing deployment risks accomplish this ROI.

Primary Focus: The Delivery of Services That Drive Revenues

 How is UX Engineered?

Strategy

Achieving an optimized user experience requires a systematic approach to usability in the design process. This is accomplished through expert empirical usability testing where naïve users can be observed to determine what works and what doesn’t. Changing the design parameters to accommodate the results of usability testing permits an optimized user interface design. This must be, however, kept in mind that user experience and usability is not merely about design and graphics; it’s about a whole impression altogether. Other than better graphic techniques, rich Internet application techniques, such as AJAX, Adobe Flash, Flex, Java, and Silverlight have evolved that have the potential to improve the user-experience in browser-based applications.