The UX of Social Media

In my work to integrate UX design into Agile scrum, (related post) I discovered that about 30% of the usability bugs found were  seen in tests of previous features. The bugs were often small, but were distracting and had to be fixed.

This meant that mistakes were being designed into the product.

Acceptance criteria are the most concrete way to measure the completion success of an Agile story.

But while each Agile story has its acceptance criteria – yes/no questions about does the feature do X, or is X possible? – the stories needed something further, some form of general design guidance.

I introduced the concept of acceptance principles, which are purely guidelines, not measurements. Although designed to be de facto requirements of any story, a given principle may not apply to a particular feature. So they amount to best UX practices that need to become part of Development’s DNA so that repetitive mistakes are avoided.

From acceptance criteria, the tester will create test cases. From acceptance principles, the developer will add basic thinking to her repertoire: such as, consult a tech writer when drafting text for dialog boxes, or refer to the pattern library instead of using a solution from a previous project.

Acceptance principles are by their very nature brief, so they will invite thinking, and questions for UX, thus uncovering things the principle might not specify.

Agile is about balance. The completness standard is working software; Agile wants to document just enough to know what was built, preventing the documentation from being wasteful overhead. That is achieved not by strict rules, but by maintaining balance.

Acceptance principles are thus an ‘acceptance criteria conversation’, as noted in this interesting piece fom the Agile 2009 Conference: http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/node/622.

But how should acceptance principles be implemented? Whose responsibility are they? It will likely be the responsibility of UX to link principles to each particular story. That linkage will drive acceptance and usability testing to cover those points. If bugs are found, then the Agile nature bas broken down, and the fix must be implemented.

The design of acceptance principles is to prevent repetitive mistakes. It is through repetitive attention to the source of those mistakes that the cause will be avoided.

First, a basic assertion: positive user experience depends on simplicity, user satisfaction, and brand loyalty, which means increased profits.

Let’s unravel that. Usability is a measure of quality, but it is in part subjective. Whoa, you say, I’m not paying real money for a feeling. Well, that is the definition of UX. People prefer one product over others, give recommendations, and make purchase decisions largely due to the way they feel about it.

More concretely, user experience is strongly connected to the time it takes to complete a certain action, including wrong turns, recovering from errors, consulting help documentation, and so on. Those actions are completely non-productive. People don’t like the feeling of being frustrated, and are sharply aware when they are wasting time with a bad design. Website usability is determined by users’ ability to avoid navigation errors and deal with new information.

Can you sell a product based on the time a task requires? You bet you can.

Discoverability, learnability, and efficiency.

All of those are time factors. The key to all is basic human nature: users will grant you a small time slice in which to earn their trust before they move on. And if we are learning anything from the social networking hubs that are emerging, trust is the core of network participation.

OK I grant you the following is old stuff. But water hasn’t changed much in the last seven years, either.

Jakob Nielsen completed a study in 2003 which concluded:

“Development projects should spend 10% of their budget on usability. Following a usability redesign, websites increase desired metrics by 135% on average; intranets improve slightly less.”

A project can conduct usability testing iteratively, beginning with paper wireframes, sharpen focus on the user group, and catch design problems. It doesn’t have to cost a lot to be effective.

The Nielsen study collected data from 863 redesign projects which employed usability activities, and found that costs of those activities were around 10% of the total budget. But this data revealed a non-reciprocal cost curve: the larger the project, the smaller the usability cost percentage, sometimes a low as 4%.

Repeat: The larger the project, the smaller the percentage cost of usability.

The Nielsen study reviewed data from 42 redesign projects where like usability metrics were available for both the original and revised system. They found that usability increased by 135% or higher. That means, if the original usability was 1.00, then usability of the revised system was over 2.35.

Nielsen found average improvements in sales and conversion rate of 100%, traffic and visitor counts of 150%, user performance and productivity increased to 161%, and use of specific features of 202%

Numbers and stats – blah blah blah. But it all comes down to the fearless predictions made clearly by UX professionals over the last ten years… companies who build user experience design into the way they create products are the literal butt-kickers of tomorrow.

The software industry is known for inflicting pain.

This instant, millions worldwide are attempting to use software or an electronic product that is difficult or confusing. Is that your product? As soon as they lose confidence, the moment trust evaporates, one of your business opportunities goes away. Poof.

And as they X out of your life forever, they will be muttering, “Why did they make it so hard?”

We know people benefit from ease of use. We know making products easier to use increases customer loyalty, brand lustre, market share. We know that companies investing in ease of use enjoy those benefits. Studies prove this point repeatedly. Usability equates to profitability.

So why is good usability not the norm?

There is always the features vs. usability battle in development projects. You can’t see usability or good user experience in a list of features. Usability is like breathing, and equally difficult to explain. There is always the time-to-market battle, which usability often loses. When the almighty release schedule shoves usability design, testing, and the fix cycles aside is when we agree that:

“We don’t have time to do it right, but do we have time to do it over.”

At least one study by Dr. Clare-Marie Karat shows that companies that commit to ease of use can exceed anticipated earnings, or in common parlance, ‘beat the Street’. Building user experience design into product development saves money. It is more economical to consider user needs in the early stages of design than it is to solve them later – it has been shown that every dollar spent to resolve a problem during design is worth $10 during development and ten times that much after the release.

You can do usability testing on paper prototypes. How cheap is that? Even the most basic click-through prototypes cost time and money. You can do 1-1 focus reviews with users of existing products and let them steer you. The UX designer’s job is to keep your users and customers involved through the entire development cycle, not just at pre-release testing.

Dr. Karat’s work has shown that focusing on user experience can advance release dates. Avoiding the urge to skip usability concerns in design can save a large fraction of service costs down the road – help requests, change requests, bugs, and worst of all, product returns.

One hidden advantage of integrating good UX design – a happier project. Your company has a vision statement, right? Your project has a mission too. If it is clear that everyone involved is saluting those goals, the level of frustration at meeting user needs will be low.

The core of usability is reduced time on task, ergo, productivity.

References (yes I know – same title, but different documents):

Cost-Justifying Usability

Cost-Justifying Usability