Lessons

Lesson Info

Define Usability

we're going to talk about quality of the experience. So, like I said, experience can be good or bad, right? So good as a quality bad is quality. And how do you determine the quality? So in the digital world is more is just about ease of use if we want to just simplify down. So how easy is a product to use? Um, a digital product is unique because it's not tactile. I mean, ultimately, when you think about you are touching a piece of glass, right, you're just touching your you might be sliding. You might be poking on the glass, but at the end of the day, it is a piece of glass. Um, people are also less patient with digital product because it doesn't require that much effort to acquire, Um, it might be 99 cents. You might even be freed. Download for you to start using so you're not committed. It's not like buying a house. If you don't like the house, then you kind of have to make an effort to either improve it or sell it. But then selling process takes a long time to, but if you don't like...

an application you could just, um, hold it now and then tap on installing. Then there you go. You don't have to hear about the app ever gun. So as a customer, that means I have a lot of stake in what I want to use as a designer than it's your turned to figure out. How do I make people not uninstall my application? And the key to that is, what is your product? Is your application easy to use? It is easy to use. If people are not frustrated by it, then I don't think they will on install the application. So, too, did Herman Usefulness. I think it's utility plus usability. And what I mean by utility is does it provide the features that you need? So is more of the practical standpoint. So does it actually help me achieve my goal? Wait and usability relates to how easy and pleasant are these features to use, and I'm going to give you an example. So how do you get from L. A. To New York? There are different ways to the of this. Um, it is roughly miles. You just go straight across. So maybe by foot, if you're down for a long walk, so it will take you about 909 hours to complete this trip. Okay, so maybe that's a little bit too tiring buying. Let s skateboard. What do you think? It's like, Oh, cool escape or down the states. Okay, Maybe that's a little bit too tiring to by bicycle. Okay, now, this is a little bit realistic. A lot of people have done this bicycle journey from the West Coast to the East Coast. All right, so because of the blizzard going on, so maybe by bus, Okay. By a beat up city. And Okay, well, it probably beats the bus because you don't have to sit with other people. Um, well, maybe better by Germans Force car. So you can just, like, raced out the highway where you can take an airplane. So this is economy seat, uh, by private judge. That's good. Please. Nodding his head, he approves. Um, so utility kind of answers. How do you get from point A to point B? Right. And then usability comes in when you are talking about Okay, Well, how easy and pleasant these things are so Or maybe you want a rocket rocketed. Probably beats private job because you get to wear spacesuit and all that or Talib order, Just like zoom in on your there, right? And I mean, all these things work, ultimately, I mean, it does get you from point A to point B, but when you're looking at the ease of use and how pleasant the trip is, you are also taking into consideration of the business goal to. So maybe you don't have that big of a budget. Or maybe maybe you're running on a timeline. You have to get to New York by a certain day. So in order to. So that's when you are doing a lot of these user research to get into the mind of the people, to kind of extract the goals out of them. And then you are also looking at all these different solutions to find the right balance. So, for example, like we said, um, maybe by foot, skateboard or bicycle, it takes way too long, and you can make to New York in time, Um, by buzz or by car, either takes too long or it's out of budget. Maybe your company doesn't can't afford to buy you a German sports car to let you drive across the state lover who, um, private jet comfortable but out of budget by rocket that's way out of budget. A teleporter like it doesn't even exist yet. Um, so we find the right we find the appropriate solution after balancing and debating about all these possibilities and the goals in mind. So we found okay. Actually, an economy seat in the airline is something that the company can is a can afford. And I feel comfortable enough to take that trip. So it's like five hours. Then I get to a light in New York and that's it. And I think obviously this is more of like a generalized example. And then when you're designing for application, it goes a lot more technical and probably a lot more boring than this. But then this is what you're doing. So so you're talking about the balance of goals and going back to the interaction questions we looked at earlier is a lot of touchy feely goals and is okay for them to be personal. It's okay for them to be subjective, because I did it. On a day when people are using their application, they are being subjective. Like, why would anyone be objective about being using an APP array? When you're angry at an interface or when you're angry at a platform, that's you expressing your feeling and you're not going to sit back and say, OK, I think the software engineer designed it because of a B and C year. You are going to be thinking this sex. Why can't I use this? Uh um So I think it is important for, um, you exes on years to kind of get into the shoes of those users and think from their perspective, anything. OK, so how would they feel when they're going through this interface? Do they feel frustrated? Do they feel happy? Does the content I provide is it enough to justify why they're doing this a certain way? Why they have to click these buttons this certain way, or does it doesn't make sense at all, right? And then if it doesn't make sense, the user going back to the users thing is their fault. And so what is what's delightful? What's meaningful Delightful is something that kind of goes hand in hand with the U X buzz word. It's like a next friend should be delightful. It should be exciting. It should be meaningful. Well, the other day, it's not you who are declaring. Okay, This experience I designed is delightful is up to the user to decide, and they will be there will be pretty honest about it in the APP review section. So now, um, we're gonna take a couple questions from us there you want? Yes. Jenna, what are a couple of the different types of products or experiences that you have designed for? Okay, So the cool thing about working in Tech is that I've designed applications for many, many different industries. So and then I think that's one of the exciting things that that that's part of the reason why I fell in love with working in tech. It's because I've worked on different types of e commerce site and then I work on real estate. Um, like content, platform content, viewing platforms. I've worked on a lot of different internal business tools. Thought only a handful of people will see and is very much like I like to call is like washing a movie because when you're watching a movie, you're actually like Zoom into the characters and you kind of go through their their lifestyle and then their story line. And I think every single time I'm working on different app for a different industry. I'm always learning something you or like even insurance applications like, Yeah, I never touch insurance. Why would do that? But that is like you just have to be super open minded and kind of think. Okay, so if I'm working for insurance company, what do I do? How would I feel? And then if I'm working on an e commerce site, how would I What would I do? How they feel or, um, of Organon, even educational before So I was like, OK, so this is These are people who want to learn something. What is their mindset like, um, and I think is also very different when you are designing and experience, even though it's the same brand, the same application. It might feel over different when it's viewed on the Web versus one his view on the mobile. You might. You might be trimming down a lot of the fat on the mobile application because you're saying OK, these air people were on the go constantly and, um and they don't have the luxury to sit and sit in front of a computer and then looking at the website and looking at such a big screen, we all stayed. Okay, so So these air, the types of experience I've worked on some of them tend to focus more on efficiency or getting stuff done. So that's more of like the internal business tools. Ah, lot of them, if they are touching consumer than it requires a lot more story involved, right records, a lot more hand holding. Um, and I think it's just is really fun because it's like Lego pieces. So you say OK, so I have this user of the story. I have this objective. And then how do I piece them together into something that's good, that people are happy to use you? You walk on? Yes. So how do we measure user experience? Other tools mean they're probably tools. A revolving. It's almost like I haven't I'm frustrated button on the app. I compress that, but there's something Yes, so yes, I think what's exciting about that? So we talked about how the experience could be personal. It can be subjective, but there's also something called analytic you X. So is data driven design. And I think that's something that you wouldn't really experience as a traditional designer. Because once you print out a poster like it's done right, and then when you post it up, you don't have anything to measure. You can't have someone like standing in from around the corner, right. Whenever someone looks at the poster, you make it click like it doesn't work that way. But then, when you're working with digital product, there's a lot of different tools that you can use to measure how a user is in tracked interacting with your product. So when and I think that's the fun thing, because even though it's personal, it is technical, so everything can be traced back to what they really want to do. And if you so is quantitative data, and if you have something that you don't understand in the data, then you can do some interview. You can go up to the user or you can. You can find the user and dio and ask them questions to provide qualitative data so like everything is measurable in a way, and it is very malleable. So, like, experience can be crafted in many different way than it just how you approach it. And, um, I think in other segments we will be talking about some other tools that you can use So we'll get back to that Anyone else question about, um, we've been talking. We were talking about applications. And so when you talk about applications, you mean like sort of things on the on the IPad or on the IPhone? But then what we're learning today is really covering websites as well and other types of digital experiences. Yeah, Yeah, I think I use the term application really broadly because, like part of my day to day job is also designing Web APS coz applications. I've lived on the website. So when I'm using the term application, I'm actually referring to just a digital interface already so they can be on the web. It can be mobile, it can be tablet, or it can even be on wearable devices. You can be on a little watch that you were right. Yeah, So just to clarify. And then I think I'll just use the term warp side or some other time. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Are you finding that with responsive design now and at when you designed for mobile that how an experience translates from the web to or from the desktop to Mobile? Are you solving for one first and then it works for the other? Or are you siding for one over the other first s so that it works well on the other? And And how do you approach that when it comes Teoh having to solve for both? Is there one solution or is there too or more? Okay, a lot of times, Um, for the sake of just going to development, I would ask the client to just give me one. So it's like, OK, if we're designing version one, which one are rebuilding on first? Um, then we would focus the experience for that first and then later on, expand into other things. Um, I think it's easier to built on If this is responsive. I think it's easier to build on what built for work first. So you have the website really baked right? You have all these real estate that you can throw your content not and then looking at the layout. And then once it scales down to mobile, then you start trimming away the fat. I think it is easier to, um to reduce and we find experience rather than Okay, so we have mobile, and now we're expanding to web. And then we have all these spaces that we need to fill out, and I think that's a little bit harder. And then if sometimes you have Yeah, like if your marketing strategy is, we want to launch all three other ones. Um, then you can even design them side by side and say, OK, so when it's on here, it goes like Liz and the one is on mobile. It goes like this. And then, um just looking at them side right side and then see how they interact is a good approach to Dio. Yeah, I think it goes down into figuring out which one you should tackle first or what is. What is the objective? Yes, yes. If we can go back to when you went back to the Nokia phone, was it because of what were the what was the user experience? Reason quote was it because of ease of use, where you're trying to go back to see what the experience would be like and relive it or to develop an appreciation for your other phone. So glad you asked that someone cares. So basically, I kind of went on me journey, and I kind of did some user research on myself. So I was just reflecting back to my needs and my expectation of how the phone, sure it work. And towards the end of my last smartphone, um, I like the battery's dying. Everything is dying, the memories running out of space so I can install the apse. Um, the data maxed out. So I go back to two G and then it's like and I ended up just turning off my data and then data plan. And I always turn off the cool animation within the plot for within the phone because of drains, the battery, I turn off my GPS and everything. Then I kind of looked at and say, Okay, so I just have a basic phone on me, what's going on and then? So I kind of So I did some self reflect and did like a list of what are what are my top needs for myself And I found Okay, so I need a text message. I need to be able to call someone. I need a battery to not run out so I can do those two things. Um, and then I think one of the top one is I want GPS. So, navigation. It's really easy when you have a phone around. And then Okay, so what are my So that's my primary needs. And the water my secondary need. So those are the nice to have or should have, And if I don't have it, it's okay. So those are probably Facebook. Twitter, like social media, is like, if people really want to get in touch with me, they can call or text. So we just met by the primary knees. Um, I don't need camera is kind of like the, um I don't need music out. Only Spotify or I don't need any of the online streaming software's because those Maxwell my data plan as well, um, I don't really need WiFi because I'm working on the computer for, like, eight or nine hours a day. Anyway, um, and then all the tertiary needs are probably just like gaming APS. All the other ancillary utility absolute. I don't really need if I have a computer with me. So when I cut out all the fat I can't realize, OK, I just need a basic phone. Why do I need a smart phone? Yeah, And then I think thine eye is also really good, too. Yes, so do you. Do you still have the Nokia phone? Because, um, for me, it would almost be similar. But my reasoning would be if I wanted to disconnect. I would have phone where I could just be disconnected in a specific way. And if ever wanted to be back online, I could probably use my smartphone again. Does that make sense? Yes, not told him. Do you have people that actually you're designing products like you're inferring you're doing things side by side, but you would do it when the customer or user is a specific mood? Do we ever craft things that way in terms of the experience? So craft experience, depending on mood? Yeah. Have you wanted to be online or offline? Because it almost sounded as if the Nokia phone was when you wanted to be focused on your work and offline as opposed to the smartphone when you were available and your brains able to use it the way that you right want to in a positive way. That's really interesting. I don't think I've ever done anything that has, like, a mode switching mechanism. But I can see that being something useful to I think when you're looking at Adobe Sweet, you can change the workspaces around depending on like what type of designer you are. Right. So you have the essential thing. So like that does exist. But for me, personally, I don't think I've ever done that. And that's a really good suggestion. Yeah, um and then, to answer your question, um, now I have I kind of switched back and forth between the Nokia phone and then a smartphone because I need I need a high quality camera to, like, take pictures of all my sketches. And I realize the Nokia phone, unfortunately, is not doing not so for me. I think the journey is very much like how do I become device agnostic and not be attached to a device? Because if you are you x designer when you're developing mobile labs, you're not always going to get IOS clients all the time. So I think it's also good for you personally to experience how a Windows phone work and then have an android phone work. Or how a non spot from even works. Yeah, yes, going back to the side where you have the door and you're talking about direction. E Think something that I struggle with is you know, where is that line between clear direction and respecting your audience? Right? And so I'm wondering, Is there a kind of a target, um, user that you use as kind of your baseline for? Well, they're going to know how to do this versus somebody like my grandmother who has no idea how to do that right? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, um, if you use application quite a lot, there's always like an experience crafted for first time user. And then there's like a different experience crafted for returning users. So as a first time user, there's a lot of coach marks, meaning, like the little pops up pip pop ups or tutorials that you have to go through for the first time. Um and that was, You know, it's like there's always a and escape link for you to tap on its to indicate that I've know this already. You don't you show me again. Um, so I think that's something that's helpful. Um, ideally, I would strive for designing an application that first time or returning users can use all the time without goings. Who Coach marks? Because, let's say you've used this application, and then you stop using it for a while. You come back a year later. Are you returning user or your first time user? Because the interface probably have changed drastically, Or you probably just forgot about everything have of how it works. So I think as long as you have clear direction and you keep it concise, then it's fine. A lot of times when you are working what, um, maybe a client or a manager who is really closed Teoh the strategy side of things. They tend to add a lot of coffee into every single screen because they're like, Oh my God, I need to present the story to a user and then it's your is your turn to cut. Tell them No, I don't think the user's gonna read that, Unfortunately, so we have to just keep it concise, right? It's just like just tell the user where to go, what to collect. And if they're psycho supporting texts, keep a short. If they want to read more about it, maybe provide them the link so they can read more about it. But most people are not going to read more about it. So maybe that stuff that's the first person you are talking about. And then maybe the grandma Personal will want to read more by the ground. I personally want to read everything about what's going on in the application. Yes, so in this earlier we were talking about sort of bad user experiences. Do you have any of the joys personal pet pees on websites without it naming any names, Just general things that you see that it's just If you could change it, you would if I can. So my bad experience, Yeah, your pet peeves, like you go to a site and they don't give you Ah, home page length. So I think, like Lee said, I really hate those Pop loves that. Just ask you and your email immediately. Right? So I was kind of like if you go on a date with someone and they just pop a question like I know where you live, you like No, no, of course not. Give me some context for So I always ask a reason for Why do you need something? Or maybe it's a maybe it's like a subscription service or, um, something. But then you just want to try it for a little bit. But they ask you for your credit card immediately. You like. I don't want to give me my credit card. Right? And then, um, another one is. I guess most people have stopped doing those because this has become everyone's put peas, but like the music auto place in the background. And then you have to go to go through your tabs to find out which one is making the sound. I think, um, the Web browser now doesn't really good job. So when the Tavis making music that below sound icon on that tab. So you can just go straight to that one and just turn it off? Um, another one. Let's say when they hijack your right click menu. So we when you right click and then you're expecting to see the default. Then you have like, Okay, so there's copy paste, copy this link print or save to something else. And then they just hijacked it and put in something their own. And you're like, What is this?