Posts Tagged ‘functionality’

Usability testing – the litmus test for your product

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Google recently announced the official withdrawal (or some would say the unfortunate death) of  a few products which could not deliver their promise. These include but are not limited to Google Wave and Google Buzz, which failed to create the waves and the buzz in the market. Remember, these came from the stable of none other than Google, which is a leading product vendor renowned for innovation, simplicity and user experience. Why then, do you think they could not measure up and survive? I think one of the main reasons is that they failed the litmus test. And the real litmus test for your products is when they reach the real users who use them to address their needs. Popularly called as usability testing, the user testing of your product reveals a lot of insights into the success or failure of the features you have created newly or changed in your products. In this post, I wish to touch upon a few key aspects of Usability testing that you must know, but that is difficult to know!

       

Why usability testing

Usability tests help the product owners and developers to understand the performance of the product from the user’s needs, goals and tasks. It helps validate and verify the structure, layout, navigation,interaction and overall experience. Also, they help in identifying the task related details:

  • User’s goals
  • Tasks to achieve their goals
  • Time taken to perform the tasks
  • Challenges in completing the tasks
  • Breakdown areas/points in the performance tasks
  • Confusing or ambiguous areas on the interface of product
For more details on usability testing, refer to the write-up on Usability Testing at Texavi’s web site.

User testing methods – Similarities & differences

I often hear people referring the terms usability testing, user acceptance testing (aka UAT) and accessibility testing in the same vein. While all of these may be related to product, and most often involve users and/or customers, they are different in their objectives, scope, and target audience as well. In this post, I wish to dwell upon the user testing which is also known as usability testing, and bring to fore its importance and the key differences between user testing, user acceptance testing and also market testing. Usability testing is often confused and compared with UAT( User Acceptance Testing). Sometimes people do compare with several marketing related activities. I give below a table comparing and contrasting among these various methodologies. I am sure this will be a handy reference for you, when in doubt.

Engage and test with users early

Defects and mistakes are like cubs, the younger you catch them, the better and quicker, you are at taming them. The later they are identified and closed in the product life cycle, they will turn into wild tigers and pounce upon the functionality, resulting in the failure of the products.  Same with usability testing as well. UT can be done at various phases, across the development cycle of the product. Most product companies do realize the importance of involving users in the product development, but often this realization dawns upon them much later  than required. There is not much use in testing the product with users, after it is all set to be delivered in a few days. You really cannot do much to rectify the defects identified, as the time to fix is less and the pressure to deliver is more.

So, a smarter step is to start testing the product earlier in the cycle for the user experience. This would help immensely with ample time to fix the defects and ensuring that they don’t grow too  big  to solve, much like taming the younger cubs. There is  a second advantage to testing early, and that is to enable users to have a go at the product early on and this gives them a feeling of getting engaged with the product development. This in turn makes them feel that they do have a stake in the product and that they are being cared for and listened to. Another big advantage with the early testing is to do with the development team’s readiness to accept the changes and make them quickly. This is because they did not put in a great effort to churn out the artefact and so, they are far more willing to accept changes and rework, as compared to the later stages.

Secret of success – test more!

Testing early does help in identifying and resolving the defects to settle down, but it does not mean that there will be absolutely no defects coming later into the product. Well, the fact remains that the numbers might be minimized thanks due to the early testing, but still defects and erratic decisions do seep in due to various other factors. The only way to ensure that these are identified and resolved asap is by testing more of the product with the users.  Most people have this question hovering in their mind as to how much of the product really needs to be tested with users. Well, the more the merrier. The more areas, functionality, modules and dimensions you test in your product, the better for you and your product.

Note that what you are going to test for, differ from time to time, and the level of completeness of the artefact. For instance during the early stages when you test the wireframes with your users, you might be looking for an assessment of the broad level concepts. As you move on into the product life cycle and test a complete, fully functional module of the product,  you might be looking up to users for validating the interaction, information architecture etc. I give below the  the areas you can focus on while testing the product at various stages in the life cycle.

Hope this post helped you in getting the facts right about usability testing. Don’t hesitate to write back your comments/queries. Until next post, ciao!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Information Technology, Product Development, Usability Testing, User Experience, User Testing, User-centered Design | 2 Comments »

Make IT easy – don’t take IT easy

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

After all these years of my experience in engineering software products and applications, I realized that there is one phrase that I tend to hate the most. No, its not “Give me a ballpark estimate” or “I need this delivered by e.o.d. today”, though these come close enough to be 1st and 2nd  runners-up :) . The one I am referring to is “Let users figure it out”. It is a nemesis to developing successful products, often resulting in a shoddy product.  The “Figure-it-out” syndrome as what I call it,  could be an evil for product development which can be as bad as, if not worse than Featuritis. The plausible cure for this syndrome is when the product is made easy to use for those people who are using it for the first time. In this post, I touch upon the ease of learning and use and give some tips about making your products a breeze for your users.

Easy to learn and use

Let us be honest, how many of us got trained on using the ATM card to withdraw money from a cash machine? At the least, how many went through the user manual, supplied? Popularly known as Any Time Money, the Automatic Teller Machine was conceptualized and designed so that users from different segments can get to use it with little or no effort. This is a classic case of designing a product which is not just easy to use, but also easy to learn for new users as well. Easy to learn and use a product is a critical yardstick to measure its success and is often ignored to a large extent for various reasons. Lacking this, a product might become a nightmare and the product or feature puts off not only novice users but also some experienced users, some times.

New user scared of technology product :)

But then it has the ‘user manual’

Training, setup guides, user manuals, glossary, help docs and other such documents are meant to support the new users in coming to grips with the product. Like a site map which provides a clear guide on how a web site is structured, most of the above artifacts are meant to make it really easy for the users. But then, there is a view prevalent among the Design community that site map comes handy only when a web site is not usable by itself. In other words, only when users are confused, puzzled and left with no option, that they would look at a site map. So is the case with the supporting documents and help guides that I mentioned above. No matter how effective and efficient your technical writing team is, your documentation goes often into the dust bin. The golden rule is ‘Customers and users don’t read user manuals!‘. Bear in mind that these are good supporting aids but they can never replace a well-designed product.

The ‘Figure it out’ syndrome

Whether its the apathy towards customers and users, or the need for speed in delivering the product to market, the figure-it-out tendency gains ground with the product development team. You don’t suddenly wake up one fine morning with the syndrome. It gets built up over time and plagues your product and users to no end. Here are the factors that can potentially contribute to it…lack of empathy and concern for users, a frog-in-a-well approach. Also, an unwritten but strictly-followed preference attached to functionality and technology over user experience tilts the scales against making the product intuitive.

Don’t undermine the impact of this syndrome, it could be long term, deep cut and manifold. It affects not just the product creators – the stakeholders and the development team but also the product consumers. For the creators, due to the relatively short-sighted  aspects of their planning and execution, there will be heavy overheads of customer-reported defects leading almost to a total rejection of the product by the users.  Some of the products tend to be so overly complicated for new users that they instantly give up and return them or pass on to others. There are umpteen examples of products which flopped not for their technological maneuvers, nor for their functional richness but merely because they are rather too complicated for users to start using it.

Steps for ease of learning and use

The first step in making your products easy to learn and use, is to know your users. There is an oft quoted saying in the User Experience industry that tells it all - “Know thy user and you are not your user”.  The next step is to design and develop the product in such a way that it is intuitive and clear for users. Cluttered and dense interfaces, confusing controls, unclear messages, lack of help when needed- all of these make it hard for your new users.  As Steve Krug puts it in his book, ‘Don’t make me think’, the moment you let your users start thinking about how to use any feature or functionality, you start to lose the user ‘s interest.  Also, there should be a flow that lets users feel immersed when doing a task. This would make them not only feel that they accomplished the task but also delighted. I would equate this to the concept of flow as explained by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his classic book on psychology – “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”.

yes, don't make them think   Let there be a flow with the tasks in your product

Who are you creating the product for

To be able to design your product better for ease of learning and use, you need to clearly identify who you are creating the product for. Going back to the ATM card example which we discussed above, the product was intended to be used by the larger number of users with little or no literacy, who would have never seen, leave alone using a computer before in their life. It was designed and developed knowing fully well that it needs to work with all the users with different backgrounds and literacy levels.

Atm machine in use   Monk using ATM machine

The beauty of the ATM product lies in that they cleverly disguised a computer into the machine. Without users’ knowledge, they are actually using a computer and its all made so much of a breeze to use it. No wonder, the concept and product caught up and it has changed the very definition of  ’banking’ on a global scale.  Another case in point is Intuit’s QuickBooks. While every other accounting product in the market was geared towards the accountants and qualified book keeping professionals, Intuit understood that there is a huge demand for a simplified accounting product for the non-accountants and novices. They launched QuickBooks with the sole focus on this segment of users and today it is the most successful product in that segment, popular for its ease of use among new and expert users, as well.    

QuickBooks - Accounting made simple for non-accountants

Expertise and experience make a big difference

I would suggest that you classify your existing and/or potential users, based on the following:

  • Demographics
  • Education and computer literacy
  • Professional
  • Psycho-graphic (attitudes, likes and behaviors)
  • Tasks and scenarios

More importantly, to make your product easy to use, you must first profile your users based on the product usage experience. The following is a typical way of classifying the user groups, but you can adapt this and modify it to suit your needs.

  • Novice /beginners
  • Intermediate
  • Advance
  • Expert/experience

Specify your target

Now that you had a considerable start in the path of creating a great product, you now need to ensure that you have the right pick. The list below will help you in approaching the product definition in a structured way.
  • Identify the composition and distribution of your existing and proposed user base
  • Have a clear markup of the proportion of new users vis-a-vis advanced or expert users
  • Specify which of the above user types you will target with the product
  • This is applicable equally to the features and functionality and not only to the entire product

Here is how you can make IT easy

Beside the above suggestions from my experience, I offer a few other tips below to do a quick check on how effective your product or feature in the scale of ease of learning and use. You might use these as guidelines during the design and development of the product or as checkpoints to validate the features and functionality in your product. I am classifying them into the typical buckets of user experience, so that its easy to assess them individually.

Functionality

  • What can I do with this product?
  • What do I need to do, so that I can achieve my goals?

Navigation

  • Where am I now?
  • Where can I go from here?

Interaction

  • What should I do to make this work?
  • How responsive is it to my inputs?

Presentation

  • Does this look pleasing to my eyes?
  • Am I distorting anything to make it appear what it is not?

Help

  • Can I get help when I need?
  • Is help provided when I require it?

As always, hope you find this post informative and useful. Please do give me your feedback. Until next post, ciao!

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Posted in Information Technology, Innovation, Interaction Design, Product Development, User Analysis, User Experience | 8 Comments »

Keep it simple, smarty!

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

People often ask me what I think, are the most important factors that contribute to the success of a product. My answer varies depending on the nature of the product, the person asking the question and my mood in that moment, to name a few. But interestingly, if we draw up a list of the responses to this question, the two items that top my list are simplicity and consistency. Yes, there is no doubt that these two aspects of user experience help to a largest extent in making any product, a huge hit. In this post,  I will cover the first one, ‘simplicity’ and how we can leverage this powerful yet ‘simple’ usability mantra to turn your products and applications into a success.

Simplicity sells

Yes, simplicity does sell and sells, all by itself. Its perhaps the biggest value proposition in your product. In any industry and any geographic market whatsoever, you have hundreds and thousands of products and variants. There is a huge margin of difference between the leading few and the following majority. Often this boils down to one super differentiating factor and that is simplicity. It works wonders not just before sales, but also after the sale is done during the usage by end-users. This positive experience during the product usage prompts more usage, referrals and increased sales, overall.

A case in point is the search industry in the 1990s. Most of the web sites and applications at that time, including the then search leaders like Altavista and MSN had their web pages all cluttered with too much content. Google then understood that the only way to make users happy was by uncluttering and uncomplicating their search experience. They did this by keeping it really simple, with the entire page being occupied by a text box and a button. Need I say more about the success of Google search and how this powerful execution of minimalist design made Google the giant that it is today, not just in search but in software, mobile and many more product areas.

Less is More

In the words of the great architect, Ludwig Van Der Rohe, “Less is More”  has been a watchword for the architects, designers and stylists. A pithy motto which says it all and stands by its meaning, simplicity is just that . While some designers also refer to this school of simplicity  as ‘Minimalist Design’, other professionals and users might prefer to call it ‘working easy’. Making things simple is often a complicated process in itself and does ask for a methodical/systematic approach in the product development space. In this post, I wish to mention a few tips and techniques that I follow as part of my product engineering practice. You might see that these are just a few in the hundreds of ways, and for simplicity’s sake, I will focus on a few things because, less is more. :)

Let us ‘uncomplicate’

There is no dearth of complexity in our lives and professions. We are inundated with huge number of problems, challenges, and pain areas to give enough exercise to our body, mind and soul. Obviously we don’t want the products that we use to add up to this already complicated and stressful situation.  The only way we can try and help ourselves is by looking at the problems and looking for the solutions that make it really easy.

  

There are various ways to attempt this uncomplication. However, the underlying concept is that you first need to identify the complexities involved and then find ways to remove or minimize them. To be able to do this, I suggest you try and get answers to the following questions.

  • Whose problem is it?
  • What problem(s) do you need to solve?
  • Why were the problems there in the first place?
  • How does solving this problem help the person(s)?
  • Where can we go from here?

Reduce the cognitive load

The gateway to simplifying the product lies in the extent of cognitive load on users. I would say that this is the first and foremost step in the way to deliver a great user experience. This cognitive load could be in the form of visual or textual elements, for example when we refer to the presentation layer. It could take the shape of deep levels of navigation or the manner in which the elements are laid out by the information architecture. This is so important an aspect of the product engineering model, that I planned to write a separate blog post on this in the near future.

Cure Featuritis with simplicity

Most of the product managers are pretty well aware that they have a potential evil that they constantly need to fight off and that is Featuritis.  However much they try, they invariably fall into the trap of adding more features and functionality, without validating how beneficial or what value they add to the product and its users. In a never-ending chase to build a better mouse-trap, the product takes the shape of a mammoth white elephant. Or just to exaggerate, the product could turn up into a ‘Frankenstein monster’ whose course cannot be controlled any longer by the product management team.

In the context of  electronics, computers and software products &  applications too, there has been an increase in the complexity scale corresponding to the rapid increase in the number of products. For instance, just jog your memory, thinking about the size of the device and the number of buttons on your  Television remote control as you changed your Telly sets over the years. These are a great proof that with time and number of products in the eco-system, the complexity only increases and the converse may not be true all the time.

 

The only cure for this disease is Simplicity. Ask yourself the following questions when you want to add any new feature or make changes to an existing functionality.

  • Who is this feature meant for?
  • What problem is it trying to solve? or how does it help the person?
  • Which users’ task is this feature relate to?
  • How better can we make the product/process?
  • How different is this feature from similar ones in previous versions or competitors’ products?

Push them under the carpet

You don’t have to give everything upfront and right on the first level. Understand the goals of your users from their own perspectives. Identify the tasks mapping to these goals or needs. For each task, you need to identify its importance and urgency.  Then decide where in the order of things, you need to place the task and corresponding feature. It might happen that the feature needs to placed not at the top level, but somewhere deep down in the 2nd or 3rd levels of the hierarchy. That should be perfectly fine because you based your decision on the sound logic and understanding of the users’ needs and their key tasks.

A perfect example for this is the all too popular Swiss army knife. Give all the options to users, but let them decide how they wish to use a specific option, depending on the circumstances and context of usage.

Not just ‘ease of use’

Some people would equate simplicity to ‘ease of use’. But I think that simplicity goes way beyond ease of use and it is the effect of an all encompassing experience not just related to usage of the product.  During the analysis, design and development of products, teams must take note of simplicity as a mandatory requirement for the product. In fact, the biggest measure for their effort and productivity is directly proportional to the success of the product in that how simpler the product got when compared to its previous version or that of the competitors’.

My five tips for simplicity

Finally, you can check how effective and simple your product has been designed and developed. I suggest you popup the following questions putting yourself in the shoes of the users and with their conceptual model in your mind. When you are satisfied with the answers that you give yourself, well you have got a product that flies!

  • What can I do with this product or app?… (Functionality)
  • Where am I now and where can I go from here?… (Navigation)
  • What should I do now to make <something> happen?… (Interaction)
  • Is it pleasing to the eyes? …(Presentation)
  • Is there help, ready and when I need it?…(Help)

With this I end this post, and hope you enjoyed reading it and find it useful. Please do drop a line if you have any suggestions or questions. Until next post, ciao!

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Posted in Agile Development, Information Technology, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | 10 Comments »

Great user experience lies in details

Friday, June 24th, 2011

We keep hearing a lot about the terms User Experience, Usability etc., being tossed around to talk about the products that are used in our daily life. These are increasingly related specifically to the technical products, devices, electronics,web sites and web applications.   To be honest and brutally frank about this, I was never taught all through my education about ‘usable’ and ‘usability’. Not only these, even my formal education did not dwell much upon ‘users’ and their needs. And I guess, this is true with most of you too.

Its true that we were taught about how to design great products and how to know our customers’ needs and satisfy them with our offerings. In this post, I wish to discuss some key aspects as to how we can deliver delightful user experiences, not just create products and services.

It lies in the details

Small things and details make up great user experience but  user experience is not a small thing.  Pay attention to the details and you are contributing to the delight of your users. It is often  the attention to the details or lack of it that makes a product a huge success or a super flop.

Take the case of Jabulani, the football used in the 2010 FIFA World cup held in South Africa.  Some players complained that the ball was not behaving in the way it should when hitting from afar and that they could not predict the path of the ball when in air.  Their contention was that perhaps it was not designed considering the altitude, pressure and the context of the stadiums in South Africa.  It could potentially be a  case of not getting into the details such as the usage context, which led to frustration among users.

 

A small exercise for you!

I don’t want to write too many details about this point :-) Instead, I want you to try it out yourself and experience the difference!

Follow the steps in the order I give below:

  • Open a browser window of each of the following:
    • Internet Explorer
    • Apple Safari
    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Google Chrome
  • Press CTRL+N keys or Go to File menu and select New
  • Compare what you see with each of the results

Here is the key for those who don’t have the time to do the exercise…Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla and Google each have come up with different browsers and different browser versions updated to suit users’ needs. We are not trying to look at the pros and cons of these, but the essence is to understand how much they care for their users and how much attention they pay to details. These are not the only measure of user experience or  efficiency of any browser, nor can we assess them comprehensively with this particular feature alone. But this shows you how much importance they give to users and their needs.

Let us observe how opening a new browser window works across these different browsers:

Internet Explorer opens a new window with the current site opened by default. It is almost as good as Copy feature. Copy the same window is not what you needed, but you expected a new window to be opened. Also, add to this the time it takes to open it, because it needs to load all the elements of the current page. It opens the window with exactly the same size as the previous window and you cannot see that its opened in the first place.

Now compare this with what Google Chrome or Apple Safari does. These open new (literally) browser window and this is not the copy of the current window, but a new browser window. Also the new window is slightly different in size compared to the previous one and you can see very clearly that a new browser window is now opened. I have illustrated these different options with a few images, so you can see the difference clearly.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Google Chrome

Apple Safari

Mozilla Firefox

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Posted in Business Analysis, Business Case, Information Technology, Interaction Design, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | No Comments »

First things first – make it work well

Friday, January 28th, 2011

People all over the world celebrated the onset of new year 2011 with fun, aspirations and resolutions. This cheer and  high-spirited enthusiasm continued well into the first week of the new year.  However for some people, the early days of the new year proved not all that fun. They got up later than usual, reported late, missed their appointments and meetings. You might want to blame all this mayhem caused due to the hangover and the high-spirited celebrations :) . Well, that was not the true reason. The real culprit was the mobile phone they were using. Yes, it was Apple iPhone4 that these people have been using that created the problem.  The Alarm app of the iPhone4 failed and did not set off (or is it ‘set on’ ? ) the alarm.

Small problem, big pain

You might say that this is just one small problem for a few users which happened, one day. After all alarm is just one small app in iPhone and it did not work on one day and so, its really not a big deal. I agree, but then think about the consequences of this small bug and the inconvenience it caused to the users. Even a small defect in the product could become pricking one to users. I remember my good-old Hero Honda CBZ,  first version which I bought in 2001. It was a brilliant motor bike with a fantastic performance and great looks. I was really happy with it except one small itchy glitch. Look at the images below and you can guess what the problem with this motor bike could be.

Its not all about look and feel

Yes, you got it right. The problem was with the placement of  kick-rod and footrest in this model of CBZ. Footrest was placed right below and would stop the kick rod from going down. Since there was no electronic auto-ignition, starting the motor cycle requires three steps…

  1. Take the footrest up, so that it doesn’t come in the way of kick-rod
  2. Kick the rod down so that mo-bike gets started
  3. Immediately get the footrest down, for applying breaks

Phew…so much pain just to start a mo-bike. Just imagine your plight when in the midst of heavy traffic on a busy road, the CBZ stops and you need to start it in a split-second, else you might incur the wrath of a 100 horns blazing all at once. The curses and prayers of many a user like me, would have reached the people who matter at the motor cycle company. In the newer version of the CBZ, Hero Honda introduced is an electronic-ignition. So, the moral of the story is ‘all looks and no work makes your product a flop and users irate’.

Go beyond the briefing, but first get the basics right

The above problems have nothing to do with lack of user experience, or delight factors. They refer to the breakdown of a simple and basic functionality of the product. Nowadays in a bid to get quicker and closer to customers, product companies have been getting on to the bandwagon of offering delight to their users. They have been treading past the drawn lines, going beyond the briefing. I fully support their intent and actions and also believe in the end results of their efforts, which is better products and happy users. However, this is not completely hunky dory and in a few cases, companies do not realize that they are committing some basic errors. To attract their users, the product companies are forgetting that their products must first work well and satisfy the immediate needs of their users.  There is an imminent need to realize that ignoring this might lead to frustrated users who will shun using their products and services.

It does not really matter if your product offers great bells andwhistles, while at the same time it cannot provide the core  functions. Often, in the name of user experience, product owners do tend to overly focus on the presentation losing sight of the other important factors such as functionality, navigation and interaction. As Steve Jobs rightly puts it, “Design is not what it looks like and feels like, Design is how it works”. A case in point is the call dropping functionality of iPhone4. Not too long back, you might recollect the problems reported with the dropping of calls in iPhone4. This issue was more noticed when users holding their iPhone in left hand at a particular angle.  Apple accepted the that there was indeed a defect with the phone’s antenna placement and offered a bumper cover free to the users.


In case you are wondering why I am riling Apple only all along, well it is not alone in getting the bad campaign.  Hotmail recently joined the shame game when most of its users, one fine morning, found their mail boxes empty, all of a sudden. Some other users found a few mails missing. A few others were annoyed to note that some emails were lost. I guess you would agree that the basic purpose of an email product is to receive and send mails. If this very primary functionality is not in place, don’t you think it raises alarm with the users? Of course, not only do they stop using the  product, but they spread the bad word pretty quick. So, address the  important things first in your products, services or processes…functionality, those that matter the most to your users and you too.

Form follows Function

There has  been an eternal debate in the design circles about the seemingly conflicting approaches of ‘Function follows form‘ and ‘form follows function‘.  My ‘Business Systems Analyst’ background gets the better of me and I support the latter option, i.e., ‘Form follows function’ theory. Of course, I don’t apply this to all and sundry. Leave alone some specific products like art works, paintings, craft and decorative items etc.,  which definitely have a dire need to look prettier first, as that is their core objective. However, for the rest of the other products which we use in our everyday life and work, functionality should be the first goal followed by the looks. Often times, the way a product has been designed, especially the aesthetic appeal  accentuate the function and make it better.

FURPS and You

Functionality scores over pure-play user interface and mere looks. So much so that the good old model, FURPS which classifies the software quality attributes, function places Functionality on the top much before other factors. For starters, FURPS refers to Functionality, Usability, Reliability, Performance and Supportability. There had been additions to this list, what is being referred to as FURPS+.  The + or extra attributes are interface, implementation, operations, packaging, legal etc. Irrespective of whatever gets added to this list, one thing is pretty clear… that functionality always precedes everything else. So, in case you ever doubted what the Business/Systems Analyst in your team does, you have an answer now.

Focus on the WHAT

I doubt how many times you would have lifted the bonnet of your car to see what’s inside. Compare this with driving your car using the steering wheel, gears, clutch and other parts in the car nearby to  the Driver’s seat.  Not many users (barring a few, such as technicians and mechanics ) would wonder how your product is working. What matters to most of them (the normal users, barring advanced and expert users) is that the product should work and do the things it is supposed to do, in the first place. From a Software Development Life cycle (SDLC) perspective, Requirements always come first before Design and Development. Even in this age of Agile development with SCRUM, Extreme Programming and User Stories, you still need to understand the ‘WHAT is to be done’ before you proceed with ‘HOW it is to be implemented’ . First, focus in understanding WHAT is required of the stakeholders, and users from the product or application that you are developing.

Make the functionality clear

Its not only important that you focus on getting the functionality right, but more importantly you need to make it clear to the user what are the things they can do with your product.

Design and develop your products and services in a way that users should understand what they can do with the products or services.  If it is not clear to your users as to what your product offers to them they will eventually dump it. For instance, Google Wave failed big time because it was not clear to the users what they could do with it and how it would help them  any better than the existing lot of the social networking and collaborative platforms. Also, iPad had a few takers initially in the first few days, as some people had questions about what exactly it offers. They could not see the real difference between iPhone and iPad, sans the ability to call. Some even called the iPad a glorified and bigger format of iPhone.


To conclude this post, all I have to say is that, as developer of products or services,  you need to set your eyes and mind first on the functionality. If it does not work, they will not use it!

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Posted in Agile Development, Business Analysis, Information Technology, Requirements Development, User Analysis, User Experience | 5 Comments »

Mad about YOU

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

‘You are the Controller‘ says Kinect, the new gaming experience from Microsoft. Kinect beats its nearest rivals Sony Playstation and Nintendo Wii on the concept of playing games with a handheld motion controller. While PS3 requires you to play games with its ‘Move’ and Wii with Wiimote (or Wii Remote), Kinect doesn’t require any external motion controllers.

You are the controller

Why am I so excited about Kinect that I have started this blog post with it? I am not so much of a gaming freak to compare and contrast the quality of the games, nor am I interested in analyzing the top three ‘players’  from a business view in this market segment. I am really excited by Kinect’s promise of giving the control to YOU, the user. Well, in this post, I wish to review a few of the successful products out there in the market, analyzing why and how they thrived in the world of me-too products and those offering not so pleasant usage experiences.

YOU are the focus

Not just Microsoft or Kinect, but nowadays there are quite a few companies and products which are trying to lure you. They come in different shapes, sizes, colors, industries and domains. In this post, I will touch upon a few of them that have made a mark and succeeded in keeping their products, services and brands You-focused.

They make YOU (the users) omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent
Vodafone repositioned itself by giving “Power to YOU“. With the advent of innovation in the Telecom industry, jumping from 2G to 3G to 3.5G has been a breeze. Faster downloads, better connectivity and more things to do such as streaming videos etc., offered by the advanced technologies such as 3G provide a fillip to the users’ experience. Now, you can work faster, easier and better accessing your mails on the go, watching Cricket and Football matches when and where you want, watching the previews of latest movie releases.

Power to you

They make you super-hero
Sample this, Yahoo which struggled to get it right for the most part of the initial releases of its products, for once changed its positioning and perhaps along with it, a few of its products design too. Along comes an enhanced and delightful Yahoo mail and Yahoo’s portal. There was a sea change in the way users now interact with Yahoo’s products and no guessing why all this happened. Yes, Yahoo realized and believe strongly that “YOU are the new master of the digital universe.”

Its YOU!

They make you happy
Canon, with its continual innovation in the imaging products has been “Delighting YOU always“. If you look at the innovation that happened in the cameras and phtotography areas over the last few decades, you will agree with Canon. There were the days when you had to go to a certain photographer to get yourselves shot and wait for days to see the output. When on the first glimpse of your photo you felt really happy and pleased. You were delighted then. And what are you doing now? Clicking away hundreds and thousands of photographs, all by yourself with that tiny camera fitting in the pocket of your jacket.

Delighting you always

Who is YOU

You are the typical office goer, a home maker, a young student aspiring to be a champion, a tech-savvy banker,a professor, an engineer working an oil rig… in short, you are a user, consumer, customer, stakeholder. As a user/consumer, you use the product and enjoy the experience offered before, during and after the usage. As a customer, you buy the product and so are an easy target for the manufacturers and marketers, who have been striving to grab your attention. As a stakeholder in the product, you are either directly or indirectly influencing the customers or the consumers in using the product. So, its only logical for these product vendors to go after YOU.

Take the (Yo)U- Turn

As an organization which offers products and services, you need to note that this is the age of consumers and they dictate the ways companies operate, whether they are large, medium, small. From companies selling computers to schools teaching primary students, there had been a rise in the awareness of Global awareness and local impact. They realized that their true fortunes lie not just in knowing about their users, and understanding them, but in treating, pleading and pleasing them. Its not the features, nor the technology that would help them get to their objectives of surviving the dog-eat-dog markets and making profits. It is the experience and delight brought out by the organization, brand, product or service,  that makes the maximum impact on your customers, users and stakeholders.

What should the organizations do

To be successful in your industry segment, follow the leaders in your own or other industries. Google, Apple and Facebook did hinged their entire product strategy on the User-experience factor. YouTube , for instance, changed the way people create, consume and share the video content online. With the ability to upload videos of any (pre-defined) format and length and sharing the content, YouTube gave a new definition to user-generated content. It gave the users an easy and quick way of viewing,uploading, downloading, sharing, embedding videos anywhere. YOU got the power to “Broadcast Yourself“!

Broadcast yourself

As a product manufacturer and marketer or a service provider, you also need to re-orient the ways in which your products or services have been designed, developed and delivered. Think about the major focus areas which have been in your product strategy and re-define them to suit the need of the hour. Onida, a  reputed Indian manufacturer and marketer of  white-goods realized this earlier than others in their segment. Over the years, white goods (a.k.a. consumer durables) have become commodities and it had become extremely tough to maintain the market shares one enjoyed a few decades back. Onida re-positioned itself knowing fully well that consumers are the king and they should be the central focus of their product design. This had been evident in the recent launches of their products such as Microwave and Refrigerator which are easier-to-use and offer greater experience to the users. These products had been well received by the users because they were “Designed with YOU in mind“!

Designed with you in mind

YOUsability rocks!

To conclude, I suggest this is the time to know that YOU are the most powerful entity in the universe. Relish the lavish praises, attention and luxuries being offered to you to the extent that you can choose the type of bank account that suits your choice and requirements. You can decide the talk plan to fit your wallet, the holiday to suit your family, budget and lifestyle  and even you can decide how you wish the end the climax of a movie! You are the guest, for which most of the companies are going beyond their briefing to offer their service. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the privileges. No wonder, Time Magazine fittingly named the Person of the year, 2006 as ‘YOU’. Rock on!

Person of the year 2006 is you

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Posted in Business Analysis, Business Case, Information Technology, User Experience, User-centered Design | 1 Comment »