Almost everything I’ve read about use cases focuses on describing what needs to be added to your product. Agile development says “get it working first, make it better second.” That means changing the way the software enables a user to do something they can already do. How do you manage requirements for incremental improvement?
Category Archives: Usability
Posted in Agile, Business Analysis, Interaction design, Prioritization, Product Management, ROI, Requirements, Requirements Models, Software development, UX, Usability, Use Cases
Tagged agile development, agile use cases, incremental development, iterative development, satisficing, use cases
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Modeling User Competency
Perpetually intermediate (competent) users. Users who briefly exist as novice users and never become experts. Most of your users are competent, and you should design for them. Competent users have different needs and different expectations than novice or expert users. How do you know your user’s competency levels, so you can design for them?
2009 Bad Usability Calendar
Netlife Research brings us the 2009 Bad Usability calendar. Get it while it’s hot.
Bad Usability Calendar 2008
Netlife Research (company website in Norwegian) has done it again. Their 2008 Bad Usability Calendar is here and it is great. So great that it is hard to pick a favorite. Download it here. 2007 has more great examples.
[Note: This is a short post- just got back from the Velvet Revolver concert at Stubb's. Living in Austin rocks!]
Posted in Austin TX, UX, Usability
Tagged bad usability, bad usabilty, managing data, Usability, usabilty
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User Adoption ROI
You want your software to be used, not to sit on the shelf. You can’t achieve the ROI of your software if people don’t use it. And you can’t achieve the ROI of your software by forcing people to use it either. Some will fail to achieve the benefits, and others will delay using it or refuse to use it entirely. You have to make them want to use it, and you have to design the software for the users who must use it. Otherwise, you won’t achieve the ROI.
Posted in Business Analysis, Interface Design, Product Management, ROI, UX, Usability
Tagged managing data, ROI, Usability, usability metrics, user adoption, user adoption metrics
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Global Actor Hierarchies and Personas
We use actor hierarchies to organize the different users of a system. Different people play different roles, and thus do different jobs. We use different actors to identify and organize those people. When deploying a system globally, we usually discover people that do the same jobs, but do them differently. Incorporating the notion of personas lets us deal with this.
Posted in Business Analysis, Interface Design, Product Management, Requirements, Requirements Models, UX, Usability
Tagged actor hierarchies, actor hierarchies and personas, actor hierarchy, actors, actors and persona, actors and personas, global actor hierarchies, global actors, global hierarchies, global personas, managing data, managing requirements, persona, personal goals, personas, Requirements, requirements management, use case to actor, use cases
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Foundation Series: Heuristic Evaluation
A heuristic evaluation (or heuristic analysis) is a quick, low-cost usability analysis of the design of a user interface. Pareto’s rule tells us that we can get 80% of the results from 20% of the effort. And that’s where discount usability tests like a heuristic evaluation come in to play. Formal, and more detailed usability studies yield better results – but cost more and take more time. A small investment can pay off big with a heuristic evaluation.
Posted in UX, Usability
Tagged heuristic analysis, heuristic evaluation, managing data, user interface design
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Software Usability and Learning Curves
Learning curves have been studied for decades when evaluating manufacturing systems and proposing cost reductions. The Boston Consulting Group did an oft-cited analysis in the 1960′s that describes how people get faster at tasks through repetition. Peter Abilla looked at the extension of this to writing software. We look at how it applies to using software.
8 Stages of Corporate Usability Awareness
Jakob Nielsen identifies 8 levels of adoption of usability by corporations. He calls them the stages of corporate usability maturity. There is definitely a continuum of adoption and appreciation for usability in companies today. By understanding the eight levels we can determine how best to increase the commitment to usability on our projects.
Posted in Software development, UX, Usability
Tagged jakob nielsen, managing data, Usability, usability testing
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