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This month…

What does your website say to your customers? The premise of the Communication & Relevance guideline is to ensure that the site’s messaging and its value proposition are clear, aligned with target users’ intent and enhance the site’s usability.

Read the full article.

USABILITY WEEK 2011 Continued…
Last week, eVOC attended Usability Week 2011, a conference organized by the UX consulting and research firm Nielsen Norman Group (NNG). My colleague Phil and I split up to tackle full day tutorials on Mobile User Experience. Click here to read his post about Day 1 – ‘Mobile User Experience 1: Usability of Websites and Apps on Mobile Devices’.

My agenda for Day 2 included four cups of coffee and a full day tutorial titled ‘Mobile User Experience 2: Touchscreen Application Usability,’ led by Raluca Budiu, a User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Besides Raluca, it seemed there were very few usability or customer experience professionals in the room, but mostly designers and developers hoping to get some direction on how to design for the mobile customer experience.

Overall, day 2 focused on the do’s and do not’s of mobile design. I was impressed with how many aspects of mobile design were covered, but can’t say I was surprised by many of the points made. Here I’d like to share with you 10 of the most important mobile best practices (in my opinion) pulled from the 147 provided by Nielsen Norman Group, along with my own 2 cents.

1.  “Detect if the user is coming from a mobile phone and redirect him or her.”

• Put your best foot forward, why make users struggle with your regular site if you have a mobile one? That being said, it should be easy for the user to navigate from your mobile site to your regular site, vice versa.

2.  “Keep launch time to a minimum.”

• There are hundreds of apps and endless ways to kill time on a mobile phone. If your mobile site or application takes forever to launch, what makes you think users will wait? The user may be intrigued enough to wait the first time they use the site or application, but after learning that it takes too long (for some it’s seconds) they may never return.  I know I’ve ditched slow launching apps, what about you?

3.  “Respect platform conventions.”

• Throughout the tutorial, Raluca asked the audience to analyze various mobile sites and applications, asking us to identify the good and the bad aspects of the different designs. I found that many designs for the iPad failed to take advantage of its screen space, so make sure you respect platform conventions!

4.  “Avoid requiring users to login or register unless absolutely necessary.”

• This is an issue of ease and time. If you are going to require a log-in, there better be a point. Is there valuable information that needs to be saved in the users’ account? Or are you just trying to build a mailing list?

5.  “Minimize user input by using techniques such as autocomplete, suggestions, sensible defaults (based on user history or current context).”

• Using a small keypad or touchscreen is not as easy as typing on a keyboard, make life easier for your users by reading their minds! Instead of requiring lots of typing, I think giving suggestions or providing options that require a simple tap can make or break its usability.

6.  “Allow saving and sharing of content seen during session (e.g., email, Facebook, wish lists).

• Personally, I find myself finishing most of productive activity that I started on my phone on my laptop. Being able to save drafts, lists, etc. to access at a later time or even on the regular website is beneficial to users.

7.  “Make sure that all content is available both in landscape and portrait mode.”

• Remember, mobile devices are MOBILE, they move, thus your designs should work with the user and be able to move with the direction of the screen. This means portrait and landscape for phones and all four orientations for the iPad.

8.  “Make sure users can easily turn notifications on/off.”

• Phones ring, vibrate, and ping enough – don’t bother your users.

9.  “Users should be able to use your app without reading instructions or a manual.”

• If you want users to use your app, make it usable. It’s that simple.

10.  “Save state within app, so that if the user returns to a previously visited tab they see the same data they were looking at last time when they visited the tab.”

• This is vital when it comes to mobile devices because users are constantly going back and forth between using their device as well as hopping from app to app. It’s important to remember how mobile devices are used differently than computers – mobile users are often on the move vs. sitting down.

As always with best practices, there are general rules and then rules that are specific to your industry, customer base, and media platform. If you are interested in testing the usability of your site or application on a mobile device, please visit our page on usability testing for mobile devices and don’t hesitate to contact us to find out more.

Last week, eVOC attended Usability Week 2011, a conference organized by the UX consulting and research firm Nielsen Norman Group (NNG). On Friday, I attended a full-day tutorial taught by NNG’s User Experience Specialist Raluca Budiu, entitled ‘Mobile User Experience 1: Usability of Websites and Apps on Mobile Devices’ (view the full itinerary here).

The purpose of the seminar was to share tips on developing a mobile strategy, outline the differences between building mobile websites vs. applications, and reveal best practices across these different media. NNG pulled data from their own international diary study, user testing, and design reviews, as well as from various research articles.

My colleague Sabrina and I tag-teamed the event. And by tag-teamed, I mean I got to go on Friday, and she got to go on Saturday. Though she’ll be taking a day off any time she likes, so she may be having the last laugh. In any case, stay tuned for her upcoming blog post about her day at the event.

Overall, I found the day I attended to be relevant and engaging. Raluca provided a lot of interesting insights about the mobile user experience. Below are some of my observations:

It is truly amazing how so many of the common conventions we follow for websites on a computer apply equally to mobile devices. Things like messaging, layout, navigation, error messaging, and spacing are all crucial in developing a usable interface for users to get things done – regardless of medium. I’d say 80% of the best practices discussed would apply to every type of device on the market.

Mobile is still such a new medium that many businesses do not have the experience or knowledge to develop a cohesive mobile strategy. At Usability Week, the majority of attendees were designers or programmers at companies just starting to roll out a mobile platform. Fortunately, they can model themselves after other businesses across industries that are well established in mobile, such as Amazon, Google, and Walmart. But despite the efforts of these trendsetters, there is still opportunity for great innovation as technology improves and social media grows.

Something I knew but had never verbalized: There are two reasons people access data on their mobile devices. One is to pass the time by browsing. The other is to search for a specific piece of simple information (people generally look for more complex information on their desktop/laptop computers). It helps to know this so that a site can be tailored to these two reasons.

Something I know and have verbalized: Repeat visitors are more likely to use mobile apps, while casual/occasional visitors are more likely to use mobile websites. It’s therefore no surprise that apps have higher success rates than mobile sites. The reasons for this are twofold: 1) repeat visitors are more likely to use apps and have an easier time completing tasks due to their familiarity with the site. 2) Mobile sites tend to have more capabilities than mobile apps, making them harder to navigate and complete tasks.

Something I didn’t know: Apps put less strain on infrastructure because there are fewer server calls to load content.

Something that really surprised me: Some companies don’t automatically recognize when a mobile user lands on their website. These visitors are forced to browse the full site on their mobile device and consistently have trouble.

One of NNG’s findings is that companies should avoid designing for the lowest common denominator. Their belief is that by trying to satisfy everyone, you most likely satisfy no one. This often goes counter to what companies want to do on their websites. Even if just 2% of visitors are using a certain media to access your site, it’s natural to want to account for them. However, if designing a good experience for that 2% means deteriorating the experience of the 10% who use a different, more ubiquitous media, it is often a better business decision to favor the 10%. And as with all business decisions, key factors must be considered, such as audience, content, budget, priorities, and needs.

Finally, NNG did not spend a lot of time discussing how to conduct mobile testing. But a theme I noticed throughout the day was just how much of their insights and knowledge came from conducting in-person mobile usability testing.

Above all, it’s crucial to know your audience and what they want to do on your app or site. We conduct our own mobile testing that helps companies understand their customers, improve their usability, and increase ROI. Click here to learn more.