Background

Who are you? What do you do? What is your training? What is your experience with usability testing and user centered design? 

Originally, my background and training is in digital electronics (in Dublin during the late 70's). 

Over the years, I worked in a variety of technical support roles, which gave me a degree of understanding of the issues faced by users of electronic and software products. 

About 9 years ago I set up Information & Design to produce technical documentation. Although we still do a lot of this, I became frustrated with 'fixing' user interface problems in the documentation and training, and became first interested in and then fascinated by usability and interaction design. 

Over the last several years, I've been involved in a wide range of usability activities, on a variety of internet, intranet and Windows software applications. Although usability review and testing is important, I'm much more keen on the analysis and design activities - because they're more fun and because I feel they provide higher value to the client. 

I spend a lot of time on site with users, watching them use systems and finding out their issues and requirements ('contextual inquiry'). I think everyone involved in producing products should do this. I'm constantly confronted with the fact that many people spend a lot of time simply coping  with poorly-designed systems that don't support the work they want to do.

Getting this information to development team members is particularly important, as they often have little knowledge of how their products are being used. 

Wherever possible I try to get developers together with what I call 'real people'. Very often, the developers will never have had the opportunity to work with a user before, and it's usually an enlightening experience! 

We also do usability reviews and usability testing. I find usability reviews ('heuristic evaluation') useful, and certainly they are inexpensive. However, they're also quite subjective. I must confess that I see usability testing as something of a necessary evil. Ideally it should be one of the final steps in a user-centred design process, in which case it can be a positive and useful experience for all concerned. Unfortunately, it's sometimes the only 'usability' activity conducted during development, in which case there can be a considerable degree of embarrassment when developers and management finally have to confront the failure to adopt a user-centred design approach. 

I'm also currently working on book on forms design (tentatively entitled 'Forms that Work') with Caroline Jarrett of Effortmark in the UK. This is due for publication (through Morgan Kaufman) sometime this year. 

Why is usability so important to you? In particular, why have you devoted your life to understanding and working with users? 

I'd hesitate to say that I've 'devoted my life' to this! 

However, usability _is_ important to me. If the purpose of technology is to make our lives better, then that purpose is subverted when designers fail to pay due regard to the user and the context of use. The software industry has been particularly negligent in this regard, to the extent that a large number of people feel that they are 'too stupid' to handle computers. In effect, these people have been disenfranchised - one of the greatest boons of our times has been denied them because software designers have failed to meet their needs. 

For me, usability is about the move to counter this trend. I believe that usability activities can have a direct and beneficial impact on the quality of people's lives. I get enormous satisfaction from doing work that results in products that are easier to use. 

I believe that we are far too willing to accept what I call 'the myth of the stupid user'. It's time that we started to reject products that confuse use, are rude to us or in any way belittle us. 

You can probably tell that this is a favourite soap-box topic, so I'll stop now. 

As a business, what special issues do you face being based out of Melbourne, Australia? 

Melbourne is a good place to live and work. With a population of 3 million, it's big enough to support a large software and web development industry. 

I think the issues we face here are probably no different to the ones we would face in any typical American or European city. Primary among those (at least in the software and web arena) is simple lack of awareness in the marketplace of the need for user-centred or customer-focused design. 

The distance from USA and Europe is sometimes frustrating. It's difficult to go for a brief trip to Europe when you have to allow two entire days just for travel time. Having said that, the advent of widespread internet access has begun to open up a both national and global markets. We've done work for several interstate companies in Australia, and for a publishing company in France, generally without leaving Melbourne.  

The main issue facing me at the moment is that the weather is really warm and it's very tempting to spend the afternoon at the swimming-pool instead of working! 

Can you comment more broadly about the international issues that web developers and software developers face, particularly in relation to usability?  

The most obvious issue is the diversity of the audience on the web. Even within a single country, the audience tends to be very broad. To some extent this is still ignored on many web sites. For example, we see many developers who assume that all their users have a solid grounding in internet usage, even though the demographics might indicate otherwise. I remember one web developer who was convinced that every browser user was aware of and understood the use of Shift+Reload! 

Many companies still fail to see that once they open for business on the web, they need to cater, at least in some basic ways, for the global market. It is particularly frustrating to follow the purchasing procedure for a product only to find that the company has only included shipping details for the USA, and clearly such exclusivity reduces revenue. 

For many companies, it is not worth having multi-lingual versions of their sites. For these sites it is particularly important that colloquialisms and tortured language are avoided. Another simple trap is the use of dates. Does 8/10/00 mean the 10th of August or the 8th of October?  

Some software companies have replicated their traditional distribution methods on the web, which can result in inappropriate online interactions. For example, if I attempt to purchase Adobe Acrobat from the Adobe web site, the best I can get is a list of Australian software outlets. Following the link to one of these outlets simply abandons me at the home page of the local retailer, and I then have to go through the product selection process again. Of course there may be licensing or other reasons for not selling direct, but the overall impression is that the company is not particularly interested in my business. 

In essence, it comes down to basic user-centred design principles. If your audience is international, your web site must at least acknowledge the existence of countries outside your own. 

Tools for Developers 

What is your Paper Prototype Kit? Who should use it? Where can we get it? 

We conduct a lot of participatory design sessions, in which we involve 'real people' as well as developers. To make sure we don't exclude non-technical participants, we use paper prototyping, in which interfaces are mocked up on paper. This is a great way to get cross-fertilization of ideas between developers and users. 

We use simple materials like large sheets of paper, sticky notes and colored pens during the process. However, the results are sometimes messy, so late last year we developed a simple stationery kit that contains some GUI and Web screens, and user interface elements like buttons, fields and list boxes on printed labels, to give a more realistic feel to the exercise. It's low-tech enough for all users to be comfortable with the process.  

The paper prototype kit is available for purchase on our web site.

What is your Usability Toolkit? Who should use it? How can we get it? 

The Usability Toolkit is a work-in-progress. Given our belief that usability activities can (and should) be conducted by everyone, and not just usability specialists, it's aimed at providing simple descriptions of usability techniques such as usability testing, contextual enquiry, affinity diagramming and so on, as well as some checklists and sample reports. Most of the materials are designed to fit on a single landscape sheet of paper, so we provide PDF versions. All these materials are free of charge. 

We add a new element every month or so, as time permits, and we have a sizeable mailing list to inform interested people of these updates. 

The usability toolkit can be found at our web site.

What is the Classified Program? Who should use it? How can we get it? 

'Classified' arose from my frustration with the amount of effort involved in conducting usability testing of website structures using card-sorting. We got together with a local company, UCDesign, and developed a simple program that enables you to conduct such testing with less effort and error than the traditional method. 

The Classified program is free, and is available at  our web site.

Wrap Up 

It is time for shameless plugs. What skills do you offer to companies? What makes your company stand out from the crowd? 

I believe that usability can be done on almost any budget. We adapt our methods to suit the immediate needs of our clients. For example, some small companies may only have the budget for a usability review (heuristic evaluation), and in these cases we'll do just that. 

I think it's fair to say we excel at helping companies understand their users, the sorts of things they do or will do with the product, and the issues that need to be addressed in producing a product that will allow them to complete their tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible. 

Final thoughts? What should every person remember about this interview? 

I'd love to see people in general become less accepting of poor design, in all areas. 

We've lived too long with the myth of the stupid user. If 'stupid users' will use your web or software, then your designers must be good enough to design systems that can be used by them. 

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