From online flight boarding passes to application forms, we all use PDF more than we probably realise. And with the Federal Government making all paper-based forms available electronically in PDF format as part of its Electronic Services Delivery strategy, PDF continues to be an essential part of our day-to-day lives, both at work and at home.

However, while we encounter PDF frequently, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is the best method for us to use. In fact, it’s almost taken for granted that it’s just the way to do things – so we at UsabilityOne decided to investigate this further, and bring to light the real user benefits and limitations of interactive PDF forms.

You can check out our findings in our latest report, Incorporating the role of PDF in the Australian Government’s Electronic Services Delivery strategy.

Once you’ve checked out the report, make sure to tell us about your experience of using PDF by commenting here!

A cliché which seems to have developed in recent years is the video of a baby using an iPhone/iPad. I must say that I find this a little tiresome and boring – I don’t care how clever your child is! Having said that, it is interesting to note that very young children can interact with Apple’s touch devices.  And it got me thinking, what is it about the design that means that young children, often too young to speak, can interact with them?  I think it comes down to 2 design basics: feedback and a clear call to action.

Apple seems to have mastered the call to action.  For starters, both devices have one physical button which appears to provide children with an obvious start point as well as an incentive to see what happens. Young children explore the world, trying to understand how things work – and Apple’s clear button and subsequent unlock bar lure children into this curious new device.

Feedback is the other core design basic which assists children to understand the Apple devices. The feedback is immediate and also suggestive of what is possible. For example, when a little finger touches a photo and begins to drag it across the screen it suggests that there is somewhere for it to go. And soon, there is a new image.

Apple illustrates how important it is to get the basics of design right: feedback and calls to action, when done correctly, make a device child’s play for the user.

So next time you look at your website (or other device?), perhaps you should think of it from a more child-like perspective! Is there a clear call to action? Is feedback immediate and suggestive for the user? How intuitive is it? If it’s not child’s play for the user to navigate, then it might not be right.

It will come as no surprise to  you that a recent article from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8562801.stm) noted Facebook is the 5th most visited website in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, US and Australia. Twitter comes in at 24th, closely followed by Skype at 25th.

Organisations have been quick to explore ways the can increase the reach and speed by which they communicate with their target audience through the use of social networks.

In focus groups and one-on-one interviews, more often than not we observe users rejecting attempts from organisations to infiltrate social networks. In order to sign up to a Facebook group, encourage their friends to do so, follow someone on Twitter or read a blog, users need to feel some level of affinity or relevance. While users may have a pre-existing off-line relationship with an organisation, it does not necessarily follow suit that they will want to see this relationship extended to their social network. For example, if I am an avid bicycle rider I may want to link with a local bicycle riders association and a particular brand of bike that I really identify with, and let others know about this. However, I am less likely to identify with my insurance company, an organisation I only have a relationship with out of necessity.

In our experience, those organisations which put serious thought into how they might make themselves relevant to their target audience in the context of a social network, reap the benefits.

Serving two masters is hard – and if you are trying to build a website to make it user friendly as well as being loved by search engines, then often something loses out. Sometimes something important.

At UsabilityOne many of our clients often face this battle of achieving the appropriate balance between SEO and Usability so we decided to explore some of the issues in more depth and have issued our findings in our latest research report – developed with AtomicSearch .

If you are interested in this topic, you should download our report – “Combining the Forces of SEO and Usability(PDF 1.5MB)”. Over the next few weeks we will blog about some of the challenges and recommendations this report identifies.

Purchasing online often involves a number of factors which are nonexistent in the physical world. Questions such as product availability, delivery options and delivery price take on greater meaning when shopping online. In the physical world these questions are answered before the stage of paying for goods; we know if a product is available because it is on the shelf, and delivery for most items is not usually an issue as we can take the product away with us.

image by emmerrrrrrr (flicker)

What can often frustrate users online is when these questions are not addressed until too late in the purchase process; when the user has already made some sort of a commitment to the product, only to find out it’s either not available, cannot be delivered in the expected time frame/location or delivery costs are too high. Had the user known these factors upfront during their browsing phase the frustration levels would be a lot lower and the chances of that user staying a customer much higher.

It is important to inform the users of the following before they arrive at the checkout. It  may be just enough for users to stay a customer rather than go straight to a competitors site. A few small changes can have a great impact on a user’s shopping experience

• If a product is out of stock provide this on the product listing page
• Offer an email alert when the product become available
• If, for whatever reason, a product cannot be delivered in the company’s standard time frame (next day delivery for example), provide this detail upfront on the product listing page, before users have committed to the order

Reducing user frustration leads to a much more happy and satisfied customer. And satisfied customers are more likely to return. Empowering users by giving them information before arriving at the checkout process of factors such as product availability, delivery time frames and costs is one simple method to do this.

iPad meets user: UsabilityOne tests the iPad

The iPad has finally landed in Australia. Here at UsabilityOne, we’ve been following the commentary on the iPad from afar, and decided to get our hands on one so we could make up our own minds.

iPad – user testing:

So just how usable is the iPad? To find out, we conducted some usability research of our own. We asked users to complete a number of tasks that use the native apps, as well as some browsing activities.

Our preliminary findings indicate that the iPad is inherently usable. The average score attained by iPad users on our UsabilityOne Task Completion Index (TCI) compares extremely favourably with the average score for the hundreds of interfaces we have tested here at UsabilityOne.

The reaction to the iPad amongst our testing participants, which include a mix of iPhone and non-iPhone users, has been overwhelmingly positive. Users thought the device looks very slick, providing a good overall experience. The web browsing experience was particularly positive, as it feels more immersive due to the touch interaction.

Downside? People are struggling to see exactly how it will fit into their lives. It clearly is not a replacement for a desktop or laptop computer. In fact, you require one of these devices to transfer and manage content on the iPad. Mostly, the iPad has been perceived as a luxury device rather than a must-have. The most common use-cases our participants have put forward include: web browsing while sitting on the couch or using it to watch video content, things that you can already do with a laptop or netbook. Other scenarios suggested include use of the iPad in the kitchen as a recipe book or as an electronic photo frame. The touch QWERTY keyboard is seen as reasonable for typing in search phrases, URLs and short emails, but no more than that. Nobody could conceive of using the iPad to create or edit documents.

We also observed that the way in which people held the iPad is likely to impact on how they use it. Users commented that it is actually much heavier than it looks. In order to use it to watch video or read e-books for a long period of time means that – unless you have forearms like Popeye – you will need to put it down or prop it up in some way. Obviously this will impact on the most common usage scenario suggested by our test participants (i.e. sitting on the couch).

UsabilityOne’s take on the iPad

So what do we think of the iPad? Whilst a nice piece of kit, the iPad has several obvious limitations.

The keyboard limits the iPad’s potential as a business tool, and the inability of the iPad’s Safari browser to display Flash content clearly impacts on its utility. Whilst it is great as a video device, the continued decision by Apple not to support Flash means the iPad is not compatible with catch-up TV services such as the ABC’s iView. The same goes for all of the other free-to-air broadcasters’ catch-up TV services. In the UK, the BBC created a version of their iPlayer which is compatible with iPhones, and it is interesting to see that the ABC has just announced the release of an app for the iPad that will allow users to access ABC content such as iView.

Given the boom in mobile browsing, many websites are now presented in a format which is compatible with mobile phone browsers, providing an optimal experience on those devices. Our experience thus far with the iPad indicates that websites presented on its Safari browser are not modified in any way; they are the same as you would see when accessing them on a laptop or desktop computer. As touch provides the only means of interaction with websites on the iPad, there are some question marks over the compatibility of traditional website design and the iPad. Just as with the iPhone, target areas (i.e. text links, navigation) can be difficult to hit on the iPad without first zooming in. However, a consequence of zooming in is that some content drops out of view, which suggests that it is important to be even more conscious of ensuring proximity between related controls and content. Perhaps there is even an argument for creating iPad versions of websites.

Like our participants, we think the iPad would be nice to have but the fact that it does not replace your desktop or laptop computer makes it hard to justify outlaying the cash to buy one.

So, is the iPad a game changer? Its immediate success, and the fact that competitors such as Microsoft, Dell, Sony and HP are preparing their own releases into the tablet market suggests it may well be. There are great hopes that the iPad can save the newspaper industry and that it will find a niche in education as a replacement for traditional text books. It is a lot of expectation for one little tablet device. The true success of the iPad, as with the iPhone, will lie in the development of apps that exploit its capabilities and fit into people’s lifestyles. We will be eagerly watching this space.

Want more info on the usability of the iPad? Keep an eye out here for some detailed findings on this research in the near future.

This week I came across an interesting article on accessibility by Gary Barber. In this article, Gary complains that behind a facade of interest in, and understanding of, web accessibility, organisations in Australia do not really care about making their websites accessible.

I surely agree with him. There are very few organisations that approach us for help with accessibility who are driven by a genuine desire to make their website accessible. In most cases, companies start worrying about accessibility only when they have to meet some legal requirements. The reason behind this is that organisations still do not realise the great benefits (e.g. financial return) of offering accessible websites (sadly, I remember talking about this 6 years ago and little has changed).

I also agree with Gary on the fact that we need a centralised library of accessibility solutions. Whenever I encounter an accessibility issue for the first time, I spend hours reading about different solutions implemented by various developers, trying to decide what would be the most effective one. The creation of a centralised library would make this process much easier.

There is, however, a statement in Gary’s article on which I disagree: “the WCAG checklists don’t work. (…) Checklists are just too open to management and insecure web team members abusing them and warping the real results.” Yes, in an ideal world we would be running accessibility testing with users who have a disability, rather than reviewing websites against checklists. Unfortunately, this is simply not feasible. Due to the variety of types of disabilities that can affect the users’ online experience, and the even larger amount of assistive technologies that people may utilise, a website must be tested with a huge number of users. Even so, it would not be possible to say with any certainty that a website is accessible to everybody. We have tested websites with a sample of people with highly varied disabilities before, and yet at the end of the project we could not be certain that we had covered every issue simply due to the fact that we were catering to such a wide, diverse range of issues. This is why guidelines (like WCAG) and checklists have been written. They are very useful and effective at identifying many common and serious accessibility issues so that they can be resolved. Sure, complying with WCAG does not guarantee that a website is 100% accessible either, but it is a very good starting point to efficiently address many common accessibility issues.

There’s a clever little ad campaign being run on the telegraph poles on my walk home at the moment. Lost dog posters have been appearing all around Melbourne, and I assume in other capital cities, offering a $250,000 reward for a lost dog (living in Melbourne’s inner north, I actually didn’t give the reward a second thought the first time I saw it; people really love their dogs around here). In place of a phone number, the posters give a link to wheresroger.com.au. It’s pretty obvious that it’s an ad campaign straight away, but I liked the approach they had taken and the posters made me laugh, so I promptly whipped out my iPhone as I walked home and headed over to the site to see what the campaign was for.

Of course, the posters are part of a larger competition being run by Schmackos dog snacks. I thought this was a pretty neat campaign really; Schmackos have a pretty fun brand image, and the funny posters sat nicely alongside that. What I didn’t like so much is the website. It’s not optimised for mobile browsers. When running an ad campaign that is targeting people walking around the streets, surely it’s a fair expectation that, as I did, they will take the bait and follow the URL straight away. What use, then, is a website that can’t display some of the key content for getting people to interact with your campaign? When the site loaded on my phone I had not idea where I should go next, and I had difficulty discerning which elements of the page where interactive and which were not. Call to action? Video? Not there either.

When developing anything for the online space, it is important to remember that it does not exist in isolation. Ask yourself why people are coming to your site, what they have come to do, where are the coming from and how did they hear about you? If you are running promotion for a site, does the website meet the expectations set by your campaign? If you don’t ask these fundamental questions before development, you may find that your hard work misses the mark. What would otherwise have been a really fun, seamless campaign for Schmackos misses a great opportunity for engagement just through one decision that wasn’t well thought through.

Business owners and marketers need not feel uncomfortable about asking their customers to serve themselves online.  We are finding in testing that consumer acceptance of a self-service model is high across a wide range of consumer target groups and industries.

The reasons for this high level of acceptance includes some obvious ones such as market maturity and increasing comfort with the internet, but in some cases the sad fact is that poor experiences with a business’s other contact channels are sending users online by default.  Customers have told us that they’re happier to transact online, even as it relates to sensitive information such as health records or financial services, than face dealing with a poorly trained and surly call center employee or store front attendant.

The online self-service model suits Australians’ increasingly busy lifestyles, as the ability to control the time and place where interactions occur means that tasks that used to be conducted on a business’s schedule can now be completed in the consumer’s own timeframe.

There are, however, areas in which many organisations offering online transactions still make it harder for their customers.

Expecting your users to interact with your business on your terms is probably the most basic but common reason why self-service systems fall down.  Often, self-service systems are designed to adhere to a business’s own internal processes, and attempt to ‘force’ customer interactions to mirror these processes.  For example, your CRM system may assign customers a unique account number which identifies them to the system.  Naturally, the simplest way for you to identify the customer when they return is to have them remember their account number.  This may be simpler for your business, but unless your customer interacts with you nearly daily or at least weekly, it’s unlikely they will remember that number.  Your user wants to interact with you on their terms, not on yours.

Being mindful of a few basic rules when implementing a self service interface will go a long way to building users’ comfort and confidence.  These include:

1. Locate the entry point for self service in a prominent and easy to find position on your website. Typically, users will look for sign in options in the top right hand corner of a page.  While in testing users are usually able to find the sign-in when it’s placed on other parts of the page, they still expect to find it in the top right hand corner location, so whenever possible it’s good to locate it in that expected location
2. Do not force users to register. Allowing users to complete a transaction without having to first register on your site can increase conversions dramatically. Wherever possible, offer users the option to register should they wish (to speed up future transactions) or to conduct the current transaction without registering first.
3. Allow users to choose their own usernames and passwords. If users must register, consider whether requiring users to remember a customer number or system generated PIN is really necessary, and whether either can be replaced by a username and password of the users’ choosing.  Users will likely have several usernames and passwords for multiple websites, and unless they transact with you on a near daily basis the chances are that they may not remember the necessary unique details required to access your site.  It’s also recommended that users be allowed to use an email address as their username
4. Make security cues and signals be prominent on the interface. On ecommerce websites, the names and logos of recognised security infrastructure providers are essential to help reassure users that they are using a legitimate website.  We would also recommend that a business provide a link to a plain English privacy policy that is free of legal jargon.
5. Alternate contact information (such as a phone number and physical address) should also be easy to find. If you think a strategy of making this information difficult to find will work to encourage your users into using self-service, think again.  Concealing this information will not build trust with your users.  Worse, you risk alienating those users who are happy to use self service but have had a problem with the process that they need resolved.  You may get away with this strategy if your service is truly unique and can’t be replaced, but you won’t be doing your relationship with your users any favours.  And as soon as they find a comparable service that’s easier to use, they’ll be off.
6. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Remember that your user is saving you money by using self service, so be respectful of their time when they visit.  It may be tempting to cross promote your other services to the users when they visit, but don’t impede their ability to complete what they intended to do.  If a user is visiting your website to check their account balance, providing a call-out box located near that information which suggests other products is the right way to introduce them to your other services.  Requiring users to click through a marketing splash page prior to reaching their own account information is not.

Improving online self service processes can be a win for everyone. Your customers can access your services when and wherever they want, whilst you can increase efficiency and conversions by moving more of you business online.