Working with usability is good for business

bykerlund

316 followers

9 years ago

I'm a student right now, have been for over a year... And I'm also a Project Manager, working for an IT-company. I have always worked with usability in one or another way, first in training, how to teach the "right" things? It might need some knowledge about the tasks that should be performed. My studies cover Informatics, Usability and User Experience. I can see a connection between teaching the rightthings and developing the "right" systems, that allows the users to perform the tasks they need to do. It might also support their tasks and make them easier:)

Many project in system development or web development tend to be long and expensive stories.

There are some things that don't cost to much that will save time and reduce frustration for the end users. I have been studying usability and UX design for over a year now and there is a lot of methods and tools available. I will try to give some quick tips how to apply an approach where usability and the user experience are in focus.

First of all: its hard to guess what the users need. Even if they tell you what they want, that might not be the same thing as what they need.

There are ways to find out: observation, questionnaires, task analysis and so on. The point in beginning a system development or web project with some of these activities is to avoid making a system that not will respond to the users needs. You save time in the end if you invest a small amount of time in the beginning.

Observation is what it sound like: observing the future user doing the tasks that are supposed to be performed supported by the new system.

Questionnaires might help if its a larger group of users. A few but open questions can bring important information into the project.

Task analysis works best within a company or department, say that you are going to develop a digitised workflow. The purpose of a task analysis is to get a list of all tasks that is supposed to be performed. The intended users participate and you all go through the workflow as it is today and pinpoint all challenges and things that don't work well. This gives a good visualisation of the workflow. Its rather great to use this for a first design draft.

When the project has begun its important to try out the design BEFORE you start coding. A common misstake is to code the whole system and then deliver it to the endusers. When they tries it out its not what they expected or there is flows that doesn't work as intended and so on. A small but powerful method to avoid this is: make prototypes! It does not mean that it hav to be HI-FI prototypes with complete user interface. Make simple outlines, by hand or digital. Just boxes that tells if what is going to be placed there. Buttons and navigation should be in place so its possible to try actions, flow and navigation. By doing this you can avoid some serious misstakes and save some time in the end of the project.