2G. Usability and UX

Source: Body of Knowledge

The terms usability and UX (user experience) are not to be used interchangeably.

The User Experience consists of usability (how effectively the user is able to use the site) in addition to digestibility of content, desirability of content, accessibility, credibility (level of trust in security and privacy).

Usability restricts its scope to three considerations:

1. When the user is using the interface, how easy is it for them to understand on the first contact?
2. When the user is using the interface, how easy is it to achieve their goal?
3. When the user is using the interface, how easy is it for them to gain proficiency within subsequent visits?

In user-centered design, users are involved at every iterative stage in the design process and are heavily relied on during user testing and research.

In summary, the Body of Knowledge asks us to focus on understanding three concepts: user-centered design, usability, and user experience. Let's focus on those as we dive into our sources.

Source: SEObility Wiki, User-Centred Design

UCD (User-Centred Design)'s ultimate goal is to produce output with high usability and an optimized user experience. It seeks to meet the user where they are instead of forcing the user to adopt a set of behaviour that they wouldn't be inclined to naturally.

Benefits of UCD:

• Improved productivity.
• Less errors to correct later.
• Less training required.
• Less documentation required.
• Higher consumer satisfaction.
• Higher consumer motivation.
• Reduced working time.
• Reduces product maintenance.
• Reduces cost of future redesign.

While the basis of UCD is codified in the International Standards Organization, there are different approaches to implementation.

Most approaches are iterative, in that phases of design may be revisited if the end product is not satisfactory. SEObility suggests a five-phase approach: analysis (user analysis, business requirements, defining test goals and user scenarios), conception (develop task flows, storyboards, maybe a wireframe that is tested by end-users), design (create the product, solve problems, increase desirability and meaningfulness of content), evaluation (user tests against key performance indicators, incorporate consumer reactions and feedback, test user safety) and optimization (depending on the results and feedback, jump back to different stages as needed if satisfaction and quality is not met.)

Source: Interaction Design Foundation, Usability: A part of the User Experience

The title of this article is its thesis. Usability is but a small piece of what makes up User Experience. Usability is a sub-discipline of UX design. Usability is measurable and technical. UX is broader and relies more on unmeasurable things like general affect and impression.

Usability

Being on the more technical side, usability will analyze how easy it is for a person to decipher the interface on first contact, how easy it is for them to reach their objective, and how easy it is to recall the use of the interface on subsequent visits. Decipherability, achievability, and learnability. It should also be error-free.

The assessment of all of these factors are done through empirically measuring outcomes of user testing.

The result of tests might look something like this:

• Decipherability: First-time users can navigate to the 'buy' button in an average 294 seconds.
• Achievability: 18% of users bought a ticket on the landing page. 42% of users went no further than the landing page.
• Learnability: Returning users navigate to 'buy' in an average of 209 seconds.

User Experience

Usability forms a crucial part of User Experience, but it doesn't tell the whole story. If your design is highly usable, but it is aesthetically very ugly, your User Experience will be poor. That being said, ugliness is not an easily measurable metric.

The authors include two models on what makes up 'User Experience.'

• UX comprises the Look of the product, the Feel of the product, and the Usability of the product.
• UX includes (but is not limited to): Usability, Digestibility of the content, Desirability of the content, Credibility of the platform, and Accessibility.

The Role of Accessibility

Let's take a second to think about this. The last point about the different components of UX just assumes that accessibility is a separate consideration from usability.

My initial impression was that 'accessibility' forms a key part of 'usability,' which forms a key part of 'UX.'

But reading this article, it seems more like the authors view accessibility and Disabled users as being outside of usability's scope.

This matches with what we learned in Section 2A, Accommodations vs UD and specifically when we looked at the article about the role of Accessibility within the field of Usability. When we covered that material, we saw the W3C authors suggest that the needle had shifted to the point that Accessibility was a regular consideration within Usability testing. But I don't get that impression from the Interaction Design Foundation.

I will say though, the fact that an article covering the difference between Usability and UX mentions Accessibility at all can be counted for something. Perhaps other sources will have more to contribute to this conversation.

Source: UsabilityGeek, The Difference/Relationship between Usability and UX

This article first focuses on the differences between Usability and UX. It does this by describing the goals or uses of Usability and UX in many different ways across a dozen or so bullet points. I've preserved the points that the authors make, but I'm using a table for direct comparability of each statement.

Secondly, the author describes the relationship between Usability and UX, which is a synergetic one.

Practically, both must account for each other. UX professionals will solicit validation of their designs from Usability professionals.

The author also presents a model of the relationship that we haven't seen in other articles before. In this model, user experience depends first on the product itself being useful. Then it relies on people being able to use it. Then it relies on how it looks and feels. Finally, it relies on the overall impression of the brand itself.

In other words, User Experience depends on Brand Experience, which depends on Desirability, which depends on Usability, which depends on fundamental Utility.

Source: Jisc Guides, Usability and User Experience

Link deprecated, and apparently the guide itself was deprecated in 2017. In any case, we see very similar ideas in this article alongside the others. But this article is fundamentally different because it reports on an actual usability initiative that Jisc undertook and describes their process and results.

We start with some definitions. Jisc defines User Experience as encompassing a 'more emotional dimension' that the scope of usability cannot account for. Ultimately, if the goal of usability is Ease of Use, the goal of UX is to produce Valuable services. Their model of components of usability include the following things: desire, usefulness, usability, findability, credibility, and accessibility.They make an argument that experience itself IS the product. Jisc reports that in their own case study, after applying usability techniques, Jisc-funded projects got a boost in user ratings and downloads (almost four times more in some cases).

Shifting to incorporate usability techniques is largely a bottom-up affair, but it requires buy-in from the top. A user-centered design process is iterative, flexible, and laser-focused on the end-user.

Jisc recommends researching and creating user personas with a name, back-story, goals, motivators, and pain-points. Jisc did this by carrying out 20 interviews and distilling them into 5 personas. Task lists were created for each of these personas, and they were prioritized using a method they call 'MoSCoW' (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have).

They prototyped using sketches and digital prototyping skills, which allowed them to explore many design possibilities while keeping costs down.

They carried out user testing all the way. To measure success, Jisc suggests that the System Usability Scale (SUS) is a very powerful general-purpose metric. It's composed of 10 questions graded at 10 points each for a score out of 100. By doing the SUS iteratively after each prototyping stage, they were able to quickly track their progress and sustain momentum.

Source: Amy Smith, Usability First- Why Usability Design Matters to UI/UX Designers

Very tempted to just ignore this one because there are a lot of infographics and/or images of text in here that are marked with role=presentation and have nulled alt fields.

I suppose I could just describe the images here for convenience.

Introduction Image: Venn diagram that shows when web design, common sense, and simplicity overlap, you get usability.

Second Image: Powerpoint slide with the following text: 10 Usability Heuristics are:

• Visibility of system status
• Recognition rather than recall
• Match between system and the real world
• User control and freedom
• Consistency and standards
• Error prevention
• Aesthetic and minimalist design
• Helps users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors
• Flexibility and efficiency of use
• Help and documentation

Third image: Powerpoint slide with the following text: What is Usability? Usability is the extent to which the product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use. Usability is defined by five quality components: lernibility, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. Usability evaluation is an assessment of the usability of a product, item, system or interface.

Fourth image: Shows many colourful strings each labelled with a usability concept flowing in to the multicoloured banner of usability, as if to suggest that usability is composed of the following things: navigation, familiarity, consistency, error prevention, feedback, visual clarity, flexibility & efficiency.

So this is a strange article for them to include, because it does blend the line between Usability and UX where the other sources endeavor to differentiate the two concepts as much as possible. For example, the article suggests that products with usability must have 'unique style.' There isn't really anything else here that isn't included in the other sources.