Are you studying usability problems or looking for user preference?
When it comes to user research it’s important for everyone involved in the design process to have an understanding about the insights we can gain with a particular research approach. As interaction designers we look to user experience (UX) research to discover usability problems or barriers to the experiences we create. As stakeholders get involved in UX research, questions are sometimes introduced that are intended to uncover user preference instead of usability problems. This can profoundly affect research results.
Consider this scenario: You’re observing a UX research session for a media player interface. Your goals include determining if a user can create a playlist and manage a list of videos. The session is also set up to question which media player design the user likes most and to ask the user to rate the visual appeal of the design. Any cause for concern?
Yes!
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If you were asked to list the top US “early adopter” cities you might start in Silicon Valley. Nope. Austin tops the list, then Las Vegas and Sacramento followed by San Diego, Washington DC, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.
The Scarborough report is a free 70 page report that aims to hone in on the “digital savvy” of the US population. The report has narrowed these people down to a small 6% of Americans who have adopted certain digital behaviors — they have DVRs, MP3 players, HDTV; they are likely to use VOD, VOIP and more advanced mobile device features. The report busts assumptions that early adopters are all MySpace users (they’re more likely to read ESPN.com and CNN.com). Download the report for the full demographic analysis.
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MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Antti Ohrling, co-founder of Blyk kicked off the second day of the MEX conference with his views on understanding the importance of user experience in delivering mobile advertising. Ohrling’s core belief is that mobile advertising is successful only if it is relevant and contextual: the consumer must see it as a benefit, rather than a distraction.
Ohrling used his presentation to discredit 3 commonly held myths about advertising in the mobile context, based on his experience with Blyk and on customer surveys Blyk has recently conducted. First he pointed out that the target audience for mobile advertising is a 19-year-old male, 80% of whom are paying their own monthly mobile phone bill.
Myth #1: Content is King
By this Ohrling means the use of content as a platform to delivery advertising. A January 2007 survey of 619 mobile phone users aged 16 to 24 year-old asked them what they do most with their mobile phones:
- Voice
- Text
- Alarm clock
73% do not use mobile data services. 2/3 said they use mobile data services once a month or less, which in essence means that they don’t use it at all. Tying a mobile advertising campaign to WAP-based content that requires the consumer to access via the browser on their device is thus not a sound decision.
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MEX CONFERENCE, LONDON — Paul Nerger, Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing at Argogroup, spoke in response to the following manifesto point:
“User experience performance must be measured if it is to be improved. It must be constantly tracked through quantitative and qualitative methods. We think organizations throughout the value chain are failing to recognize the importance of understanding customers because quantifying the return on investment is too difficult”.
Paul started his talk by illustrating Argogroup’s services through case studies. One highlighted a “false event”, a momentary spike in service that results in temporary failures. Typical SMS-based false events include New Year Eve and the Super Bowl. So many people send New Year’s greetings to their family and friends at the stroke of midnight or to trash talk during the last few minutes of the Super Bowl that service spikes, resulting in high levels of data usage. When these patterns are not anticipated by carrier’s operations centers performance of the SMS service is drastically impacted, with message delivery unreasonably delayed. In some instances messages are not delivered at all.
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Scott Weiss, the author of Handheld Usability (the book and blog), recently posted the results of a survey of over 800 New Yorkers on the importance of several factors when considering the purchase of a new phone. Weiss notes that the survey respondents value mobile ease-of-use 3 to 2 over appearance. “The finding is astounding, because it shatters the commonly-held believe that appearance is more important to consumers than usability”, he writes. After ease-of-use respondents considered appearance, internet access, MP3 player capabilities and mobile television features, in that order. Weiss adds, “the highest percentage of respondents (33%) rated Mobile Television Features and MP3 Player Capabilities as Neither Important nor Unimportant in their mobile phone purchase decisions”.
While I agree with his ultimate conclusion — that usability is a big deal and ease-of-use should be a goal of all handset manufacturers — I question drawing that conclusion based on the survey information provided.
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