Incorporating your users into your projects

Unless you are designing a personal site (and perhaps you still concerned about who is visiting your site) you are creating an experience for someone else Ð your audience. Remember that. You are trying to meet someone elses needs, not your own. Many times people will state that we have to make things "user friendly" but they either don't know how to incorporate user needs into a product or they forget their original project statement. The word "product" is not something we hear to often in Taiwan being referred in reference to a website. I would argue that even when this realisation ocurrs,the realisation that this a product (it does not ocurr often), Taiwan companies are still caught in the quick to market cycle that ignores basic human factors in the product development.

But to serve as a beginning, we need to acknowledge the fact that their is an intended audience and understand some basic ways in which we can involve these potential users in the creation of web sites.

Here are some steps you would follow to start including your audience in your design.

1) Determine goals
Before you envolve the users in your design the first most important step is having an understanding (in simple terms) of the goals for the product (The why and the what of the web site).

2) Assess Your Audience
The next most important step is determining who your target audience will be (The who). Keep it focussed, targetting an incredibly broad group of users may be ineffective. Ex. "My users are basically everybody" - sounds familiar? Imagine for an instint what the latest car from Toyota would look like if it took in to consideration the needs of everyone. It would be a monstrosity.

After you thoroughly understand your target you then start creating the web site around how they understand the web site should be (their mental model), balancing their goals with your (or your clientÕs) site goals, and understanding their needs. You are designing this web site for someone else to use Ð not you or your boss. Lumping client/boss goals with user goals is a mistake since they are often different things. This can be quite difficult but by illustrating the tangible benefits of considering users goals to your corporate managers you stand a greater chance of success.

Determining your target audience can be a difficult process if you do not have a partnership with the people who know well the end users of a system. In many cases there simply is no information to go on and no time to do proper research. If often involves a little guess work (which for large scale commercial projects is unacceptable but for smaller low budget projects may be commonplace). It is in this instance when proper monitoring and further refinement of the web site becomes essential. Over time you may discover that the people using the system are not who you believed.

An example of a typical corporate site.

3) Find exactly who is your audience.
Market research. Review current climate in interaction and technology, social and cultural trends. Learn from your past experiences online and offline. You need to find out as much demographic and webographic information as possible. Here are some questions you will ask: What is there: age, sex, culture, profession? How web savvy are they? Do your users have the latest plug-in version? Does not having the new plug-in disrupt the experience? What speed are they connecting? What's their monitor resolution? What do they connect to the site with (latest Pentium, Mac, PDA, cell phone, web TV)?

How do I do that?

1. When you have budget and time considerations, consider a survey online or in physical space to ask questions or connect with likely users.

2. Structured user interview conducted by 2 people (interviewer and observer); about one hour; Try to stay neutral, do not ask leading questions; Listen to those users because everyone creates their own workflows and shortcuts; Do not judge them; Do not correct them/try to change their behaviors; Interview on their turf, at a minimum, see their space.

3. Ethnographic observation of a typical user in the appropriate environment.

4. Collaborative design sessions. Small focus groups to brainstorm through directed activities.

When you understand your users, write user profiles / personas ( which is essentially a summary of your understanding), user scenarios and start performing user testing.

Place yourself in the user's position. Consider every aspect of their experience.

How To : User testing

The basic rules of usability testing are easy: get representative users, ask them to do real tasks, and shut up. The classic mistake most beginners make is to interfere with the users and bias them to use the interface in a different way than they would normally have done. So keep quiet and let the user do the talking. In fact, one of the main benefits of usability testing for the first-timer is that you can do no wrong, as long as you don't interfere with the user. If in doubt, say nothing. If pressed by the user to answer a question, say "please do whatever you would normally do" or "what do you think this means?" Just play the ball back in their court.

User profiles or Personas

User profiles or personas are brief studies of the sort of person who might visit your site. TheyÕre a little like character study in acting or literature, in which you try to put yourself into someoneÕs shoes in order to understand them better. Instead, they act as guides throughout the design process, and help keep human factors at the forefront.

You need to match your profiles/personas with the relevant target audience groups. Its important to focus on a small sample. Can you imagine designing a new car that took into account the needs of several different target users? How would that car look?

I usually start with the 1st (primary) and the 2nd (secondary) most important audience groups that I am targeting. I seldom am able to focus on more than 4.

The primary persona is the most important user of the system. Each primary persona needs their own approach to the interface of the website.

A secondary persona uses the same interface as the primary persona, but has special needs that should be taken into account during the design of the primary personaÕs interface.

Scenerios

Scenarios, or possible situations, can offer you a view of the navigation process as a whole. Thinking in scenarios also fits the view of a site as an active place for people to move around in.

To write a scenario, describe in simple language the interaction that needs to take place. It is important to avoid references to technology, except where the technology represents a design constraint that must be acknowledged.

Include references to all relevant aspects of the interaction, even where they are outside the current scope of the technology. Such references may include cultural and attitudinal issues. For example, the fact that Jane is continually interrupted by telephone calls may be quite relevant.