What do your users think of your design? Emotional response testing made simple

You would be forgiven for thinking we’ve got spring fever at Sue Fidler Associates recently, with these blogs about empathy and emotions…

In this time of austerity and cutbacks, we were thinking about things you can do yourselves to avoid paying other people to do them for you. And one of those is assessing potential designs.

This is always a difficult area: show a design to a number of people and you’ll find as many liking it as disliking it! (I remember once inviting feedback about a design and being told on the one hand, “It’s too bright! It’s too bare!” – but also “It’s too dull-looking! It’s too cluttered!” You clearly can’t please all the people all of the time!)

This is where Emotional Response Testing (ERT) comes in. All it takes is some time, some willing participants, some blank cards and a copy of the design you want to test. This is how you do it:

1. Get a number of members of your target audience, preferably not together, though.
   
2. Show them a series of cards, each bearing opposite words and phrases – for example: professional/relaxed; caring/business-like.
   
3. Ask them to tell you which one of each pair best matches what they think of your organisation.
   
4. Armed with this information about how your audience sees your brand, show the same individuals the intended design.
   
5. Ask them to consider the design against the same words/phrases, telling you which best matches the design they are looking at.
   
6. If the responses to 3. and 5. match, your design is on brand. If not, you will need to alter it.
   

 

Get testing! It couldn’t be easier.

Read more about Emotional response testing

• Is your website emotional? http://intdev.blogs.ilrt.org/2010/03/08/bert/
  
• The Glass Wall – a pdf explaining the methods used to redesign the BBCI website, including their use of ERT: http://www.currybet.net/download/theglasswall.pdf
  

Run your own usability study – in 3 easy steps

I was talking to a cash-strapped client recently (aren’t we all!) about usability testing. They knew they needed to do some… but didn’t think they could afford to pay for it to be done. They were right: usability agencies tend to be expensive – but the good news (how we love to bring you the good news!) is that you really can do a pretty good job yourself if you can set aside a little time.

Of course, they wanted to know how. So I’ve been digging around online for the best advice and this is it, courtesy of Jakob Nielsen.

The easiest, cheapest and most effective usability study is what he calls a ‘thinking aloud’ study. This is what you do:

• Recruit at least 5 representative users.
  
• Get them to carry out some representative tasks, saying what they are doing as they do it.
  
• Make sure you keep quiet while they do the talking.
  

What are the advantages of this method?

• It’s  cheap -1 day of your time is usually enough for you to sit and take notes of what your participants say as they carry out the tasks, plus a small gift for your participants.
  
• It’s relatively robust – even if you aren’t an ideal facilitator, your findings should be useful (as long as you don’t put words into their mouths!)
  
• It’s flexible – you can do it at any point in the development process. 
  
• It’s convincing – your developers will like to know what real users think.
  

Can it really be that easy? Well yes, it is – but there are a few things you need to be careful about:

• It’s not good for detailed stats.
  
• It’s an unnatural situation, so it can be hard for participants to keep up the monologue. 
  
• Most people want to seem clever, so there can be a tendency for people to think and ‘edit’ before they speak – you want them to speak as they think.
  
• You may need to prompt to keep the monologue flowing – or to ask clarifying questions from time to time – but you need to do your utmost not to affect the user behaviour, or your results won’t be any use

Find out more

• Thinking aloud: the number one usability tool: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/thinking-aloud-tests.html
  
• Recruiting test participants for usability studies: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030120.html
  

It’s very nearly cookie time!

Some areas of our work are governed by legislation and regulations. Dull? Well, maybe, but making sure we are in compliance is vital, as we are so reliant on our good reputations.

As most of us are now aware, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) are changing this May, following a change in EU regulations last May, and they affect certain areas of our work.

I’m grateful to a recent email from dotMailer reminding us about this. There is plenty of information online about the subjects – but to get you started, I’ve put together a few quick and hopefully straightforward answers to some of the main questions you might have. Please remember, though, that what I’ve written here is only guidance, not legal advice. For more details, follow  the links at the end of this blog.

When do we need to be compliant by?

26 May 2012. We were given 1 year’s grace by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the regulations came into force on 26 May 2011.

What might we have to do differently in order to be compliant?

It’s all about the way we collect data about our users - the data that we make use of to target them more effectively. From May 2012 onwards, some of the main things we’ll need to make sure we do are:

•        Gain a user’s prior consent at any point where they sign up for something. Otherwise, we won’t be allowed to use open tracking in our future emails to them. (We won’t need to get their retrospective consent for data collected before May 2012 – but if they sign up for something new, we will need their consent.)
  
•        If you usually collect consent at a later stage (offering an opt-out every time you contact them in future - this is known as a soft opt-in), you will need to email new recipients, making your request for consent for Open Tracking the main call to action. It will need to appear above the fold, in text (not just as an image), and above any other calls to action.

Are there things we can do to make this easier?

•        Kill two birds with one stone (!) If you are collecting an opt-in (for example, on a website sign-up form or a product purchase page), include the Open Tracking opt-in text with your email permission opt-in text – that way, the user will only have to tick one box. dotDigital gives a helpful example of the wording you could use:
  

"Check this box to sign up to our weekly newsletter. By signing up you allow us to use Open Tracking to monitor and improve your email experience."

•     Be transparent. Include a clear explanation in your Privacy Policy about Open Tracking: what it is, how you use it and how it will affect your users.
  

Anything else we should be aware of?

• Find out whether your Email Service Provider (ESP) uses any other cookies to collect data. If they do, you’ll need to get consent for them, too.
  
• Moving your ESP out of the EU will not prevent you from needing to comply: if your users are in the EU, the regulations affect you.
  
• Triggered emails are also covered by this legislation.
  
• The legislation doesn’t apply to social sharing or Forward to a friend – as long as these are accessed using a link.
  

What are the penalties for non-compliance?

A fine of up to £500,000 - according to which.co.uk: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx

Read more

• DotMailer’s guide for e-marketers: http://www.dotdigitalblog.com/dotmailer-2/dotmailers-no-nonsense-guidance-on-how-the-new-pecr-rules-will-affect-email-marketers/
  
• ICO guide to cookie use: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx
  
• DMA guidance (you need to be a DMA member to access this): http://www.dma.org.uk/toolkit/countdown-cookie-compliance
  

Put yourself in their shoes: 2 reasons why user empathy matters more than ever

Slideshare… what a brilliant concept, I love it. (Though I do sometimes find myself wishing I could hear the voice of the presenter…)

I saw an interesting tweet about the future of information architecture and followed the link to look at a fascinating presentation (available on Slideshare) made by Peter Morville for World IA Day 2012.

Morville explains that as the digital world has developed and diversified – beyond websites & emails to the huge and varied range of tools now at our fingertips – users are now at risk (my words, not his!).

Yes, they have more opportunities than ever, with so many different tools to choose between… And so do we, of course – we have so many different ways to connect with users…

But users are potentially in trouble. There are 2 main threats to their successful use of our amazing digital products:

1. Fragmentation – organisations have so many different sites, domains & online identities now that it isn’t always easy or obvious to users that they are dealing with the same organisation in each place.
2. Findability – poor (unhelpful & inconsistent) navigation is still a problem. And given that so many users arrive at a website via a search engine or a link deep into the site, it’s easy to feel lost and confused on arrival.

Add to this the fact that users can, perhaps, be divided into 2 different camps, the fast and the slow, each with different experiences, needs and impact. Morville includes this fabulous quote:

“The fast parts learn, propose & absorb but the slow parts remember, integrate & constrain.

The fast parts get all the attention. The slow parts have all the power.”
(Stewart Brand - on Pace layering)

… which, to me, highlights the fact that able, digitally articulate users make sure we don’t ignore their needs, but they are actually in a minority; in contrast, the average user is nowhere near as able or articulate or demanding – but there are way more of them! Clearly we can’t design our digital systems to be really effective unless we take the needs of both types of user into consideration.

Getting under the skins of our users is crucial. User empathy – in this age of increased digital diversification – is a skill that will be more and more in demand.

Read more

• See Morville's presentation slides: http://www.slideshare.net/morville/the-future-of-information-architecture
• User experience: using empathy to empower your users: http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/10/04/user-experience-using-empathy-to-empower-your-users/
• Empathy – essential soft skills for user experience practitioners: http://www.disambiguity.com/empathy/