The role of the finance team in organisations is changing. The finance team has become ever more responsible for creation of competitive advantage within the organisation; through driving insight and innovation quickly and responsively across the business.

The key concerns of finance have always been the streamlining of processes, the reduction of costs, and achieving rapid ROI and substantial IRR on investments. This has traditionally lead to a focus on efficiency and cost reduction at the expense of innovation and growth.

There is now a shift in focus from just being an efficient operation to a focus on engagement with customers, taking an outside-in view. This shift in focus requires a change in mindset and culture, both inside and outside finance. Further, it requires new ways of working and new technologies.

The CFO needs to get a clear understanding of the business needs and drive a can-do attitude to innovation. New ways of working combined with new technologies such as Serverless Cloud are key facilitators in this change. The business should be designed around what the customer wants, and it is not always the case that the business has a good understanding of what this is, particularly as it changes over time; these changes are becoming more frequent and unpredictable and can often catch the business out.

The drive for customer centric innovation is further hampered by legacy systems and inefficient technology practices that are a cost burden and barrier to innovation. Legacy technology processes are slow and expensive, a recent IDC report identified that 2/3 of delivered solutions are never or rarely used. This high level of waste in IT spend results in a poor ROI and IRR.

The CFO is looking for low risk, low cost outcomes that will deliver a high IRR and rapid ROI. Taking an outcomes based approach to delivering solutions, along with leveraging lean ways of working and Serverless Cloud Technologies driven by the CFO, is the key to successful Digital Transformation.

 

As the web proliferates and we interact with it in numerous ways, we need to be aware of the importance technology plays in satisfying human needs when interacting with a web application. There is another aspect that we perhaps do not pay as much attention to which is the psychology or the mind-play that happens when we interact with the web. This article explores this topic and tries to enliven the somewhat ‘obscure’ portions of what happens when we go click-click-click.

The Influence of Past Experiences

We carry within us previous experiences of having dealt with web applications / websites, experiences positive or negative, pleasant or unpleasant, successful or otherwise which impacts how we interact with a (new) website. There are some standard ways of interaction with the websites that we are conscious of (e.g. back button to navigate to the previous page, login / registration process) and not having these standards in place or working as before causes delay, inconvenience and frustration that can make us want to move away from such websites, maybe forever. These standards help users to navigate faster, with their expectation of what is to follow getting confirmed, and resulting in a feeling of satisfaction. When there are several confirmations, they become patterns translating to feelings of happiness. (Indeed, this does not mean that a “standard” is equivalent to “no innovation”, absolutely not! But a set standard can ONLY be ignored provided usability is improved. Jeffrey Zeldman wisely said, “consideration beats pattern”).

Emotions

There is no doubt that the first interaction with a website conjures some emotions that connects or dispels us from carrying on working with it. Apart from the correct functional workability of the website in providing us what we want, the web elements including the images, colour, layout, white space, and so on, impact our ‘emotional experience’. As much as these do, even the quickness the website exhibits when it ‘responds’ to our command and results that get shown also matters.

Let’s look at these emotions influencing elements in greater detail.

Colour | less is more

It is known that a particular choice of colour or colours used together evokes a certain mood and stirs emotions within us. Colours can make us feel happy or sad, relaxed or anxious. Research has also proven that people are strongly influenced by colour when they decide to buy. For example, Red draws attention, is a colour of love, passion and gets the blood pumping with excitement while Green stands for cleanliness, health, prosperity and completeness. Pink and Blue are known to appeal to women more than men.

When we interact with the web, we associate colour with the intent of the messages i.e. when the message is in Green colour we associate that with success and those in Red with failure or warnings issued (say to correct an incorrect input). Wouldn’t a hyperlink lose meaning if it was not in blue colour (see what I mean)?

Websites sometimes employ the colour(s) of the brand to help brand-recall. But generally it’s best to use few colours to keep it simple. Garish colours or flashy colourful elements are a strict no-no from a disability discrimination perspective since they unduly impact visually impaired people or may induce epilepsy in afflicted people. An example that comes to mind is the controversy around the London 2012 Olympics logo.

Simple Layout is powerful

In a 2012 study from Google and the University of Basel, researchers found that users judge a website’s aesthetic beauty and perceived functionality in 1/20th to 1/50th of a second. We thus take decisions in an instinctive and instantaneous manner. The ideal website is, therefore, one where we see and find what we want within a blink of the eye. Here the Google page resonates eminently from a simplicity and usability perspective. When our eyes set sight on its page with all but a text box in the centre encircled with white space, the mind quickly figures the words to type in and we are off in a flash. The experience is further complemented by a quick response that makes us happy to ensure we visit it again (and again).

We have grown to expect certain elements to be located in a certain (prototypical) location and our brain gets confused if it does not find it there. For example, can you imagine the ‘next’ link located away from the page nos., links displayed in the pagination footer or the ‘checkout’ option on a shopping cart website located to the left instead of on the right?

In short, a simple layout makes it comfortable for the user and there’s lots of power in that. We want things to be simple and easy because of psychological reasons:

• We generally want more by spending less effort. So instead of words, if images and examples can be used the interactive experience becomes faster and more comfortable;
• Not all brains can process humongous elements of text hence we need to have headers or text in bold or in large font to break things down and ease it out;
• Our memory doesn’t stay young forever and remembers only what it needs to;
• Our level of concentration is susceptible to not stay sharp all the time;
• There are aural and visual issues that some people suffer from. While the web must cater to their needs to make web universal, there is a parallel need to use visually appealing and innovative design to attract and focus attention for those who are not.

The web designers and developers need to be mindful and build accordingly, suiting the context of the product and its users to ensure the desired outcome.

Games that people play and why?

Is there any psychology behind the enormous success of Angry Birds and now Candy Crush (many times over)? Why is a child-like game so intensely popular even with adults, whatever their dispensation? Well, both these games are on the surface simple to play, very colourful with very appealing background sound elements. Angry Birds would not have been as addictive without the sounds of pigs rejoicing, grunting and what have you. There is even an element of ‘nostalgia’ that Candy Crush induces by playing to our ‘those-were-the-days’ (childhood) mindset.

In a laboratory, rats are induced to work with scientists with tidbits of food offered at specific intervals of time as a rewarding means of telling them that they have done their bit. This constant gratification encourages them to cooperate with the scientists in an uninterrupted manner. Likewise Angry Birds and Candy Crush work on an ‘Action-Reward-New option’ strategy interspersed with pleasing sounds, additional points, bursts of colour and new levels being accessed that spur the player on, be it a man of 60 or a child of 5 years. As is, this is playing on the mind so age does not really matter.

Even being part of or creating a sense of order contributes to our addiction or immersion into games be it SIMS, World of Warcraft where we create/architect beautiful landscapes. In such roleplaying games the addiction happens since we can play and cater to the secret, innate desires of our minds to control and become stronger, more skilled and so on. Such games play like a dream and we get sucked into the experience seemingly lost to the real world.

A personal favourite worth a mention is Limbo, screenshot above, in which, as the story unfolds, a little boy advances through multiple challenges, encountering monsters, tricky landscapes solving puzzles along the way. The visually stunning ‘arty’ grayscale environment adds greatly to the mystique and it succeeds and impacts the mind, despite sound used minimally (unlike Angry Birds & Candy Crush).

Crowd emotions

No article of this kind will be complete without looking at the psychology of group emotions at play. An interesting example is that of Facebook. Why has Facebook succeeded and why have its members opened the doors into their private lives they once so scrupulously guarded? (Funnily despite our data being sold by Facebook we seem not bothered).  It stems from the feeling of wanting to be accepted, feel better (self-esteem), to be ‘liked’, to air one’s grouses in the open, hopeful of assurances etc. We also seek gratification and approval for our looks when we post photographs of ourselves and family.

We have seen here that web development cannot ignore the psychology so inherent in everything that we do be it online shopping, banking or play. As much as we need to make the best use of technology employing optimal practices with requisitely skilled people to develop software, ignoring the mental aspects of what goes in the end-user mind with respect to colour, emotions, ease of use, speed and so on will be completely at the peril of the outcome we want to derive.

References

The psychology behind successful Web design

5 psychology secrets for great interaction design

Olympic Logo Causes Fits

The psychology of simple

The Psychologist’s View of UX Design

My favourite waste of time: why Candy Crush and Angry Birds are so compulsive

Kissmetrics Colour Psychology

The Human Psychology behind Facebook’s Success

“Personalised marketing at scale” – it sounds like just another buzz term, but in reality it has already become the fastest-growing digital marketing trend and is set to represent a new approach that will transform the way that companies approach the media.

However, in reality digital personalisation is much more than that: with chances are that, in the near future, nearly every digital product will be able to be personalised.

The digital personalisation marketing phenomenon

In essence, digital personalisation in marketing is based around the idea of reaching different customers using different messages. So instead of just having one single advertisement on television, for example, that everyone sees, it instead means you adjust your executions based on the different interests, locations, demographics or even purchase history of your users.

One of the most high profile examples came from Coca-Cola when it segmented the population of the USA for its Facebook Super Bowl advert in 2014. Depending on where different customers lived, they received different thumbnails and different copy meant to reflect their interests. Of course, there is a balance to be found here: no matter how detailed you go it’s still vital to ensure that you still reach an overall significant level of people.

Why this is much more than just digital marketing…

Personalisation is stretching beyond marketing and into the strategies of digital product manufacturers worldwide.

Take, for example, BskyB. Speaking earlier this year, Rob Jackson, the senior ecommerce manager at BskyB commented on how the satellite television operator is now offering personalised experiences to more than 2.7million customers through Sky and the Sky Shop. Sky has utilised Adobe Target Premium to help it automate personalisation where possible allowing it to take insights from online behaviour and then using them in other channels. According to Jackson, Sky has enjoyed significant incremental uplift thanks to the use of these personalisation tactics.

Yet, according to research from Gartner, 80 per cent of CMOs are not yet ready to take that next big step into management of digital experiences in the form of personalisation. So what strategic steps can be taken?

Developing a digital personalisation strategy

Step one | Develop personas for users

Establishing a clear understanding of the core challenges that face your users, buyers and consumers will help you develop marketing messages that can help to solve them. Thanks to the emergence of new technologies it is possible to personalise the experience and tailor content for users while increasing both conversions and leads.

So how do you do this? Developing user personas should be about a lot more than just gaining a list of job titles. Instead you should look at every aspect of each target user’s professional life: some personas will be more complex than others dependent on the complexities of the proposition. This should include what each user’s initiative is and what is considered success for them.

Step two | Plot the user journey

It doesn’t matter how the user found you: when you’re creating your digital personalisation strategy you should always consider that the user is on a journey. By mapping out the journey of the user it is possible to pre-empt potential drop-offs while also maximising the possibilities for conversion.

Your aim should be to map as many interactions as possible. For example, imagine you’re trying to get a user to sign up for a newsletter. Normally this will mean creating a landing page. The user will decide if they are interested in the offer… if they are not, they will exit. If they are, they can register and sign up. However, the reality is that most users will drop out long before they get to the registration form and if the user experience isn’t good then there will be further drop-offs occurring during the registration phase.

As such, you should think beyond simply transactional interactions. Try to map all interactions and match them with analytic data: and this can then be used to reduce the number of potential drop-offs. In the case of e-commerce websites this becomes increasingly complex with the potential to form highly targeted product placements based on behavioural metrics from consumer profiles.

Step three | Integrate systems

The idea behind developing a digital personalisation strategy is that you can potentially increase leads, sales and conversion rates. However, it’s far from easy as you need both the right technology and the correct strategy.

One of the keys to personalisation technology is the chance to track a customer’s online journey and then pass this information across to a CRM system. Generally speaking, providers will offer a range of CRM connectors, such as Oracle and MS Dynamics. The idea is that your sales team should know which products have been looked at and can then tailor conversations with clients accordingly.

In this regard, technology can be massively powerful. As such it is possible to move away from basic interactions and move towards tailored conversions. Remember that on many occasions the buyer’s decision will be made even before they contact you (with procurement based on ITT being a possible exception): so effectively using digital personalisation technology gives you the best chance of increasing conversion rates and therefore positively impacting your overall profits.

Back in April 2015 the world’s most popular search engine Google started to roll out its latest major algorithm update for its core search service. Dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’ in some quarters, the update was first officially confirmed by Google in late February on its central webmaster blog.

As with all major algorithm updates, the ramifications for organisations which rely on organic search position can be huge – in some previous update instances businesses have had to fundamentally change to survive while others have withered away as their visitors go elsewhere.

What shouldn’t be lost when considering why Google makes these changes is that the company wants to continue to provide what it considers to be the best search engine on the market and thus protect its main source of revenue. Just as with Panda and Penguin updates that came before, this mobile-friendly update is just part of Google’s quest to provide the most relevant results for any given search and this latest change sees mobile-friendly pages receive a boost on mobile search results compared to results which aren’t classed as mobile-friendly.

We have all been there; performed a search for something on our smartphone and hit a webpage which offers a really poor experience: trouble reading the tiny text, lots of screen pinching, unresponsive buttons. What do we do? We rarely battle away instead preferring to select an alternative webpage better configured to our smartphone.

According to comScore, mobile now outstrips desktop in the volume of global internet users, while speaking at a conference in 2014, Google’s very own Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, admitted he wouldn’t be surprised if mobile search exceeded desktop queries as early as late-2014.

How does Google define mobile-friendly?

In a nutshell, Google believes that a high quality mobile-friendly page, not only contains good quality, unique content which the searcher wants to consume but that it can be consumed without the need to tap or zoom, that tap targets (where you put your finger) are appropriately spaced, horizontal scrolling does not occur and that unplayable content is avoided.

Sounds simple right? Not necessarily, however all is not lost as Google has also released and supports a handy tool which grades any website for its mobile-friendliness, even suggesting how to improve a user’s experience when consuming the website on a small screen.

Google’s move towards favouring mobile-friendly search results is there to be seen. Perform

This wholesale shift towards embracing small touchscreens means that when it comes to software development a mobile first philosophy is now generally a prerequisite.

What does Mobile First mean?

Mobile first literally means that all designs for a digital product is created for a mobile device initially. A mobile device for prototyping purposes is defined as having a portrait screen in which a single column of content is presented. There are scenarios where a landscape screen orientation would be advantageous, however they should be considered the exception rather than the rule.

At Arrk Group, mobile first is used as a reductionist strategy during the creative sessions of our customer EmbArrk™ workshops. This means that all paper prototyping is designed around producing content targeted for a mobile screen. This inherently removes focus from extraneous screen elements such as footers, tooltips, menus and brandmarks, instead the presentation of pertinent screen content is paramount.

Designing for the smallest screen size also offers the advantage that scaling for a large screen, is generally a simple task of taking advantage of the extra space available. However reducing a desktop screen design for mobile is an expensive activity, and when a process such as ‘graceful degradation’ is employed, the mobile offering naturally becomes the poor relation of the larger design.

Tips on how to do mobile first design

• Ensure the development team knows what mobile first means
• Design the digital product from the ground up to be mobile first, even if the primary use case is desktop
• Use a toolset that is mobile first and responsive
• Build a design, develop, test & review cycle that includes mobile devices (both physical & emulated) in the plan

What is a ‘mobile’ device?

The definition of a mobile device is continually changing, however the screen width has emerged as the key indicator for device type.

Bootstrap v3.3.4 classes all screens into the following groups (the dimension refers to the screen width);

Description	Screen Width
Extra Small Devices Mobile	<768px
Small Devices Tablets	≥768px
Medium Devices Desktops	≥992px
Large Devices Desktops	≥1200px

This method removes the need for determining whether a device is a phone, a phablet, a tablet, a net book etc.

Of course digital wireframes/simulations for 4x variants would be exorbitantly expensive, so developing 2x variants (essentially mobile & desktop) with a breakpoint at 900 px is an effective compromise.

Impact on Search Results

According to research performed by searchmetrics the share of mobile-friendly appearing in the first three pages of any given search on Google has increased by 3%, which accounts for 71% of the first three pages of results.

The flip side being that only 29% of results on those first three pages are deemed by Google to be mobile unfriendly. Econsultancy has also looked into the impact of the Google Update, with some interesting results for some of the UK’s major businesses, such as Barclay’s, ASDA and British Airways. The conclusion being that the algorithm update has had the desired impact of pushing mobile-friendly pages up the rankings while dragging down unfriendly pages.

Perhaps not a seismic fiction that some industry commentators were predicting however it is further evidence that employing a mobile first strategy when developing is vital for the long term viability for that digital product.

Digital solutions should improve people’s lives. They should save time, save money and produce better outcomes for end users.

To achieve this, it is critically important that customers are willing to use a digital service, and that they find it intuitive, speedy and accessible. This means that investment has been well employed and that customers’ needs and preferences have been sufficiently taken into account in the design and implementation of the service.

In this White Paper we explore:

• How to design customer focused digital services including key strategies and best practice
• How customer focused services relate to current trends in digital technology
• Navigability and customer interaction with digital services
• Local Government and automotive case studies detailing radical improvements in services, through adopting a more customer-focused approach

In conclusion, we present a checklist of recommendations for customer-focused ecommerce websites, along with suggestions of ways to engage and retain customers.

Download your free copy of the Putting The User First White Paper now.

It may seem like an odd combination: applying a Transport for London concept to your business. However, red routes in London have more in common with the way we work than you may think.

Here we take a look at the theory of red routes and how they can be applied to your business and specifically your website.

What are red routes in London?

Red routes have been designed in London because London has more cars than it has parking spaces: as such, trying to find parking spaces in London is like a game of musical chairs with many drivers searching around desperately looking for an empty place next to a kerb. This became even more difficult when yellow lines on main roads were usurped by red lines that banned all forms of parking, stopping and loading on designated routes.

These roads with red lines became known as red routes: with Transport for London doing all it can to ensure that journeys on these roads are as fast and smooth as possible. Effectively they are seen as the key arteries that make transport flow in London: and it’s vital that these roads are not clogged by drivers looking for a place to park.

Are red routes working?

The short answer is: yes. According to research, bus journeys have become 10 per cent quicker and 27 per cent more reliable since red routes were introduced. Indeed there has also been a six per cent reduction in accidents while reliability has improved by an impressive 20 per cent.

So how can this theory be applied to your business?

The red route concept needn’t be restricted to bus journeys: it can actually be applied to websites too. If we become the traffic wardens and treat objects that affect usability in the same way that they treat badly behaved drivers then we can reap the rewards of a much more efficient website. However, how do we go about doing this?

Red route rules: how to apply them to your business

Effectively you must think about how critical the activity is and how frequently customers use it. For example, a frequent activity might be “search” because customers are so reliant on it. Meanwhile, a critical activity is something that your users will be very frustrated by if it is not well supported. This might include something such as editing your personal details on a website. These activities are effectively the core of your website: if you get them wrong, then your business could be under threat.

What should a red route look like on your website?

The red routes you identify for your website should focus on the following areas:

• Key business objectives: For example, if you have a local authority website then this could be something like paying council tax; or if you run an e-commerce site then this could be the ability to buy your product. These are vital routes for your organisation to ensure it makes money trouble-free.
• Key customer objectives: Don’t focus solely on money making – think about what’s important from your customer’s perspective too. Visitors on your website have their own goals: for example, if you have an e-commerce website then they will want to know that they are getting true value for money as there is always the consideration that they might be able to find the product for less somewhere else; or that some of its key features might not match up to other products. So defining the product becomes a red route: highlighting things such as customer reviews and testimonials or showing comparative prices on competitor websites. All of these factors are important to your customer and will help them make the decision of whether or not to buy the product from your website.

According to Dr David Travis at UserFocus, red routes should follow five key characteristics:

• They should be complete activities than usually rely on several web pages. They should not be simple tasks.
• They should lead to a measure of accomplishment: there should be a clear “success” by using a red route, something more than just wanting the website to be “user friendly”.
• Portability is vital – think about the services that competitors offer and ensure that your route is clearer and simpler to use.
• Goal focused – they should dictate a single implementation and should not be procedural steps.
• Be realistic – focus on the most important goals for your organisation and be accurate.

How to find your red routes and what to do with them

Perhaps the key to finding the red routes for your company is to carry out market research. This doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily asking people directly: but rather that you’re looking at search queries over a large period of time so you know what people are looking for and how they are arriving on your website from Google; ask the people in your company what customers are asking for; listen to customer calls if you have a call centre; and look at your competitor’s approach.

Once you find your red routes, order them in terms of whether they are critical or serious and then attempt to address the problems. Think about how easy they are for users to overcome and whether the problem is persistent. Hard to solve problems are more important because they effect the completion rate; while persistent problems may cause customers to look elsewhere.

Addressing these problems will not reduce traffic on your website… but they will make your roads smoother.

It is often said that usability testing is a necessary evil of software development, it is said by some to disrupt the development process whereas others find it takes too much work to properly instigate. What is often forgotten is that there is tremendous value in observing real users working and interacting with an application, prior to release.

At Arrk Group, we are firmly of the belief that usability testing can be enormously beneficial for teams at various stages of software development. A recently undertaken customer project further highlighted this belief, with the customer not only finding the outcomes enlightening but the usability issues flagged up during these sessions were immediately prioritised to be taken up in the next development release.

Why Usability Testing?

The simple idea behind usability testing, yet so important for high quality software development, is that if the real people who use the finished product cannot effectively do so then they will not want it, however wonderful and ground breaking it might be. Some of the reasons why usability testing helps during software development:

• Alternative viewpoints. By providing a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ on the application, interacting with the product as an end-user offers a completely unbiased opinion with no vested interest in any element of the design or functionality.
• Unpredicted responses. Usability testing is an excellent way of recording and evaluating any workarounds, hacks and alternative paths that users might try to make tools fit the way they want to use them.
• Playing the trump card. Good quality, rigorous usability testing analysis will trump development team gut feelings and opinion wars, which means informed developmental decisions can be taken quicker and add impetus to the project.
• Search engine performance. For some projects the impact on search engine organic results performance can be assisted through usability testing. While the influence is indirect, a search engine indexes websites by looking for quality content and stacks it based on keywords, links, site structure, linking patterns, user engagement metrics and machine learning. In many cases mimicking a user’s journey through an application.
• Pushing boundaries. Usability testing ensures that the development team constantly places the end user at the centre of its work, and stops teams from straying in a coding comfort zone.

How we Usability Test

At Arrk Group, Usability Testing has been carried out for applications which are in-use but the success with the Usability Testing framework along with our EmbArrk sessions has convinced us that Usability Testing can be successfully performed earlier in development projects, for example as early as when draft UI / mock-ups are produced. Usability Testers are selected from Arrk Group’s systems administration team, with a team of Testers selected on the following criteria:

• No previous exposure to the application being tested.
• Experience of using similar monitoring tools.
• Broad mix of expertise.
• Ability to think like an end user to understand likely scenarios and context.

Usability testing can incorporate both internal and external people, the important aspect is to create an end-user representative sample size to make session outputs meaningful.

The Usability Testing framework

Our framework consists of five sections.

1. Logistics and Test Planning

In this first stage, resource allocation, scheduling, test strategy and Test team recruitment is determined. In case of external participants look to arrange and confirm session dates, with draft session itinerary where possible, also agree any participant incentives for completing usability tests. We work collaboratively with the customer to develop and agree the Usability Testing objectives and prepare detailed participant profiles.

One testing team member is selected as moderator for a specific session and where a project requires multiple Testing sessions an alternate moderator should be selected. We do this because every moderator has their own style of running a session and switching between observer and moderator roles helps to foster learning. An example of Usability Testing objectives might include:

• How many participants successfully complete a task?
• How quickly do the participants complete a task, on average?
• How many errors are made while attempting to complete that task, on average?

2. Test Preparation

Test preparation involves defining tasks for the participant(s) to perform, setting up the test environment and publishing the final schedule to all the involved parties. So what works as a test script?

• The tasks must be easy to understand, self-explanatory and contextual from an end-user point of view.
• All complex and detailed scenarios should be broken down into small and meaningful tasks.
• All stakeholders should be involved creating the test script, including the business analysis team (to ensure real user and business context), the marketing team (so that the selling points to be marketed to the consumer are covered) and the development team (to get a sense of the vulnerability of the application under test, its quirks, technical implementations, limitations, stable areas of the application).

In advance of a Usability Testing session an appropriate environment is required, with all tasks tested to ensure correct behaviour of the application and prevent any surprises. When setting up a test environment, consider:

• No distractions. Ensure the test application is stable and free of any unwanted distractions, such as sudden pop-ups, and conducive to taking the test and recording observations.
• Physical environment. Ensure that the Test room is a welcoming and pleasant environment, using comfortable seating where possible and ensuring the room is clean and well lit. Also make sure that there is sufficient space for the moderator to moderate and observe next to the participant.
• Logistics. Prior to the start of the session make sure that any tools and telephone handsets are working so that observers can follow and accurately record the participant’s actions and feedback.
• Provide adequate refreshments and breaks for all participants.
• Realistic time frames and preparing for the unexpected. The moderator should confirm participation and provide a realistic schedule.
• A contingency plan is also a good idea if some test participants or observers fail to attend.

3. Test Execution

The moderator should take responsibility for ensuring a smooth Usability Testing session, ensuring that all participants are welcomed and thanked, including an explanation of what is involved and how long it should take, as well as obtaining consent to record some or all of the session.

Consideration should also be given to asking participants to sign non-disclosure agreement forms. Remember that the session is not about testing the end user, merely their interaction with the application. Care should be taken in clearly expressing this to remove any apprehension the participant may be feeling.

Example Timeline
The moderator should check the logistics in the test room and the observation room and ensure that observers have what they need to record findings. The moderator should also provide some final tips for the observer team and hand over the task sheet(s).
The moderator greets and escorts the participant(s) to the test room.
The moderator provides a brief introduction, including any health and safety notices, and an overview of the session to the participant.
The moderator asks for consent documents to be signed and non-disclosure agreements (if required), while answering any questions or concerns raised by participants.
The test session starts, each task expressed and handed out individually to the participant.
The participant is asked to think aloud and asked to perform the task with no instruction/minimal involvement from the moderator.
The moderator should ensure the participant is given necessary breaks and refreshments between individual tasks, as required.
The observer team notes down observations and questions for the participant.
Upon completion of the session, the moderator asks participants for further feedback. Someone from the observation team passes a list of questions which the moderator checks with the participant.
The moderator asks whether the participant has anything further to add, thanks and provides the participation incentive (if required).

4. Observation

To ensure observation is successful, Arrk Group operates an ‘active’ observation, which means observers should:

• Try not to interpret, or second guess, the actions/responses of the participant.
• Focus on capturing the details and quotes of the participant, what they say and what they do.
• Remove any potential distractions, i.e. mute/switch off mobile phones and shut down any email programs.
• Not think about possible fixes during the session.

The observer team should also record the length of time taken by participants on tasks, number of misfires, issues with the test itself and other key metrics.

5. De-brief and issue prioritisation

After the completion of any Usability Testing session the moderator and observation team should gather for a de-brief to discuss and consolidate findings. Information gathered should be grouped into common themes, with any suggestions shared to improve subsequent sessions. The Testing team should refrain from providing solutions at this stage as there might be further Usability Testing sessions scheduled and alternative findings might be recorded. Once all Usability Test sessions have concluded a final Data Analysis De-Brief is held where all stakeholders meet to discuss findings and prioritise any usability problems which have arisen from the sessions. Some of the frequently found issues which are raised during Usability Testing sessions include problems with search filters, screen layouts, colours and font usage, help buttons and general sizing issues.

Conclusion

Usability Testing should be considered a key component in software development, if an application is to thrive. Users are diverse and complicated, and if an application fails to meet their needs or is counter-intuitive, it is unlikely to succeed. By sampling end-users before releasing an application, the likelihood of the application being ‘user friendly’ is increased. Furthermore, Usability Testing can also provide highly valuable feedback which can feed back into the development of the application. Usability testing fills a pivotal need and complements the other methods of validation like functional testing, performance testing, and accessibility testing. At Arrk Group, we are convinced of its merit in high quality software delivery.

Appendix

The three roles of Usability Testing:

The Moderator

The driving force behind the Usability Test mechanism and if Usability Testing was a team sport the moderator would be the captain. The effectiveness of a moderator can make or break a test. The moderator needs to understand usability aspects, its rationale, must be communicative but not overly and must be people friendly.

The moderator role consists of the following:

• Managing the Usability Testing session.
• Determine and coordinate the tests that the participant should carry out.
• Selecting, interacting and briefing the participant on what is required.
• Encourage, prompt, observe and probe the participant’s actions in a neutral manner.
• To deal with situations that arise in a composed manner.
• Co-ordinate with the observation team and drive the post-session data analysis sessions.

 

The Observer

The observer is someone who attends the test and records some or all of the participants actions, observers could be members of the development team, managers, and members of other companies who are developing interacting products. The observing team is usually located in a different room and observe the participant’s actions of the test tasks, recording them for future analysis and design decisions

Diversity of roles helps in an observation team. At Arrk Group, we include a mix of lead developers, management and UX experts.

The Participant

The participant takes the role of the end-user, performing set tasks and provides honest feedback on a range of application elements. Participants play a vital role in Usability Testing and their contributions can have a profound effect on the development project and should be carefully selected based on the sample profile of the end-user and their ability to articulate their feedback to the moderator and observers.

At Arrk Group, we often use questionnaires to screen participants on the basis of whether they fit the profile of a real end-user. Characteristics considered can be as simple as age, gender, social indicators and field of work. Reward incentives are often provided to the participants for their time.