Consulting Services for Improving Software User Interface
Consulting services are offered to enhance product design and are based on the rationale described below.
Try to classify necessary and desirable features versus those that increase complexity without enhancing usefulness for most users. To be useful, software does not require highly detailed graphics or color options. Instead, it needs to be user oriented: simple in organization, easy to learn, easy to navigate (requiring the most economical series of keystrokes to achieve each objective -- developers should not forget the lessons of time and motion analysis), and possess a coherent logic that is learned, relearned, and rehearsed as the user employs its various features.
Our basic guideline in evaluating software user friendliness is that simpler is better . In contrast, much software is packed with enormous amounts of detail, includes many assumptions regarding user know-how, and is poorly organized. If you design computer software, ask yourself this: "How can I teach a total novice the most essential elements of my program in one hour?" Or: "How can I organize my software features, as they are presented to users, so that the most basic features required by 90-95% of users will be immediately accessible and apparent, with the remaining more complex and esoteric features delegated to a secondary position?
A novice user should be able to learn all basic functions of the software within one or two hours. In contrast, most software today is so full of confusing detail that novice users need to devote great effort to learn to navigate the various necessary features. Even then, they may be unable to perform many functions they require and may find themselves continuously frustrated by "help" features that are no help at all.
The aforementioned problems arise because the logic and organization of software categories (i.e., the menu or function hierarchy) is often dictated by engineers and programmers who have worked for lengthy periods on various features of the software. Also, subsequent modifications of an earlier software contain new features that are tacked on here and there, with little regard to how they might fit into a coherent organization. It is difficult for these individuals who have lived for months, or even years, with the development of a product to distance themselves sufficiently from the software and to perceive it from the perspective of the end user. As a consequence, the hierarchy of categories used to access various features of a program is usually a communication disaster! Common problems are that
- the hierarchy of categories, including top menu items, employs new, unfamiliar, and unconventional names instead of familiar ones found in other products
- various features included within a category are tacked on as an afterthought as the software is developed and not because of any logical relation to the menu item under which they are located
- the software developer is enamored with different styles and types of graphics, windows, and page segments, each littered with varied text and links, presumed to yield an attractive or appealing appearance. This is without regard, once again, to logic or organization of features.
- poor organization of menu hierarchy exponentially increases the memory burden imposed on users.
Many software packages are not as successful commercially as they might be because they are not approachable for the novice or less experienced computer user. The problem often is that much software is still exclusively designed by expert engineers who only may have an intuitive or vague appreciation of user needs and requirements. In short, software is designed from the perspective of the developer rather than that of the end user. Sequences of required keystrokes or choices of keystrokes that may be incredibly obvious to the programmer are often unknown and puzzling to a user. So-called in-built "help" features employ a system of categories or classifications that may be evident to the developers, but are hardly intelligible to the user. If software is designed from the standpoint of the naive user, many such incomprehensible dilemmas can be eliminated entirely.
The above-mentioned problems stem from lack of understanding of user needs. They are testimony to (a) a software developer's automatic reliance on his/her own intuition, knowledge, and individual perspective and worse yet, (b) need to show off the complexity and versatility of a product. The net effect is that users cannot easily access the various functions they like to use -- the software is not user friendly.
Development of software requires participation by non-programmers who are trained to understand the consumer's point of view. When this point of view is properly integrated into the software design, all facets of the product (including software features, introductory or tutorial materials, help features) require the least possible effort from end users.
Here are some of the questions software developers need to ask: What does the typical user need? What are the common learning problems encountered? Which functions are essential (i.e., used with great frequency) and which features are inconsequential and unnecessary?
How many picky and arbitrary rules, moves, and clicks does the software require users to remember? For most software, this can easily run into the hundreds.
A simple consideration of memory burden imposed by the software will provide a convenient gauge of user-friendliness. Remember that different kinds graphical features (windows, boxes, tabs) intuitively imply different functions. Is this in fact the case or are varied graphics used simply because the developer thinks these make the software more attractive or interesting?
It is important to keep graphics simple and uniform, that is, to use as few different window styles as possible and thereby reduce complexity and any misleading implications to users that different graphics represent drastically different functions. A by-product of this approach is the reduction of memory burden.
Essentially, any software package can be broken down into an outline (or hierarchy) of functions and almost all of these can be communicated quickly and effectively with simple drop-down menus. Most importantly, items or functions included within each category must exhibit a logical and functional relationship with one another and with the category name under which they are grouped. When this is successfully accomplished, memory burden on the user is tremendously reduced.
Help files are often based on the idiosyncratic organization of the menu hierarchy and thus fail to be of much help. The words a user enters while searching in the "help" index are not present in the index because, once again, the common sense (user) concepts regarding functions that ought to be present in the software are described with esoteric verbiage and jargon. In brief, the logic of the organization of categories (features) and the names of those categories are not apparent to users.
Taking a user-oriented perspective, you can identify weaknesses in your hierarchy of features (i.e., the menu and sub-menu categories) used to organize and present various features of your software.
Color and graphics are of course needed to establish an identity and basic emotional undertone to a web site. Aside from such uses of color and graphics,our motto is: "If an element or graphic in a web site (or any link in a web site) does not communicate anything meaningful or significant, then delete it!" If you try this approach in earnest, you will be forced to get rid of all the unnecessary (supposedly pretty) fluff and will find yourself face-to-face with the most important question: What is the best way to organize the material I want to present? How can I organize the links in my web site so that navigation through them will be most intuitively obvious to those who are unfamiliar with all that I have to offer?
It is probably safe to say that most web sites are communication failures. Even the most expensively designed and commonly used commercial web sites (note, for instance, the Google AdWords or Yahoo Advertiser sites)often lack any coherent logic or user friendliness. One common problem appears to be a fascination with, and overuse of, graphics, color, multiplicity of tables within a page, and highly detailed content within each table. Examples are color combinations and background textures that render textual material unreadable, almost invariably meaningless icons or identifying labels, overwhelming variety of sections, colors, buttons, and topics crammed into a single introductory site and, paradoxically, lacking some of the most essential and obvious information that should have been provided in large letters near the very top of the site. Note, for example, absence of a "directory" link (that would provide email addresses and telephone numbers of faculty and students) in many university or professional organization web sites.