We’re excited to see Australian Super’s new retirement income calculator launched this week. It helps someone understand what their retirement will be like from a financial sense and what they can change to influence it.
We designed the calculator in collaboration with end users, the client and the developers in an Agile environment. Calculating income in retirement is a complex process with many inputs and assumptions required to spit out a useful result. We found that people didn't want to enter their life's story into a huge form in order to see a result. They wanted to get going quickly, view a result which was meaningful and engaging enough to allow further tweaking to modify their forecast. This required an interactive model with layered panels (aka. Bubbles!) to further customise the results as more data is collected.
So the result was:
An upfront screen asking the bare minimum - every field on here had to fight for its place, gradual engagement is the thinking.
A colour coded chart to present and change the information, backed up by numbers.
Multiple layers of interaction with the chart to allow further customisation.
The dynamic online calculator lets you check how much money you’ll have to live on post-retirement. The design allows you to take into account both single and combined savings; see how changing your retirement age impacts your future lifestyle; and work out how the pension will impact your future income.
My two year old daughter happily uses my iPhone every day. She quickly navigates to her favourite games, and loves to flick through our family photos.
Last night she was watching me browsing through some photos on my laptop, which she knows is off limits. Apparently I wasn’t browsing through the photos fast enough for Matilda. She quickly put her finger to the screen and dragged it to the left to try to slide to the next pic. Yes, there was a bit of a tanty when she got frustrated that it wasn’t working the same way it works on my phone.
For someone who’s never used a mouse or a touchpad before but is comfortable with the iPhone, using her finger to interact with the screen is a really logical way to interact with the new technology. Matilda’s expectation was that her finger would enable her to interact with the screen, just like it does on the iPhone. As designers, I know we try to think about what the user already knows and what their expectations are, and then try to build upon that. Seeing Matilda trying to drag the laptop screen with her finger reminded me how important it is to consider the Principle of Least Astonishment in design. Users build expectations really quickly, so it’s critical that designs are consistent to minimise the number of surprises for the user.
If you feel surprised or astonished when interacting with technology, it’s generally because the experience is a departure from your expectations. We can apply this to experience design in the offline world too. I was recently astonished by my energy provider who were unable to generate a bill for me for more than 6 months, despite my repeated requests for an invoice. This was a huge departure from my expectations, which were based on previous experiences with services from energy providers. Naturally it left me astonished, surprised and disappointed with the experience.
Here are a few quick and easy ways we can address the principle of least astonishment in UI design:
• Grouping like objects together
• Placing the same buttons in the same location across different screens
• Using the same labelling and terminology in content
• Using colour consistently throughout a design.
I was having dinner at a friend’s house a few weeks ago when I noticed her measuring cup; check it out.
This simple kitchen device is a great example of the importance of user research. The users were never aware that there was a problem to be solved! The innovation came through direct observation of users. You can read more about it here.
Look what just came with the boring toner I just ordered... free sweeties! Oh aren’t we easily pleased – yes we are.
I ordered this on Friday morning after I decided to place an order from a new supplier who sell toner at a much lower price than our usual choice of retailer. I thought ok, I’ll try this new shop and hope and pray it arrives. Not only did it arrive in 2 business days (fantastically fast), but it also came with a big handful of sweets thrown in the box. Nice touch! Its small gestures like this that make a shopping experience memorable and also entices customers back. It also turned a boring office supplies order into something a little more fun. Well done and thank you Wholesale Toners Australia – I’ll be shopping with you again.
We're happy to welcome Belinda Walker as the newest addition to our
Melbourne consulting team. Belinda joins us with design experience
gained from CPA Australia and working in local government. Welcome
aboard Belinda!
Stamford Principal Consultant Ruth Ellison has been invited to be part of the judging panel for the MacFarlane Prize, a prestigious award for excellence in Australian web design. Ruth will be judging the contending websites on accessibility, an aspect of design we are passionate about here at Stamford. Nominations for the award close on 21 September 2010. Good luck to all entrants!
Steven Levy has written an article on Google, it's a bit of a potted history of some of its developments over the years and reliance on research gathered from users in real time searches (it is written with quite a 'pro' slant, so you won't find any reference to how users feel about having all of their search data captured). It describes some testing methods, ways in which attempts are made to better understand natural query language and the continual modifications made without disrupting users. I found the time-line listing key advances since 1997 quite interesting.
“Google is famously creative at encouraging these breakthroughs; every year, it holds an internal demo fair called CSI -- Crazy Search Ideas -- in an attempt to spark offbeat but productive approaches. But for the most part, the improvement process is a relentless slog, grinding through bad results to determine what isn't working.”
If I had a cent for every time I had to use the above phrase when I called a customer call centre/helpdesk regarding a telephone, energy, technology or insurance matter, I'd be pulling Australia out of a recession. It seems for many companies the concept of customer experience is non-existent. For example, I called a technology company regarding a faulty item of computer hardware, and have been chasing them up regarding my case for over five days, calling every day. During my last phone call, I was given the sentence "Yes, your case has been forwarded to our engineer, but he's unfortunately not in yet. Can you call back?" Not so great customer experience I say.
As a UCD practitioner, I would love to initiate a customer evaluation project, where I would write some scenarios (my own real-life experience) and recruit some users to test the journey they would go through when dealing with call centres/helpdesk. As for my user demographic, I would make sure they are all... CEO's and presidents of energy, insurance, technology and telecommunication companies. And I would ensure they get the full experience, as I always do, so they can see firsthand the flaws and errors in their business processes and services.
Too often, it seems companies spend large amounts of their money ‘improving' (take note of the quotation marks) their so called customer service. However, I've learnt that this improvement is really about changing the voice of the telephone menus to sound like a caring female who wants to be your friend, or improving the templates of their monthly statements so it's easier for us to read. However, what it seems these companies often fail to do is to step back and really assess the journeys of their customers when they have difficulties. Too often, it seems the problems we customers have are actually to do with different business areas of these large companies, using different systems which, along with the people, don't talk to each other, so you're forced to chase your tail and bounce from department to department relaying information which could have been passed on internally.
Recently, my colleague Ricardo has been performing some research on using diary studies (or cultural probes). This technique helps us to understand users' experiences when the process or system needing to be analysed is difficult to access or the user's journey is spread over a number of days or weeks (e.g. chasing up a helpdesk over a month period regarding a faulty hardware!).
Perhaps, one way to help these companies really improve their customer experience is for us, customers, to take notes or a diary of our experience from the start to finish and forward it on to these companies. We could also mention to them that if they are not interested in this feedback, we'd be happy to publish them on blogs and forums, and even forward them onto the appropriate ombudsmen. I'm sure this would help get some real customer service.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a set ofrecommendations for making Web content more accessible. They are published bythe W3C’s Website Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and were first touted as arecommendation in May 1999. The current standard, released on the 11 December 2008,is WCAG 2.0 and the W3C recommends that Web accessibility policies reference thatdocument.
Whereas WCAG 1.0 was primarily concerned with “...advocatingthe use of W3C Technologies such as HTML and CSS to prepare accessiblewebsites” [http://www.usability.com.au/resources/wcag2/], WCAG 2.0 istechnology neutral. “WCAG 2.0 does not explicitly relate to the use of HTML butis concerned with improving the accessibility of sites regardless of thetechnologies used.” [ibid]
What is accessibility?
Accessibility is defined as “... the degree to which aproduct, system or device is accessible by as many people as possible.” [RuthEllison] Often, accessibility is used in relation to people with disabilities.While people with disabilities are one of the key beneficiaries of accessibledesign, accessibility helps to bring benefits to a wide range of users in manyworking contexts.There are six main types of disability including visual,hearing, mobility, cognitive and learning disabilities, seizure and situationalaccessibility. People are either born with disabilities or acquire it over time(such as visual impairments, which are often acquired due to the agingprocess). Disabilities can be temporary or permanent.
Benefits of accessibility
The benefits of accessible web sites include:
Can be used by people with physical and cognitive impairments
Can be used by people in situations where they are unable to use their hands
Can be used by people who are technically and educationally disadvantaged
Are more effective for people who live in remote and regional areas
Are easy for the elderly and novice users to use
Work with the widest range of browsers and other current internet technologies
Will migrate to future technologies
Accessibility requirements in Australia:
Section 24 of the Disability Discrimination Act (1992)
Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) - From 1 December 2000, all websites were to follow the W3C guidelines to a sufficient extent that they pass recognised tests of accessibility
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's view is that compliance with the W3C WCAG 1.0 guidelines to the Single-A level (Priority 1) is a minimum rather than a desirable outcome.
WCAG 2.0
“Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers awide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible.” [http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/]By following these guidelines, content will become accessible to a wider rangeof people with disabilities and make content more accessible to people in general.For example, a website completely done in Adobe Flash means that the contentwill be inaccessible to anybody that does not have Flash installed on theirdevice, whether they are disabled or not.
In order to understand how WCAG 2.0 works, there are fourlayers of guidance: Principles, Guidelines, Success Criteria and Sufficient andAdvisory Techniques. At the top are four Principles “... that provide thefoundation for Web accessibility: perceivable,operable, understandable, and robust.” [http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/] Underthe Principles are 12 guidelines that “... provide the basic goals that authorsshould work toward in order to make content more accessible to users withdifferent disabilities.” [ibid] For each Guideline, there is a testable SuccessCriteria with three levels of conformance including: A (lowest), AA and AAA(highest). Lastly, there is Sufficient and Advisory Techniques for each of the guidelinesand success criteria.
“All of these layers of guidance (principles, guidelines,success criteria, and sufficient and advisory techniques) work together toprovide guidance on how to make content more accessible. Authors are encouragedto view and apply all layers that they are able to, including the advisorytechniques, in order to best address the needs of the widest possible range ofusers.” [ibid]
WCAG 2.0 Map
In order to better understand WCAG 2.0, a map has been developedto visualise the concepts. It is available in PDF and is hyperlinked back tothe original WCAG 2.0 content provided by W3C. Please feel free to download a copy and keep as an electronic reference or print it out and put it on yourdesk!
I've been a bit behind in posting about the fantastic Web Directions South 08 conference, which was held in Sydney in September 2008. I first started attending the conference back in 2004 where I experienced a great sense of 'home' and community. This year, I was given the opportunity to present about something I'm very passionate about - accessibility and the user experience.
The basis of the presentation is how we can develop accessible web products by takinga holistic approach to web accessibility. This means moving beyond the principles of web standards, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines andother accessibility guideline and looking at differentways of incorporating accessibility into the design process to produceaccessible and useful user experiences. My three key themes for the presentation were:
Consider accessibility and usability right from the start
Involve users throughout the process
Accessibility is more than checklists and standards - it's about the people
It's about achieving a better understanding of how people interact with your products in the context of their day to day environments, which can be done via a range of user research techniques and testing/evaluation techniques.
