boogdesign blog

I got "Don't make me think" for Xmas and so I've become quite interested in the concept of cheap usability testing, I was looking for this talk to give me a fresh perspective on what I'd read.

Zhivko started off with a short introduction on what usability is (ease of use, user efficiency, user satisfaction) and why it's important. Increased user satisfaction leads to:

• Increased sales
• Decreased development costs (more testing means less fire fighting)
• Improved brand image
• Improved user productivity (ie. when using internal applications)

The talk then moved to comparing remote testing (screen sharing over the internet) with 'traditional' testing methods (with usability labs and all the paraphernalia). Remote testing gives you:

• A realistic context of use - you're testing users in a 'real life' environment, where they're more comfortable
• Better geographic representation - with traditional methods it's very expensive to test outside the area where your office is located
• Access to professionals - if you're selling to a certain market, such as software developers, you might not be able to persuade them to travel to your lab
• Lack of non-verbal signals - this is a disadvantage, you don't see the non-verbal cues that indicate users are getting frustrated and so have to depend on what they're telling you

Zhivko discussed some research which demonstrated that, despite being much cheaper than traditional usability testing the results gained with remote testing is at least as effective.

The final part of the talk walked through the process for running usability tests at Telerik, here's a summary:

• Define Objectives & Target Audience
• Set up Test Scenario
• Recruit Test Users
• Carry out Tests
• Analyze Findings
• Design Report & Brief Stakeholders

This was littered with practical advice, such as good software to use (GoToMeeting, Camtasia), what sort of compensation to offer to ensure enough respondents (a little bit more than your target group's average hourly rate), how often to use the same testers (no more than twice a year) and even how to avoid putting testers under unnecessary time pressure (don't tell them in advance how many tasks there are).

An excellent talk, just the sort of thing I was looking for with all sorts of useful tips. The only problem I had was reading the slides off the TV screen (I was unfortunately right at the back) and sometimes hearing what Zhivko was saying (probably the being at the back thing again), 4 out of 5.

Patrick started with an explanation of web standards, what they are and why they're good for you. The list of benefits he gave were fairly standard, but it's always worth reminding yourself:

• Lighter code - your HTML content is more lightweight as it doesn't contain repeated copies of your presentation code
• Ease of maintenance - when HTML is structured semantically it's much easier to make updates without breaking things than in pages built with five levels of table nesting
• Easier to change look and feel - because your look and feel is defined seperately from your content
• Multiple output media - handheld, print etc. from the same content
• Accessibility - reduce the number of potential customers who can't use your site
• SEO - increase the traffic to your site

The second section of the talk covered common pitfalls that CSS noobs fall into (been there, done that was my reaction to most of them, though I'm probably still guilty of some of them on occasion):

• New technology, old habits - the font tags have all gone, but they've been replaced by spans with inline styles
• Meaningless content - the font tags have all gone, but everything (including the headings) is a paragraph with an inline style
• Non-semantic class and id names - people often assume that class and id attributes are just there to hang CSS rules off of, but in fact they are an independent part of the HTML spec, they are a way of adding semantic value to your markup so don't use class names like 'red' when you mean 'important'
• Classitis and Divitis - adding unnecessary classes and ids to every element in your document when you could just use CSS selectors

The third section of the talk was the 'advanced' part where Patrick moved on to some specific CSS techniques. First up he covered tables, pointing out that the goal of standards based developers isn't to eradicate all tables from their markup but to use tables properly. A rule of thumb: if your data is the sort of thing you would lay out in an Excel spreadsheet, then you should probably mark it up as a table. Tables are an excellent way of showing data relationships and screen readers have built in functions for navigating across rows and columns, when designers build 'fake tables' out of divs and spans then you lose these good properties. These are good points, but I think the whole thing hinges on what your definition of 'tabular data' (or 'Excel-like data') is - my excuse for building 'fake tables' is when I want to lay things out differently on different devices (ie. on a web screen 7 columns and 4 rows, on a handheld device 4 columns and 7 rows, or even just a single column). This section also had some useful examples of the scope attribute as well as th in relation to thead and tbody and how it can styled, stuff which I'd not really appreciated before.

Next up were a number of techniques for 'fluff images' - using CSS background images instead of cluttering up the content with images which are purely presentational followed by a quick demonstration of the sliding doors technique. The talk was already running pretty late by this point so the section on image replacement was rushed through and I had to leave for the next talk I wanted to attend as Patrick moved onto forms, so I missed that, the layout portion and the conclusion.

The presentation was given in an engaging manner, and Patrick clearly has a very deep understanding of his subject, but the main problem was that he was trying to fit enough material for two talks into one hour of presentation. This spoiled a lot of the more advanced stuff, which was my primary interest, because it had to be rushed through. I still learned several useful things, and was given a few timely reminders of stuff I ought to know already, but overall this was the most disappointing talk of the day - 3 out of 5.

This was the first talk of the day, it was in the smallest room but it was packed to overflowing (people were sitting on the floor!) which is surely a good sign for the future of Microformats. The first part of the talk was a whirlwind tour of Microformats - what they are, how they're used and some examples. I was already familiar with this material so I didn't make any notes. The most interesting bit (for me) was the slide with a quote from Dan Cedarholm which referred to Microformats as 'oblivious development' - by adding semantic value to your markup you allow other to build value on top of it while you remain oblivious. A quick search today reveals I've been a bit oblivious myself, as this term seems to be in quite common use in the community, but at the time I thought it was nice.

In the second half of the talk Glen went on to the API part. His basic premise was that you should just add Microformats randomly to your web app and hope that the seeds would grow, you should think about how developers might want to use the information in your site and organise it in a consistent manner. He listed his REST-like principals for Microformats as API:

• Design URLs for maximum clarity and discoverability
• Design URLs into a schema to act as an API (his term here was 'faceted structures'
• Remember URLs have semantic importance
• Remember URLs can look and act like method calls (ie. composability of URL values, like searching by multiple tags in del.icio.us)
• Use HTTP verbs that work (a la REST, though Glen felt PUT and DELETE were not practical currently and POST should be used for updates)

His final advice for APIs was borrowed from the Microformat ethos: keep it simple. Simplicity gives you a lower barrier to entry which in turn increase the chance of take up. There was quite a long question and answer session after the talk which demonstrated Glen's in depth knowledge of the subject (in fact he appeared, to me, a lot more comfortable and knowledgeable in this interactive role than he had in the first part of the talk).

Overall pretty good, 4 out of 5. I think, given the popularity of this talk, there was scope for having an introductory session and one or more advanced sessions rather than having to rush through the first half of it, but I learned a few things and enjoyed it.

It was something of a shock to the system when my alarm went off at 7am on a Saturday morning, but I did drag myself out of bed and down to Paddington only a little after I'd hoped to get there. I arrived at Thames Valley Park in plenty of time and was surprised to find breakfast waiting in the form of rolls with either bacon or sausage - usually at Microsoft when I've been it's been coffee and biscuits in the morning, maybe this is a Saturday perk?

There was a choice of three talks in each slot, and five slots through the day, here's the list of talks I attended:

• Microformats HTML to API (Glen Jones)
• Doing it in style: creating beautiful sites, the web standards way (Patrick Lauke)
• Quick and dirty Usability tests - one week, no budget, and no usability facility (Zhivko Dimitrov)
• Ruby On Rails for .NET Developers (Dave Verwer)
• Unobtrusive Javascript with Rails (Dave Verwer)

I'll save the details of the talks for later posts, but enough to say they were of a consistently high quality and were more than enough reason, by themselves, to drag me out of bed on a Saturday morning

There were plenty of other highlights - the food continued with pastries and Innocent smoothies at mid-morning, passable packed lunches and warm cookies in the afternoon. There was a guy from Computer Manuals selling books all morning, not the full range but at good discount. Microsoft were pimping their Expression range of web design tools, which included giving each attendee a free copy of Expression Web, and there were samples and free stuff available from most of the other sponsors.

The only disappointing thing was that it all ground to a halt shortly after 4pm, I'd originally planned for it finishing at 5pm and I think I would have preferred the spare hour in bed in the morning rather than at Reading Station in the afternoon. Overall though, an excellent event, 5 out of 5, I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in web design or development.