The Web Usability and Design Workshop organized by TiE New Delhi by Techved Design

Posted by Paritosh Sharma
at March 14, 2009
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So, we have Nitin from TiE introducing the Internet SIG to the audience. The room is full to the brim and we are now getting introduced to the speakers, Jonathan and Neha from Techved Designs.

So now we have Neha Modgil from techved design initiating the workshop. So after a brief question and answer round, Neha shares a video which is the case study of Prada New York. Well, I am amazed to how detailing could really be taken to a whole new level, impacting your business.

Neha Modgil and Jonathan Roper taking the session

How is the user using your product, does he like it? Says Neha about design, to which Jonathan adds to that design adds to your ROI and ultimately business generation. People have created great user experiences, but they could really not monetize the entire process.

If the user cant find it, the fucntion is not there

Do you like the ATM or the Bank? Yahoo mail or rediffmail? Email or Postal mail? Well, obvious answers we all have in the room, the reason Neha gives is that its about understanding the end user. Jonathan shares his experience on how the gaps exist between the various departments within a company. With an example of how in an IT company in general, the IT product team does not interacts that much with the marketing team. And generally the product team does not have the direct understanding of the end user and how would they use it.

Thus the role of usability is really to integrate all of this and make things work

Neha gives a good example of how to integrate call to Action in your page design. Neha gives some amazing examples of how does good Call To Action determines your users intuitive ability to understand the page. There has to be some level of consistency in your design, make it more recognizable for your user.

And now we have everyone in the room introducing themselves. I do recognize a few common people in the room. So with the audience talking about what they expect of the event, well I think its going to be a day full of action. Neha quickly shares about the overview for the day.

  1. overview of usability and UCD
  2. Benefits of usability to organizations business

What is Design?

Neha asks the audience about what they think about design and there are various answers. To which Neha shares:

Usability = Use + Ability some words that define Usability

We usually do not recommend people to use color to improve upon differentiation in your web page, as there may be people who are colorblind. So now Jonathan is discussing on how there was only a next button on one of the e-transaction pages, and there was no back or cancel button. Hence forcing the buy, but well, that is what Neha describes as “Walking into a mall and you pick you something and the salesman hand cuffs you that you cannot put the thing back”.

When there is something being clicked on the web page your users may want to see something that has happened, if you dont have any message displayed, well it may just make the user unsure.

Reduce the memory load on your clients

A Usable product is:

Benefits of Usability

Hmmm…so now we are discussing who to hire, how to hire and how to get UI talking in your organization?! Jonathan shares his views on the topic.

People Your business Online World

The more simple you can make your product, the more direct and easier is it for people to understand it and use it

For us one of the most important cirteria when we test a web site is, how successfully can someone complete a task? (Interesting thought). Customers have their likes and dislikes about color and designs but that really does not help them complete the task. Maintaining the color scheme on your page is good, will help you keep the customer connected to your brand, but what you need to focus on is you want the user to be doing on the page.

Well, after Tea, now we have Jonathan leading the session and sharing the success indicators for IT projects.

Formula for website success

B = V X C X L

B = Amount of business done by the site

V = Unique visitors coming to the site

C= Conversion rate

L= Loyalty Rate

Usability and ROI fast statistics:

Quantifying the User Experience!

How do you quantify User Experience is what you all need to asses out of your web site at the end of the day after each update. You have to create certain success criterias and put them in place for your web site.

Knowing your users and Creating personas

Is it a good idea to keep a small Lead form on the home page?

Dont make me think - By Steve Krug, three rules around Usability

  1. Don’t make me think
  2. It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice
  3. Get rid of half of the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left

Jonathan now talks about Heatmaps, and how lasers track the eye of the user on yoru web page. What is it that people are looking at and surprisingly enough:

Your page titles are incredibly important, it helps people to know that they are at the right spot! You’v got to do something really different in terms of formatting if you want people to read all the text that you put in your agreements page.

How your customers react to the design of your page, a lot depends on the purpose that they have of the page and what purpose do you have set on the page for them to take action upon.

Don’t presume that people are going to read your whole page, people scan and unless they feel very certain, they don’t want to stop and read.

The Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing

So think about your users zipping past on a highway and you are essentially a billboard and you need to design such that you are able to attract these zipping users to your message. Hence you need to understand why would they stop to have a look at yours.

NOKIA has different home pages for different cultures! Australians notice the skiing and gaming part at the bottom of the page, Indians are attracted towards more of the phones and the features.

FBIPHDTWAIBM - try remembering this and utter it out in 2 seconds…

Take the Quick wins

  1. Be direct and obvious
  2. Create scannable content
  3. Most importatn information first
  4. Page title and headings
  5. Small chunks of information
  6. Action - know who and what
  7. …than the more detailed information

Knowing your users

There are LOTS of users

But NOT all of them are IMPORTANT.

  • which groups of customers are most in need of your product
  • what are thier characteristics
  • which customers can you afford to ignore?

You CANNOT please everyone

  • products become very hard to design if you try to please everyone
  • you can end up creating a product that really satisfies no-one
  • once you have determined who your core audience is, then you can start to visualize them using personas

Neha, asks the audience how do they categorize users? Well, and people from Naukri.com are answering how do they it, on the basis of kind of product that they use. The discussion has extended into a debate around Personas, which many a people in the room are finding a challenge to understand and implement for their existing systems.

The more we can understand who we are designing for, the better design can we create for the target audience, thus better engaging the people, remarks Jonathan.

Well, we are now breaking in for lunch and we will come back after 45 minutes!

The event was organized by TiE New Delhi (The Indus Entrepreneurs)

TiE New Delhi

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