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1. Mirrored Top 1 00 Right 1 00 Inside 1 25 Outside 1 25 d Advanced Figure 7 8 Galleries here for margin layouts The usual settings are available through the advanced option 16 Instead of presenting a dialog box with several options a set of potential results which simplifies the process is shown For those who wish to have more control the traditional dialog box interfaces will still be available Live preview shows what the results of applying a formatting change will be as the user moves the cursor over the gallery This assists the users and enables them to make choices and create results with less time and effort The whole interface seems to help the user see available choices without having to choose which supports experimentation Selecting a text makes a small toolbox with the most common operations visible If a user is editing text far down in the document the toolbox enables him or her to make corrections without having to move all the way up to the main toolbar to switch tab This supports Fitt s law which is a predictive model of the time it takes to move a cursor and point to an object It is well suited for user interfaces since the time it takes to reach an object is depending on the distance and the size of the target The basic idea 1s that the further a user has to move the mouse to get to an object and the smaller the object is the harder it is to locate and target 4 Main Tabs Con
2. This work consisted of analysing the user interface of Content Studio and identifying deficiencies compared to the theories available in the area including the recommendations Microsoft has made regarding the interface for Office and Windows It also included an inspection of the competition as well as the new versions of Office and Windows to get an idea of the market trend for Microsoft Because Microsoft s applications have such big influence on Content Studio it is affected by the development of their interfaces The paper will be used as a base for what will be introduced in coming versions of Content Studio 2 1 Goal and purpose The goal was to create a foundation for Teknikhuset to stand on when continuing to develop Content Studio especially for the version 5 0 which will be exposed to a more thorough change A usability analysis was performed on the interface to identify deficiencies and assets and suggest how this can be dealt with to improve the interaction between users and the system To be able to do this a thorough review of the tool was made Apart from present theories on the area an expert review and user input through questionnaires and interviews formed the base for the evaluation The recommendation was based on the result from the evaluation and aims to be used as groundwork for future upgrades Thus the statement set out to be answered with this thesis was that by performing an evaluation the usability of the
3. VBScript Content Studio Would vau like Ehe document to be a child of the document Mej Avbryt Figure 7 5 Question displayed when adding a new item to a menu content structure That the drag and drop is supported for inserting text from other documents or pages both inside and outside the application is very good and a quick way to copy information When using a small screen the workspace gets very cluttered Windows on top of each other makes it difficult to locate the ones at the bottom Especially when the top ones are dragged around to find them in turn making them hard to find a minute later see Figure 7 6 They also cover the document information and web tree which is needed to view other documents Help and documentation When requesting help the user is forced to log in instead of being linked directly to the area in question The help does not clearly provide a solution to the problem and even though the user has actively requested help the support area is not shown Instead the user is forced to navigate to it E Pu Microtodt bifennet Explorer prowieed by lennon 5e Ade Rexdigwra Wia Faeerber Verktyg Hap r Q O gt Ps Yew O S 1809385 Adress 4 Nate dero cortamtstudo sejerjedirden him E Gi Linke A a A naira Modifierad Tolek Skapaduw Satu a oo N E 5 fisa re DEIA CHEN 113 09 1221 1322 TEE Westerberg Anna GaSe E Nyheter 1246 05 024 HO GID 16 09 JER Westerberg
4. During the evaluation the experts take the users role and note all the problems encountered Nielsen recommends that the best number of experts is 3 5 22 Additional experts do not tend to discover more problems The number of experts used often depends on how much money that can be saved if the misuse of the system is limited to a minimum 21 One expert finds on the average 35 of the usability problems of the interface but of course there are individual differences The best result comes from using evaluators that are both experts on usability and the system in question Previous testing 20 has shown that these find on average 60 of the problems Usability experts find 41 of the problems and novices find 22 However increasing the number of evaluators to five caused the percentages to reach 98 80 and 50 respectively The problems with heutistic evaluations are that knowledge about the users their tasks and the context of use is crucial for the quality of the evaluation There is also a possibility that the HCI knowledge of the expert may be too low due to lack of experience or education 22 It is however a quick and cheap way to discover fundamental usability problems but it may not deliver complete insight of the problem 10 Although finding many usability problems the experts may miss some problems that can be found by user testing If the system highly depends on the domain and the experts have little domain experti
5. Finally A never used the online help because it took too long The biggest benefit of Content Studio was considered to be that it was quick to build in that the written code was reusable and that it was easy to integrate Its biggest drawback was the lack of documentation The second interview was with a person in charge of a web department B Content Studio was always open at B s computer making it possible to make small changes now and then throughout the day Editing text and graphics were the most frequently used functions together with the HTML view to manage layouts B found the interface to be very familiar because it looked so much like a Microsoft application but overall B found the design to be inferior The language included many technical terms but B knew HTML before using Content Studio which simplified some parts At the same time B remembers to have helped others not as experienced in the programming language which indicates that the language might have been too technical for some Furthermore the language was inconsistent in the way some dialogues were in English and some in Swedish B did not always understand how to fill in a dialogue and sometimes called for support but assumed that the dialogs were meant to be self explaining Supposedly the support would want fewer calls of this type B had also experienced problems when discovering that it was not possible to copy text from one page close it and then paste it ont
6. Berkun Scott 1999 How to avoid foolish consistency The human factor Microsoft Corporation Berkun Scott 1999 The importance of simplicity create ease of use without loosing power The human factor Microsoft Corporation Berkun Scott 2000 Fitts s UI Law applied to the web The human factor Microsoft Corporation Boiko B 2002 Content Management the bible Hungry Minds New York Brinck T Gergle D and Wood S D 2002 Usability for the web designing websites that work Morgan Kauffman San Francisco CA Constantine L L Lockwood L A D 2002 Instructive interaction Making innovative interfaces self teaching http www foruse com atticles instructive pdf last visited 051202 Dumas J S and Redish J C 1999 A practical guide to usability testing Intellect Books Exeter UK Fatwire Software 2005 Content management glossary http www fatwire com it services C cmglossary html last visited 050921 Gulliksen J and G ransson B 2002 Anv ndarcentrerad systemdesign Studentlitteratur Lund Kaasgaatd K 2000 Software Design and Usability Copenhagen Business School Press Krug S 2006 Don t make me think New Riders Berkeley CA InUse AB 2004 Guidelines for GUI design http www inuse se last visited 051102 McCracken H 2005 Microsoft Office 12 s Radical New Look http blogs pcworld com techlog archives 000900 html last visited 050915
7. Microsoft Corporation ed 2004 The windows user experience Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers Microsoft Press Microsoft Corporation 2005 The future of Microsoft Office http www microsoft com office preview default mspx last visited 050915 Microsoft Corporation 2005 Windows Vista UX Guidelines http www microsoft com downloads last visited 050920 Molich R 2002 Webdesign med fokus pa anv ndbarhet Stadentlitteratur Lund Nathan M 2004 X znfoModel Glossary http www xinfomodel com glossary html last visited 050921 Nielsen J 1992 Finding usability problems through heuristic evaluation Proceedings ACM CHI 92 Conference Monterey CA May 3 7 pp 373 380 Nielsen J 1993 Usability engineering Academic Press San Diego CA 66 References Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 22 23 24 25 26 45 34 35 6 37 9 39 40 Nielsen J and Mack R L 1994 Usability Inspection methods John Wiley amp Sons Inc Nielsen J 1997 The difference between web design and GUI design Alert box for May 1 http www useit com alertbox 9705a html last visited 051011 Nielsen J 1999 Intranet Portals The Corporate Information Infrastructure Alert box for April 4 http www useit com alertbox 990404 html last visited 051103 Nielsen J 2000 Designing web usability The
8. a Ow ee cc 5 o Oc Ex n EA 2 o E o LL amd e uw 2 LU eo o c C5 wo e 45 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Learning The few comments that were made were about training and requested more after having wotked with the system for a while Learning 9 8 m 1 Bm 6 E 3 5 o4 m5 i E 6 3 m7 2 El don t know 1 O mean O Exploring b Ability to Operations Functions Shortcuts features undo leads to a are used are used feels a operations is predictable result Help Half of the participating users had never used the help or had used it previously but found it to be insufficient and therefore never used it again The users that had used the handbook understood it better after an explanation was given Reasons for not using the available help were difficulties finding technical information and sometimes uncertainty regarding whether or not they have access at all More tool tips were requested by several users Help 16 14 m 12 me E 3 10 8 E 5 6 m 6 B 7 a m don t know 2 O mean 0 The terminology The online help The amount of Finding a The online help used is is easy to help provided is solution to a is understand problem by using the online help is 46 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Additional commen
9. and gladly tried different options However some of the messages they received when poking around in the interface was too requesting instead of encouraging which some of the usets reacted to 7 2 3 Survey The result from the questionnaires was gathered The answers from the questions corresponding to a particular area were put together in a diagram displaying the number of participants for every option and the mean The options ranged from 1 to 7 are represented from left to right in ascending order followed by any answers that were indecisive and the mean The questions in full can be viewed in Appendix B The free form comments are summarized previously to the diagram An asterisk behind the question means that someone had neglected to answer that particular question General I mpression The general impression seemed to be that Content Studio 1s a very capable program and the difficulties lay in the user s experience and knowledge although many things 44 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform are possible to accomplish without any programming skills Overall the impression was positive but many of the participants acknowledged the fact that time is a factor when it comes to learning However the novice users seemed to be under the impression that anything is possible when a certain level of knowledge is reached and seemed to be willing to trade a learning period for it Hence t
10. users should see how their actions affect the objects on the screen The uset should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another If not visible 5 9 chunks of information is the average amount a user can keep in memory at once Hence instructions for use of the system should be visible ot easily retrievable whenever appropriate Visibility is also important because users tend to recognize commands and options rather than recalling them 32 Users remember a meaning associated with a familiar object more easily than they remember the name of a particular command Using metaphors also allow users to transfer their knowledge providing a direct and intuitive interface for user tasks 15 Besides paying attention to the users limits when it comes to memory the designer must try to improve the feedback given by the system and let the user keep control 27 Minimize the use of windows A minimum number of windows reduces the mental load of managing multiple windows and reduces the possibility for windows getting lost behind others 40 Use screen assistance Rollovers and ALT overs are commonly used on the web and users are familiar with them Tool tips can clarify the use or function of interface elements and are present within many client applications They also reduce screen clutter by revealing alternate choices or presenting additional information as it is needed Although too many rollovers may result
11. Anna lind Ppeteteg ama Godard Publicerad nb Area Publcie ad y i Publio ad E Publicerad Publcirad Publicerad AFN Puteri 13 Dokument Figure 7 6 When opening documents for viewing and editing they all are placed on top of each other 42 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 7 2 User input 7 2 1 Interviews Two formal interviews were performed The first one regarded a system architect A who spent 5 10 hours a week on the system and used it mostly for programming and development A s general impression of Content Studio was that it was neither difficult nor easy to use but at the same time that it would be difficult to make it easier without sacrificing functionality The amount of information displayed on the screen was considered to be sufficient but might be cluttered for smaller screens Because A spent much time programming it was desirable for information such as function calls to be more similar Names of functions were said to not always describe what they actually do and can be inconsistent Computer terminology had been noticed to be used a lot but A did not find it disturbing Although A believes that it could affect many people into not knowing how to use some functions A did not perceive the interface to be supportive when not listing built in functions which forced A to keep much information in the head When new functions ate released A wanted a newsletter to be sent out
12. Content Management for Multi Channel Publishing http www vasont com gloss html last visited 050921 White M 2005 The Content Management Handbook Facet Publishing London Wroblewski L and Rantanen Esa M 2001 Design Considerations for Web based Applications Human Factors and Ergonomics Society s Annual Meeting proceedings 67 Appendix A Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Appendix A The heuristic evaluation resulted in a list of various types of advantages and disadvantages in Content Studio These were classified and described more thoroughly in section 7 1 The original set is presented below List of problems found during the heuristic evaluation e Some of the checkboxes in different dialogues cannot be checked even though they are white and thus indicating that they are active compared to the grey ones e Tool tips ate inconsistent compared to Word and compared to each other e The back button in the web browser toolbar can sometimes work as if it is a part of the program but it does not belong to it since a back and forward button also exist in the web view Because of the web browser there also exist double sets of file view and help which might cause confusion e Single click and double click are mixed sometimes following web standards and sometimes software standards e When choosing file create it is difficult to understand what is created The icon to exp
13. a simple way of getting rid of the visual effects of working in a browser environment That is to view the web page in full screen mode This can be done both through the view menu in the browser and by pressing F11 However there currently does not appear to exist any way of forcing the users browser into this mode by using JavaScript for example It seems as if the only way is to inform those who are bothered by the double environment to use this command to solve the problem To further add an element showing that the application environment differs from the web a headline such as the one present in the simple mode and in EPiServer should be added to Content Studio see Figure 8 1 This will enhance the feeling of it being a separate program and will be helpful in normal mode but even more when viewing the application in full screen mode Content Studio I BAB UV cx E a ETT kh viele wir Baka LES imge 3 23 Inches m l Les N inicie Nyheter 5 Q ung Inrikes all Test E I annis YS js TH E ASK Lemah eee doles at ort pli enl nd pec 7 adigisriug clit FA biel a a JE FRA Garekar Laaceel ante quis asi z sock 1268 Re ae br J aai hrener F ume sert Tamaiteuas da or k rs ten par sl a bd x ust Th ar pearance riaum here aae T Et aim ei rz Secersinvhecer 2501 zui ran e fx enia a chor OR My Favourites r 1 Lier E Sa
14. an application They too keep the designer thinking about providing a clean interface creating good explanations to the solution of a problem and having the right set of features in the right places Other ideas are to prevent errors and to provide help links for helpful and supplemental information and of course to test the UI both before and after launch Microsoft Windows Vista introduces a UI with new features and enhancements for both end users and developers To ensure that one s programs will be consistent with common Windows interfaces and applications it is important to be aware of these changes Conclusions In his alert box R L P WYSIWYG 26 Nielsen claims that we have reached the limits of the current GUI paradigm Displaying commands in menus toolbars and dialog boxes works with a limited number of elements Applications such as Microsoft Word 2003 have 1500 commands and users typically have no clue where to find most of them According to him direct manipulation of WYSIWYG objects have some limitations including the amount of commands for the user to locate and no guidance on how to reach the goal from the starting state Here Nielsen also supports Microsoft s claim that people generally are better at modifying an existing design than creating one from scratch Until a beta version is released it is hard to say how the new interface will be received by the users Nielsen along with every one else who has not worked with t
15. be a problem to achieve Consequently placing the buttons in the same place makes the user learn where they are placed When a pattern is created the user does not have to think consciously about it and can use the knowledge stored in the long term memory The user does 59 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform not have to look for the wanted button which decreases the risk of failure and makes the user more efficient This must be applied to the dialog boxes for properties settings where the same buttons and functions are displayed in numerous different places from one dialog box to another 8 3 2 Consistent feedback To give the user continuous and evident feedback contributes to giving the user control of the system As the guidelines described earlier it is important that the user feels in control of the system and not vice versa The web tree should have underlined text and or a shaded colour on the highlighted alternative This is also the way Windows indicates a selectable but not yet chosen area in a tree structure This also enhances the feeling of it being a link and thus something clickable that will provide additional information Applying this on lists and areas with selectable items will increase the feedback of what is chosen and selectable This includes highlighting that corresponds to the correct item which increases the mapping between making a choice and the outcome of t
16. both to me as the outside expert and them as getting to know some of the outcome of the review Content Studio was an unexpectedly extensive system and it took a lot of time to try and explore every inch of it Ultimately other ways of getting to know the system was presented through the developer days where I became educated in the system as well as in the users needs and thoughts My knowledge of Content Studio was therefore limited to what I had seen and customer input If something has affected the evaluation my possible lack of knowledge in the system might be the most prominent factor To avoid this the recommendations are fairly general for Content Studio as a system and contain aspects which can be applied to other parts as well Other possible biases are that usability inspection does not involve users and as a result an identified problem cannot be certain to create a problem for the user or that the suggested solution is not going to be worse Here the customer input has helped to focus on the problems in common and thereby confirming the problem areas am rather certain that the discovered problems are valid since users from both sides of the knowledge spectrum mentioned some common issues Both the interviews and the survey ranged from expert users down to mote novice users and many of the problems were addressed from both ends More problems might have been discovered if more control over the user input could have been possible
17. efficient learnable and to achieve a higher utility The guidelines were looked at one at the time while examining the application and the problems found are completely listed in Appendix A but the most important ones ate listed below 38 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Consistency The back button in the web browser toolbar can sometimes work as if it is a part of the program but it does not belong to it since a back and forward button also exist in the web view This affects Content Studio because if the user selects a folder and clicks on back the application needs to be restarted Unless he or she has used the web view and navigated to at least one link then nothing happens Because of the web browser there also exist double sets of file view and help which might cause confusion see figure 7 2 Some of the checkboxes in different dialogues cannot be checked even though they are white and thus indicating that they are active compated to the grey ones see figure 7 1 Secondary buttons right mouse button are typically used to copy already available functions for primary buttons left mouse button and thereby providing a shortcut for the user In Content Studio many functions exist only in the popup menu Icons in the dialog for active scripting components are placed in a different otder compared to the ordinary view The same buttons in dialog boxes for units and categories are al
18. fl Messenger CE Mit MSN e Fie vew Hep db 1009 E Recyck bin Content Studio lg Hom F Caite map E CirodukterE D Generale HTML C retagetE O Myheter Oli lp ED Aruklar F Mnssk om jobb E Door det sj lv XML Fr Cliidad y F Disk FAC GS Nytt x 2006 01 08 19 50 E V lkommen till GS dit wyella f retag Nyheter ps He E Dite map E L 6 januari a m Jn Aan inte atd bli sam man bank sg Figure 4 1 The simple mode The enlargement shows the edit and add icons 3 Reo Microsoft Internet Explorer Arley Bedgera Vaga prerie yerktyg Hj lp Q a O MAG Px dere Adress B tpi ferc contentsituda secre hm wo X sk gf s kmarkerng Akense SE Popupf rster sp rade 2 Gj Hobmad i Messenger E Mit MEN algoms te CS and our Gang Stared weh miai Me documents ANU Leche out document AM Mame Name Ig redmal f r ept 1241 amp m niema nyheter 1247 al ak our i Q Donameniiz I Figure 4 2 The normal mode From left to right Accordion buttons web tree folder content and file information 18 Content Management Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 4 3 1 The users As stated earlier an important aspect of the design is to know who the typical users of the system are To understand them their environment tasks and organisation is a key to the entire development process The knowledge includes
19. formal review sessions Therefore the final recommendation was based on specific encountered examples but encouraging an overall consistency thus making similar undiscovered problems a part of the solution range The recommendation was focused on interaction such as placement of buttons and menus rather than form and colours Previous to this work an online user test was performed by Teknikhuset The test however was limited to the so called easy mode of the application Therefore this mode in particular is not discussed in this paper but the recommendations include any problems discovered there that correspond to areas in normal mode The paper was intended to be used as a source for guidance to the company when developing new features and versions The recommendation itself was not solely based on what currently was possible to introduce but can be seen as a wish list leaving it up to Teknikhuset to choose which parts to apply The guidelines however are fairly general for Content Studio as a system and can be viewed when developing templates for customers as well as new features or dialogs Adjustment to the way of work information and context is not completely inherent in the guidelines since those factors differ for every client and customer 10 Usability Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 3 Usability Usability means to make sure that something works well that a person of average or even
20. help function may be that it is separated from the application It takes the user out of the working context which makes it easy for the user to loose track of what they were doing and difficult to connect the information to the encountered problem 7 The ability to provide context sensitive help is one of the advantages of using online help as user assistance Tool tips are a kind of context sensitive help well suited for additional information One can also use cascading tool tips as presented by Constantine and Lockwood 7 which provide a secondaty text that expands on request or after a second delay According to them guidance as opposed to help is always present in context of the work and provided when needed without the user having to take any special action Tool tips already exist in Content Studio but can be used more consistently throughout the interface Many times when this assistance is not provided as a result from lack of time when developing This is why it would be easily taken care of during further development The survey showed that the users anticipated that a higher degree of learning was needed to be able to use Content Studio to the fullest However one can shorten the learning curve To solve the problem with Content Studio s unavailable help a more guiding interface should be provided Since the users mentioned that more declarative instructions were needed sometimes a way to remedy this is to place a button in the di
21. less visible and making it easy for novice users can make it too simple and unrewarding for expert users Consistency is another principle that is likely to cause problems Following one convention can make it inconsistent with another one Consistency or any other principle often helps but many situations require trade offs which forces the designer to focus more on another aspect of the interface Trade offs are always present and it is up to the designer to decide which rule that is most important to follow However the principles provide good assistance and designers can use them to make better designs 2 37 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 7 Results The survey confirmed that most of the users work as marketing assistants web editors and administrators web and system developers consultants IT technicians and IT managers Their use of the system differed depending on their work tasks Overall they mostly used Content Studio to edit and update information such as text and images to make changes in the existing templates or build their own and to create functions and Active Scripting components Nearly everyone that participated in the survey had knowledge in layout programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator About 40 had prior knowledge of HTML either through programming or editing programs such as Dreamweaver and FrontPage Everyone had knowledge of the Office family in particular Word pro
22. only help improve the usets experience 56 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 8 2 User assistance Using any interface for the first time is a challenge for many users Learning something new does not have to be frustrating but often is for many people Experienced users also have to focus to be able to learn more difficult aspects In most of these cases when a user gets stuck manuals tutorials and online help can be useful Tutorials are most important for novice users while support such as online help helps bridge the gap between what the users know and what they need to know and are best suited for intermittent users Today s interactive systems are expected to assist the user by providing online help manuals and tutorials 32 The need for this will probably never be eliminated no matter how good the user interface becomes At the same time most users avoid user manuals and prefer to learn the system by exploration 30 The result from the survey showed that 15 of 23 had never used the online help and those who had did not rate it very high 8 2 1 Help Help is not something to be used to compensate for poor interface design It should be supplied as a mean to assist the users when they need it providing different help for different types of users An important aspect of a help system is that it is easy to teach and easy to return from 32 Part of the problem with Content Studio s
23. points out the differences between the two and emphasizes that different guidelines are needed when designing websites compared to traditional GUI design This makes it equally obvious that different guidelines now are needed when designing a system that is a combination between the two 30 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Using existing guidelines for the web could affect the usability of web applications by restricting the interactions to those provided by the browser The guidelines are therefore not flexible enough and are often not appropriate because the motivation of a web application user differs from that of a web site user Overall web based applications differ from web sites in many ways not just by being more interactive but also by being more likely to be used more intensively and more frequently 40 And according to Norman 28 as cited by Wroblewski 40 because users want the setvice that applications have to offer they are willing to invest more time in learning the functionality for the payoff of increased productivity This behaviour differs very much from surfing of Web pages in which case users will move on if they cannot quickly understand the site 25 At the same time interface design guidelines for software products do not address the behavioural patterns web users might have and the limitations and possibilities of the Web environment Still traditional GUI guide
24. specific guideline that is violated and why This was also the result of this work but it also includes recommendations and possible solutions to these problems all of which are described in the following sections This type of evaluation often does not deal with the positive sides of an 26 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform interface but this is addressed in this paper Since no guarantees can be given that the results of a review will find every problem in an interface supplements with other methods was made to get a more reliable evaluation Heuristic evaluation and usability testing complement each other nicely according to Dumas and Redish 8 Following this recommendation the predicted problems and concerns from the expert review was used as a foundation for the questionnaire After conducting the heuristic evaluation the users were asked to provide their opinions in order to draw attention to any undiscovered problems The results from the two methods were compared to see where they overlapped and where problems not found by the evaluator were located During the period of user input informal observations and interviews were made on several occasions Some of these observations could fall under field studies which according to Barnum 1 are usually performed on systems already in use and often gives very relevant results 5 3 Asking users Access to the users was provided through courses
25. the system helps the users relax and encourages exploration while still feeling that their actions result in the interface responding to them not the other way around 22 32 At least the system should provide appropriate sets of choices and warn users about potential situations where they could damage the system or data 6 1 5 Prevent errors A part of designing explorable systems is to help users recognize diagnose and recover from errors Foremost one should design the system to prevent the user from making serious errors However if an error is made ways to recovery should be supplied by the system One should always assume that an error that can be made will be made and therefore plan for it Or as also stated by Norman 27 make it easy to reverse operations make it hard to make irreversible actions Error messages should be expressed in plain language indicate the problem and suggest a solution but a design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place is even better Either situations that are likely to result in errors should be eliminated or the users should be presented with a confirmation option before they commit to the action 22 Even in the best designed interface users can make mistakes These mistakes can be both physical such as accidentally pointing to the wrong command and psychological such as making a wrong decision about which command to select 15 34 Usability Guidelines Eval
26. unexpected problems Customers that like a product recommend it to others The perception of a system is directly linked to the vendor which is why usability quality can be a tool for marketing The key principle for reaching an acceptable level of usability is to make use of iterative design where the design process is repeated continuously and refined and tested for each cycle The designers are not typical users and neither are developers or usability experts which is why the real users of the product should be consulted as early as possible By including user feedback from the beginning the designers and developers are able to gradually refine the design according to the users needs To be able to do this one also has to determine who the primary users are how they work and what sort of tasks they must perform This together with various methods for evaluation can be used to get the necessary information needed to create an appropriate design Different evaluation methods are more suitable than others for evety project and aspects such as time and money are especially influencing 37 Krug 12 claims that 80 of mistakes can be caught if a usability expert is brought in from the beginning Hence usability should be a part of the design process instead of something that if possible is added in the end 3 1 Definitions Several definitions of usability exist Both Nielsen 21 and Molich 18 define the abstract conc
27. user assistance and overall consistency The recommendations are based on the results from a heuristic evaluation interviews observations and questionnaires Together with the presented guidelines they create a good foundation for future development of Content Studio Sammanfattning Fler och fler inser behovet av anvandbarhet vilket far produktutvecklarna att battre ta tillvara de metoder som finns tillg ngliga for att h ja anv ndbarheten Uppdragsgivaren for denna rapport var Teknikhuset AB som ville ha sin webbapplikationsplattform Content Studio utvarderad Foretaget ville veta hur anvandbar produkten var vilka problem som fanns och hur dessa skulle kunna losas for kommande versioner N r nya typer av applikationer blir vanligare blir anpassade riktlinjer f r anv ndbarhet viktigare Detta stod klart under fortskridandet med det h r arbetet Det blev ocks uppenbart att utv rderingsmetoderna r mest effektiva i kombination med varandra P egen hand r en metod inte kapabel att hitta alla anv ndbarhetsproblem i ett gr nssnitt F r detta arbete utf rdes en heuristisk utv rdering tillsammans med en enk t intervjuer och informella observationer N r det g ller applikationen som utv rderingen g llde m rktes det att den var v ldigt kompetent men att den inneh ll terkommande problem Rekommendationerna f r hur problemen skulle kunna l sas grupperades i tre omr den Belamrat gr nssnitt hj lp f r anv ndarna och geno
28. user receives help to reach his or her goals without having to possess the knowledge of how The application used tabs for switching between different views which is a common way to not having to deal with many open windows at the same time On the downside it was not obvious how to switch between edit and other modes and EPiServer used tabs almost everywhere which could make it difficult to get a simple overview For instance they used tabs inside other tabbed environments which could cause confusion for the users SiteVision provided tree structures for both content and navigation which 1s recommendable but not by displaying one under the other This makes the structure messy and creates problem for very long tree structures SiteVision displayed pages in a way that first opened a page inside a frame in the window but then supplied a small popup window for editing the same page It seems as if only one page at the time can be opened and viewed and the popup solution for editing is not preferable SiteVision had placed a lot of emphasis on templates or modules as they liked to call it which further strengthens the notion that templates are a good way to go The accessible material was substantially less than for EPiServer which is why further opinions would be mere speculations 7 3 2 New versions of Windows and Office Including an investigation of the new versions of Windows and Office in this work was requested by the as
29. users are asked for their opinions This was made through questionnaires and interviews Both of these methods are described in detail in the following sections Before the users were asked to provide feedback the predictive evaluation was performed One of the two techniques available asking experts was used see figure 5 1 The expert used to perform the evaluation was the author of this paper The 23 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform other technique modelling the users performance by using models such as GOMS was not applied This decision was based on the author s previous experiences where GOMS was not suitable for evaluating this type of applications Statements that it relies on small routine tasks and thus has limited scope 30 also had an impact on this decision A flexible system such as Content Studio makes it difficult to predict an average user s performance of a task and thereby makes it harder to apply predictive models It also has long and sometimes advanced tasks that can be performed in many different ways which further increases the complexity of predicting the performance Besides formal questionnaires and interviews several informal conversations were made with a number of users This falls under the quick and dirty category where the discussions with existing and potential users were made both individually and in groups The observations were not completely made in th
30. very statistically large volumes to be able to retrieve answers from the survey that can be considered to be reliable 10 Before conducting the survey an assumption or a hypothesis should be formulated In other words the purpose should be clear before start There should be something to confirm or reject 18 Based on the results from the heuristic evaluation presented later on the hypothesis became that new users would have trouble learning the system especially where to find what they want and that once learned the window management would slow down the work process and making tasks less visible 27 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform When testing an existing version of a system to make improvements users who are used to the system are of interest Characteristics for these users are that they have thorough knowledge of the system at hand put great importance in efficiency and few error situations and have developed techniques for problem solving 18 Including the users is also a good idea since their resistance to change might be reduced if they can anticipate it 32 Clients and support personnel are good sources for pointing out experienced users The users should be asked about typical tasks message experiences error messages in particular and help usage Surveys can also be a soutce to creating user profiles which is why questions about previous experience and knowledge can be inc
31. was grouped into 3 parts as mentioned in the previous section The most important recommendations are presented in more detail in the following text 8 1 Cluttered Workspace The interface is not especially cluttered until one opens several documents and or has a small screen The two primary areas that can help to solve this are window management and interface flexibility 8 1 1 Window management When performing the heuristic evaluation the presence of the browser toolbar was seen as a bit bothering The survey showed that some users thought of Content 53 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Studio as part of the web and that as many users that considered Content Studio to be a separate program considered it to be a combination between the two To ensure that the browser environment does not cause any confusion a way to remove the browser toolbar would be preferable If this is not done the users risk confusing the functions of the browser and the program and might for instance click on back to undo an action or move to a different view The result however is that the previous webpage is shown and the program is terminated As soon as the program is shown in a separate window without browser controls the users are able to use it as any other program The usets should not have to care about whether they are working on the web or just towatds the hard drive 25 There already exists
32. 33 Usability problems can be defined as aspects of a user interface that may cause the resulting system to have reduced usability for the end user A user can find an interface element to be problematic for many reasons it might make the system harder to learn it might slow down performance of their tasks it may cause usage errors or it might simply be unpleasant 22 Usability is a feature and an end result which comes up when each of the designers have performed a good work User experience is more and more used as a summarizing term for usability utility and usefulness Whether or not a product is easy to handle what it actually does and how useful it is all contribute to the user s experience Henceforth when using the term usability this will include the user experience but not the term user friendly which many times is used in this context Nielsen 11 warns about a too broad use of the term claiming that people want computers they can use and that do what they want rather than friendly ones To make proper use of the term usability and apply the perspective on the task at hand this sort of wider view was applied as opposed to just talking about ease of use and fast learning e commerce webapplication Interaction web production design development UU ii i oo i Graphical Information design T design avert 5 ng p Fo rganisat lions Flash cantent authorities Figure 3 2 Differe
33. 5 The most preferable way of dealing with several open windows at the same time is to represent every window as a separate tab This still shows one window at the time but enables the user to get a clear overview and quick access to other open widows This is used by several other programs and is a familiar way of switching between documents Furthermore it seems like Office 12 will make use of tabs to manage open files in Access for example When talking to the developers this idea was well received but too complex to put into practise for the time being The underlying structure is currently built on a type of windows that cannot be converted into tabs very easily This however does not mean that the idea of using tabs should be discarded One way of displaying windows through tabs are showed in Figure 8 1 and 8 2 This solution was based on the need for the users to be able to view the web tree and its corresponding file information Without it they have no access to created documents The suggested solution keeps these areas while still using tabs as a way to ease the window management but makes it possible for the users to choose how much of each area they need to see Another solution which at least could be used temporarily is to make use of the same functionality as Word currently possesses It contains a menu called windows where every open document is listed see Figure 8 3 When an item is selected the corresponding document i
34. 7 l tt att l sa Skarmlayouten ar Ologisk 1 2 3 45 6 7 logisk Mangden information som kan visas pa skarmen r Otillr cklig 1234567 tillracklig Spr ket i systemet r inkonsekvent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 konsekvent Dataterminologi anvands F r ofta 1 2 3 45 6 7 l mpligt Meddelanden som uppenbarar sig pa skarmen ar Inkonsekventa 1234567 konsekventa Instruktioner for kommandon eller funktioner ar F rvirrande 1234567 tydliga Att f rst instruktioner i dialogrutor ar V ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Felmeddelanden fortydligar problemet Aldrig 1 2 3 45 6 7 alltid Formuleringar av meddelanden ar otrevliga 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 trevliga Kommentarer 4 L rande Att komma igang ar V ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Att lara sig man vrera Content Studio ar V ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Att lara sig avancerade finesser ar V ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Utforskning av funktioner kanns a avskrackande 1 2 3 45 6 7 uppmuntrande b Riskabelt 1 2 3 45 6 7 s kert 71 Appendix C Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Att uppt cka nya funktioner ar v ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Att r tta till misstag ar v ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt F rm ga att ngra operationer r otillr cklig 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 tillr cklig Operationer leder till ett f rutsagbart resultat aldrig 12345 6 7 alltid M
35. Evaluation of the user interface of a 30 January 2006 Master thesis 20 credits Department of computing science Umea University Sweden Internal supervisor Lena Palmquist External supervisor Tomas Agerberg Examinator Per Lindstr m web application platform Anna Westerberg Abstract Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Abstract More and more people realise their need for usability which causes the product developers to make better use of the available methods for usability assurance The assigner for this thesis was Teknikhuset AB who wanted their web application platform Content Studio evaluated The company wanted to know to what extent the design was usable what the problems with the design were and how these problems could be solved for future versions As new types of applications become more common a tailored set of guidelines gets more important This became obvious during the progress of this work It was also clear that methods for evaluation are most effective when combined with each other On its own a method is not able to find every usability problem in an interface For this work a heuristic evaluation was performed along with a questionnaire interviews and informal observations The application in focus of the evaluation was found to be very competent but with some recurring problems The recommendations on how to solve the problems were grouped into three arcas Cluttered workspace
36. It is difficult to know how carefully the users filled out the questionnaire and what they were thinking while doing it There is a chance that some problems are not mentioned because they are believed to be selfexplanatory and the users do not want to admit that they do not understand it There are always difficulties when trying to fix a design problem after an application is released because users may adapt to or even become dependent on a peculiarity in the design The foundation of Content Studio was found to be very stable and since none of the problems were so major that a complete restructuring was needed the recommendations were concentrated on making justified changes while keeping the familiarity Several of the complaints from the customers regarded their own website and the way they work with it This suggests that some usability work can be needed for the productions created with Content Studio This is where the guidelines should be applied Instead of asking the users immediately a design proposal could have been made based on the heuristic evaluation Then the users could have stated their opinions on the proposal which might have led to further changes However since the users were available and the opportunity to observe them using the current 63 Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform version of the system was presented I decided to gather as much information as possible before making a sug
37. Practice of Simplicity New Riders Publishing Indianapolis Nielsen J 2005 RIP WYSIWYG Alert box for October 10 http www useit com alertbox wysiwyg html last visited 051011 Norman D 1988 The Design of everyday things MIT Press London Norman D 2000 The Rise of Webhcations Keynote address presented at the User Experience World Tour Chicago IL Ottersten I and Berndtsson J 2002 Anv ndbarhet i praktiken Studentlitteratur Lund Preece J Rogers Y and Sharp H 2002 Interaction Design beyond human computer interaction Wiley amp Sons Inc Raskin J 2000 The Humane Interface New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems Reading MA Addison Wesley Publishing Co Shneiderman B and Plaisant C 2005 Designing the user interface strategies for effective human computer interaction Pearson Education inc Addison Wesley 4 edition Soderstrom J 2001 Vad ar interaktionsdesign http kornet nu iadesign shtml last visited 051201 Teknikhuset AB 2005 Content Studio http www contentstudio se last visited 051207 Teknikhuset AB 2005 Teknikhuset http www teknikhuset se last visited 050822 Tognazzini B 2000 OS X A First Look Ask Tog http www asktog com columns 034OSX FirstLook html last visited 051216 Usability First 2005 Introduction to usability http www usabilityfirst com last visited 060104 Vasont Systems 2004 Multilingual XML
38. a iade d Ra e ER Or E neatrt hee PEG PARIS 59 8 3 1 Coherent look and feel ceeeenn HH mn 59 83 2 Consistent TECAD ACK scs usati atte web eua ie e brad 60 9 3 3 MAPPING aNd VISIDINCY siae vE ES tei a a Fe e Pack illo 60 9 Summary and Conclusions eee eee 62 L0 DISCUSSION sasdiondebudanudenudiondenudaondnncseecseavetavecavers VADE VED IUS 63 TOUT FUTtUPF WOK 4555 adiuti be bao Dade vea ida S dude odor na Var ee psa td DER Ru a 64 Acknowledgement esvs unkudusidnk s puc a a RwE ERE Cu guid ea Rap E 65 References 55 oss n DUOC Uude Aa deu due VER VU E EVE EU E da EU E 66 ADDENGIX A iib Eve CEREERERRRERE NEEREERERRNEREVEEDERRSVeFEERRS A 68 Append B cech aka a M s adc NONO CH GTC ORG DN DR D RR RR 70 Append C uxssdvuxcFPsavE ux x EXE Ka VR ERE b RD DR a RR Rs 73 Introduction Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 1 Introduction If usability was just common sense not so many products would be difficult to use Nevertheless without any usability work common sense is precisely what companies have to rely on Good usability is therefore the result of good wotk by the development team and 1s a quality that shows when the product is in use It shows by making the interaction run smoothly and thereby by being unnoticed The author s interest in this work comes from an education 1n interaction technology and design In particular user interfaces have been studied a
39. able e piod usu os eee 35 6 1 8 Help and documentation eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 36 6 2 TradesOL Sissi erste qucd deeds ze ARM A PUE M ME 37 7 Results iiesssEvEs EU sS EVE DUEVENUFEZREFEFUFZFEEE VE PE REVUE MERE PEE 38 7 1 COnGeernsuult Meli Xds Fel Bokmarket ar inte definierat 752 USE IDDUUoszvestavis tavern px Vie Ca euren via Vat paa VEM Cea pu o 43 1T 2 1 lIntervieWsicicict lu RU iei dei 43 7 2 2 JQODSODVALlOTiSamieue ebur a ea oubli pou Da Mo art d b 44 Ju203 SUNVCY aa ot t E M MU ete at 44 7 3 Research from other SYSteMS ssssesrsrererererererrrrrr reser rr rr rr nr nr era 47 7 3 1 EPiServer and SiteVision sssssessereersrrrrr rr rr rr rr rr rr rr pes 48 7 3 2 New versions of Windows and Office eene 48 eek SIPING SEO T UIT 52 8 RecommendatliOHnSs puedURU EUM EUN SUME PICKS EE EE EE E EE 53 G1 Gl ttered WOLKSDaCQ i oer aa E Ty bna A ex re Dx Cet wk GO E OG n 53 8 1 1 Window management ssossssossssssesesrererersrerer nnn 53 8 1 2 Interface flexibility lsssseeeeseeeee n 56 8 2 User as SIS CaN CC A coetus dpi rer rt ert KKR RR RK KR KKR E Maa RR KKR KKR E 57 Sick Helpasexseudbuigeceeaiaaut Manassas d RF eda A E eee 57 9 2 2 Documentation ume deve Shaheed SubidasoUg beta M PUPPY 58 9 253 Language rte suut po aic ese cutinceis ana meas EN ES 58 9 2 4 TEMOS satiuuerpten qoia amd Dad epe aD HERI VES 59 8 35 OVEelalll CONSISTENCY os re bvadivad a
40. adly designed in some way Many of the questions following this concern were about whether or not the users were able to find what they want and need Was the interface difficult to understand learn or remember how to use or was it difficult to navigate Also the usability guidelines described later in this paper had a big impact on the type of questions asked For instance questions about feedback consistency and language are directly related to the guidelines With Content Studio being a web application platform it was also interesting to examine how the integration with the web worked 5 1 3 Choose the evaluation paradigm and techniques When the questions were determined they had to be answered through evaluation Preece et al 30 have divided the different methods into four main paradigms for evaluation as being l Quick and dirty When performing a quick and dirty evaluation one gets feedback from usets or consultants regarding the design and how well it fits the users needs The main advantage is that the method does not require a lot of time to perform and at the same time it results in suggestions for improvement When talking to consultants one can benefit from their technical and user knowledge and their ability to review software quickly Regardless of who is providing the feedback it is a very informal method 2 Usability testing Usability testing measures how quickly and flawlessly typical users can perform carefully
41. alog box presenting guidance for that particular function Figure 8 4 shows how this could look From there a link that leads directly to the corresponding section in the online help can be provided This will allow the users to view the explanations needed and to be offered to follow a link to more information Thereby the previously maybe not even discovered help section is placed at the users fingertips The context guidance can help reducing the most unnecessary and trivial calls to the support 57 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Hy hy i F y Fr r a Egarria l S kerhet ll Irst liningar Esemikaper Bakerhset Inak ilear aar Egengkager Tert Treille ir Hir aan da ange purnmkaser for dera erect amp H r Vae Du Vel eA Nor CHA Se AE ach rui Fr HF nik Ug pid curetur Her enn fr s ia i St rker Bai pan h ra Erman partio uerupnr ib Putas 5 Asa E Pbi pr rua az Poirier n ies T Praktiker er M Amad potio nogcaturr S tH ener Teens pj niam daraa Bak lar E post Dorman dea iion Trepp uu Huan paneer DTE 4 01 Trace oma Faa TT Ang in perua Dwirtaratian aC PE AT PUBLIC WIC detta Bara Figure 8 4 Dialog boxes for properties settings consisting of tabs which makes it possible to follow the same format for every properties dialog The last dialog box shows how the context guidance could be implemented By makin
42. an kan anv nda funktioner med sv righet 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 med l tthet Man kan anvanda genvagar med sv righet 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 med l tthet Att komma ihag namn och anvandning av kommandon och funktioner ar V ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Att hitta nskade menyalternativ ar v ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Kommentarer 5 Hj lp Brukar du anvanda online hjalpen for att klara av att utf ra uppgifter Terminologin som anvands ar F rvirrande 12345 6 7 tydlig Online hjalpen ar l tt att f rst aldrig 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 alltid M ngden hj lp som ges online r otillr cklig 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 tillr cklig Att hitta en l sning p ett problem genom att anv nda online hj lpen g rs med sv righet 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 med l tthet Online hj lpen r v rdel s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 anv ndbar Kommentarer 6 Synpunkter Hur upplever du Content Studio o Som ett eget program o Som en del av webben o Kombination o Annat o vet ej Vad gillar du mest med Content Studio Vad gillar du minst med Content Studio Skulle du rekommendera Content Studio till andra Varf r r det n got annat du vill kommentera 72 Appendix C Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Appendix C Ihe following diagrams show the different areas from the questionnaire put together based on the users experience For each question a mean for the answers for each user type was calculated and t
43. and this window lies beneath the exit button which 1s not how it is done in Windows e Icons in the dialog for active scripting components are placed in a different order compared to the ordinary view e The same buttons in dialog boxes for units and categories are also placed in a random order The amount of buttons has resulted in two rows of buttons which makes it difficult to get an overview of e cons for viewing folders in different ways do not have tooltips If the usets are not used to the standard they will not help e The use of popup menus reduces the clutter in the UI and is only showed when the users request them which is good Although several of the dialog boxes for Active Scripting components are very long and sometimes ending a section just before the window edge which can cause users to believe that no mote options are available e Dialog boxes that leads to the opening of other dialog boxes becomes modal and thereby prevents the user from looking at the documents underneath e To exit the application does not result in any feedback e For insert image or open a preview option is available but no indication that the text is selectable is given Instead preview is easily mistaken for the already open frame 68 Appendix A Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform The web tree does not indicate which of the items that is aimed at when the mouse pointer moves over it When con
44. application could be substantially improved The need for this wotk came from the increasing focus on usability and how it can be used as a means to exceed the competition High usability can be very decisive for a potential customer when choosing between two applications with similar functions For Teknikhuset this work was needed to inform them on what they can change in their product to fulfil the users needs to a greater extent It was also a way to introduce usability work in the organisation Problem description Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 2 2 In depth study When trying to get a better understanding of Content Studio and its surroundings the focus initially lay on different ways of evaluation and what might be needed to perform a review as complete as possible It was soon clear that being able to follow a tailored set of guidelines would help improve the future interface design Hence a more thorough study was based on guidelines both ones from usability experts and the current and future ones from Microsoft 2 3 Conditions The evaluation was based on version 4 0 of the program It was limited to the GUI and any functions shown to be excessive or wrongly designed Even though a lot of time was taken to get familiar with the system before conducting the evaluation it was found to be rather big There simply was not enough time to encounter every possible usability problem before or during the
45. argement in the bottom right corner shows that different objects such as the web tree can contain more than one tab The active tab is plain while the other tab s are displayed with the affordance of a button Each object can be manipulated and enlarged decreased and or closed Regaining a closed object can be done through the view menu 54 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Content Studio Window File View Help Shortcuts A kwv verkyg Hjalp LG d bed a Dh Ba S 1S presmall f r ept 1244 Anna Westerberg d Corten Images Includes a Fub ik Extema nyheter My Documents 2 UB Incomirg uhsik y Of syscem Inneh ll Tes Web view IE anna Je entdocs hkmlcocs Checked out 4 inkluderingar documents JA pics 49 presnall J redfcrm My Favourites Te bilder E T NTM Ej 7 jarvklo Latest activities F mattias Search 2 Trash External links 9 E Button Germa El TuL Button Figure 8 2 Minimizing a tab such as the folder content results in an easy accessible clickable area which allows the tab to be opened again Novice users often have difficulty with window management They do not always realize that overlapping windows represent a three dimensional space As a result when a window hides another a user may assume it no longer exists 1
46. at even though the look of the applications is new people quickly become accustomed to the way they work According to Microsoft 16 this is due to the simplicity of some of the new interface features such as command tabs contextual command tabs galleries and live preview see figure 7 8 and figure 7 9 Command tabs have replaced the traditional menus and toolbars They display the commands that are most relevant fot each of the task areas For example Word has Command Tabs for writing inserting page layout and so on Excel has a similar set of Command Tabs that makes sense for spreadsheet work Contextual Command Tabs contain sets of commands that are only relevant for specific objects When the uset clicks on a table a contextual command tab appears with commands that are relevant for table editing Because they only appear when they are needed the commands needed for the current operation become easier to find and use see fig 7 9 Galleries will provide the users with a set of results to choose from when working on for example a document see Figure 7 8 49 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform ER Page Layout 1 Ja Breaks E E Ha Line Numbers size Orientation Margins Co umns bl Hyphenation L H r m l Tope 4 00 Right 1 0 Bottom 0 75 Lett 0 75 Harrow Top 0 25 Right p 25 Bottom 0 25 Lett p 25 Wide Tog 1400 Fight 1 00 Bottom 2 00 Lett 2 00
47. ation platform A Test anna eptdocs Webbsidedialogruta Arkiv Verktvg Hj lp O E led el 3 iu v2 2 S presmall f r ept 1244 t ML ADR Schema presmall f r ept 1244 Rubrik Nyheter Inneh ll Figure 7 3 To be able to edit this document one has to select check out 6 icon from the left but there is not enough information constraining the user to perform this action For instance all three of the drop down menus are expandable and not greyed out Flexibility and efficiency of use When it comes to supporting both experienced and inexperienced users Content Studio is good at providing icons and other shortcuts Especially the simple mode helps novice users to edit information in a simple way However not every shortcut is available as a menu option and may only be accessed by a right click or an icon for instance Simplicity Content Studio provides information in an order that should correspond to the users priorities when starting the application First shortcuts are presented then a folder overview to enable the user to quickly navigate to a desired document This far it has a very simple design which makes the information visible but when one gets more used to the application some problems such as error messages become visible instead A message such as the one in figure 7 5 does not provide enough information for the user to make an informed choice When it comes t
48. below average ability and experience can use the thing whether it is a web site ot a revolving door for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated Steve Krug Don t make me think Due to the fact that the focus of this work lies in usability aspects and interaction design a proper introduction to the terms are made in this section This is done to make distinctively clear what is meant when using them as a goal and a mean for the recommendations as well as to explain their impact on a system The chapter also explains the reasons for introducing more usability work in the company s work process and how this can be achieved The sources come both from the areas of traditional software design and the web since usability is needed in all types of systems People having problems to use a VCR or all the features in a mobile phone are often used as examples to illustrate poor usability These are problems almost everyone has encountered in one way or another The field of Human Computer Interaction has a lot of focus on usability because it aims to bridge the gap between people and machines In order for such tools to be effective it must allow their users to accomplish their tasks in the best way possible Usability depends on different factors concerning how well the product fits the users needs tasks and expectations Often usability is considered to be something that every system automatically contains and only come
49. called developer days held by Teknikhuset where their clients come to learn about new features in the application ot similar topics At each occasion 8 10 users were available for observation and discussion Altogether four such occasions was taken advantage of 5 3 1 Questionnaires and interviews Written surveys are a familiar tool which works well as a complement to expert reviews and user testing The number of users participating in surveys is often rather large compared to the other methods To have a successful survey one should have clearly defined goals and prepare for the analysis work in advance Precise questions increase the chance of receiving a result more likely to be able to use for guidance Finding out how the users like various aspects of the interface is best done by using surveys with satisfaction scales and free form comments This leads to a more practical evaluation Performing the survey online or by email reduces the work of distributing and collecting papers 32 This may also ensure a higher answer rate Using questionnaires is a method that does not study the interface itself but collects the users opinions of the interface based on a set of predefined questions Interviews work similarly to the questionnaires but have greater flexibility and direct contact between the user and the interviewer Questionnaires can be too time consuming in proportion to the received information However it is seldom needed to have
50. cessing and some had extensive knowledge in development programming and network administration Over 60 of the users had never used a similar system before Those who had had either used a self developed one ot EPiServer SiteManager or Mambo 7 1 Expert input The result of the heuristic evaluation showed that many of the guidelines were broken although some more than others and some not at all After performing the heuristic evaluation a few more concerns arose apart from some mote specific details that were discovered The first concern was if new users who have not seen this particular program before were able to become productive quickly A concern also rose about how users will be able to wotk with more advanced features after they have had the product for some time Yet basic tasks were considered to be a bigger concern since if users are unsuccessful when introduced to the system they might not continue to use it Whether or not new users would be able to navigate through menus quickly and easily to find what they want was also a question of interest As were if all functions and icons together cluttering the workspace really was needed Another thing that cluttered the workspace was the amount of open windows which might be a concern if they slow down the productivity Content Studio fulfils the usability goals to various degrees It was found to be very effective safe and memorable but might need reinforcements to become more
51. characteristics such as experience computer knowledge and system usage which can be extracted through questionnaires interviews and observations Lots of information can also already be present in previously made analyses or other background material but regardless of method the analysis aims to determine the demands on the user interface 10 Today Content Studio is being used by approximately 100 companies and otganisations Most of them are administrations energy companies and other private companies with highly traffiked web sites and also often with other internal and external systems and applications Among the end users are customer service personel informers product responsibles IT technichians web designers etc The knowledge of the users therefore ranges from very limited to developer Three user types have previously been identified by Teknikhuset These are 1 The editor That is users of content studio who are writers with no or little experience of web design and mostly will edit information on the site An editor has rights to create edit and delete information but may not be allowed to publish it If not this is usually done by someone who is editor in chief or publisher 2 The administrator That is someone who will handle information structures edit forms and presentation templates access and backup of the web site In other words it is the person that maintains and administers the web site also known as a
52. cipated usability problems and if it was consistent with the hypotheses It was also compared to the results from the heuristic evaluation and the observations The results of the comparison are presented in chapter 7 29 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 6 Usability Guidelines Different types of guidelines are needed to evaluate different types of interactive systems Preece et al Interaction Design beyond human computer interaction To be able to perform the heuristic evaluation a list of principles or guidelines was needed The rapid growth of web applications such as Content Studio has revealed a lack of effective guidelines for their design and implementation These types of applications where software is delivered as a service over the web could be thought of as part web site and part software application Many web usability guidelines work well when applied to traditional web sites as do several existing GUI guidelines for software design However neither set of principles alone is completely applicable to web application interface design 40 Thus tailoring a set of heuristics for evaluating Content Studio s interface was needed Usability principles such as Nielsen s 22 are similar to Norman s design principles 27 and sometimes overlapping them but they are mostly used to evaluate systems instead of designing them Design principles often arise from experi
53. d By using more comprehensible language that explains functions and components as well as menus and dialog boxes the users do not feel as intimidated Every message and instruction should be presented with a friendly positive and suppottive tone so that the user can understand the content and act on the information 58 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform For example instead of using blank for selecting a link to open in a new window a mote declarative text such as open in new window should be used As mentioned eatlier this is something that the competition has succeeded in doing and something worth considering Sometimes as for figure 7 5 the message depends on the system s difficulty in knowing the unnamed documents Stil a more comprehensible text which at least differs between the document to be created and the existing one can be provided According to the company inUse 13 good communication between the uset and the system will contribute to a more relaxed usage and fewer calls to the helpdesk 8 2 4 Templates Templates can be used in many areas for example one can provide CSS templates for displaying images with additional graphical elements such as a shadow or a frame The goal with any template is to help the user create results which he or she does not have knowledge of how to build By using a prepared template this is done quickly and easily Templates for discuss
54. e paradigms are used in various ways depending on the chosen evaluation paradigm Figure 5 1 shows the relationship between the evaluation paradigms and the different techniques The techniques are Observing users Challenges are how one observes without disturbing the users and how to analyze the collected data The common ways of recording the observations are notes audio ot video Asking users their opinions Interviews and questionnaires are the main techniques used to find out what the users think about a product The number of users and how the questions are structured may vary Asking experts their opinions Experts evaluate the usability by playing the role of a typical user trying to find possible problems and their solutions User testing Users performances are tested and analyzed in a controlled environment Modelling users task performance to predict the efficiency of a UI One wants to test different designs without building complex prototypes Instead different techniques such as GOMS goals operators methods and selection rules and the keystroke model are used to model human computer interaction Usability testing and user testing in particular would maybe have been the most appropriate method but due to the time constraint and the limited access to users this was not selected as the main paradigm Instead the predictive evaluation was chosen Usability testing was used but only trough the technique where the
55. e present help functions were classified as level 3 severity because they mostly need to be more accessible Many of the minor problems are things that work as they are but which would work better if they were to be moderately changed This is not a top priority but on the other hand things that will be corrected quickly Templates are a good idea for Content Studio to develop even more than they already have They let the customers adjust provided suggestions instead of having to create everything from scratch Examples of templates are image galleries news lists and other functions often requested by users Microsoft s new guidelines were vety similar to the already existing ones and therefore not providing any new guidance apart from the specific graphical ones aimed at developers These are however not of interest for this work and are therefore not taken into consideration The results from the different evaluations show that the areas the solution should be focused on are user assistance help and documentation cluttered workspace window management interface flexibility and icons and overall consistency and feedback 52 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 8 Recommendations some of the problems are due to technical issues which somewhat affect the recommehndations At the same time many of the issues exist as a result of lack of time when developing and can easily be solved when
56. e users natural environment but could otherwise have qualified as field studies A minor web based test with novice users where the users performed different tasks and answered task related questions during the test were already in progress at the beginning of the work with this paper The test was therefore not being conducted as a part of this work but any result of interest was taken into consideration when putting together the recommendations 5 1 4 Identify the practical issues that must be addressed For the online usability test performed by Teknikhuset only novices were used The questionnaires were handed out to as many users as possible reaching both men and women of various ages with different degrees of knowledge and experience The users answering the form were recommended by persons well familiar with the client population To not have to deal with paper handouts when performing the survey the questionnaire was published as an online form No particular equipment was needed except for a computer and a possibility to distribute the form online There was no budget for this project either A time constraint forced the evaluation to be limited to the predictive paradigm and to focus on user opinions instead of formal observations 5 1 5 Decide how to deal with the ethical issues To prevent data collected about the participants to be associated with specific persons no names appear in the report The form explain
57. ed the aim of the test and ensured the participants that their performance and personal details would not be made public Other details they were informed of were for example the estimated time and how the data would be handled and analyzed They were also told that their performance was to be taken seriously and that it would help improve the next version of the system and in turn their own work situation 5 1 6 Evaluate interpret and present the data Depending on how many users participating in the tests the reliability can vary Part of the evaluation was informal and therefore had lower reliability This includes the 24 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform observations and some interviews On the other hand the web based test is easy to copy and the more users participating the more reliable the average results becomes Since the goal was to find the problems in the current interface having had experts frequent users and novices performing some sort of evaluation has hopefully given an overall picture and discovered the most immediate problems Possible biases were too few expert reviewers perhaps with too little experience of everyday use Not being able to watch neither the users in their natural environment nor the users performing the web based test may have resulted in many aspects never being considered The way questions were phrased may have influenced the users when answering them Hav
58. emet Fr gorna ska hj lpa mig f rst vad du som anvandare tycker om produkten baserat pa de uppgifter du ar van att utf ra Fragorna ar indelade i olika omr den Markera det alternativ som bast passar dina intryck av Content Studio F r varje omrade finns ett falt for kommentarer dar du g rna far f rtydliga ge synpunkter eller f rslag Enkaten tar ungefar 15 minuter att fylla i Alla svar ar givetvis anonyma 1 Erfarenhet Vad arbetar du med Hur l nge har du arbetat med Content Studio o mindre n 3 m nader o 3 m nader 1 ar o mer n 1 ar men inte mer an 3 ar o meran3ar Hur mycket tid per vecka lagger du ner i genomsnitt pa arbete med Content Studio O mindre n 1h O 1 5h O 6 10h O 11 20h o mer n 20h Hur ser ditt vardagliga arbete ut i Content Studio Har du anvant liknande system forut o Ja o Nej o Vetej Om ja vilket Vilka andra typer av datorkunskaper har du Kommentarer 70 Appendix C Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 2 Helhetsintryck Att anv nda Content Studio ar v ldigt sv rt 1 2 3 4 5 v ldigt l tt Mitt allmanna intryck av Content Studio ar att det ar Hemskt 1 2 34 5 6 7 underbart Frustrerande 12345 6 7 tillfredsstallande Tr kigt 1234 5 6 7 stimulerande Otillrackligt 12 3 4 5 6 7 tillrackligt Stelt 12345 67 flexibelt Kommentarer 3 Information Tecken och f rger gor information Svar att l sa 1234 5 6
59. ence knowledge and plain common sense They are intended to guide the designers through the process and help them remember what to include in the interface 30 However a principle is just a goal It does not say anything about Aow it should be fulfilled Instead guidelines for a system have been developed from the principles depending on the future users and environment The principle be consistent can for example result in guidelines such as be consistent in the way you make users leave every menu In other words one principle can lead to many guidelines which can differ for different types of systems and so on 8 Design principles heuristics and guidelines and international standards are often too general and do not give any specific guidance for the construction Platform specific guidelines such as Microsoft Windows User Experience are instead specific on a technical level but too general for the particular domain They are intended to be used as guidance for a designer creating similar design of every information field regardless of which type of application that is build Domain or product specific style guides are aimed at specific applications and based on the previously mentioned type of style guides These are seen as a mote specific design help and can cover a domain a product family or even a single product 10 In his alert box The difference between web design and GUI design 23 Nielsen clearly
60. ept of usability as something more measurable by being easy to learn easy to remember efficient to use understandable and satisfying The ISO 9241 11 standard 29 gives a definition of usability as the extent to which a specified product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use 12 Usability Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 3 2 Interaction design A well designed interactive system has an interface that disappears in the background and allows the users to concentrate on their exploration and pleasure Howevet creating this sort of environment requires hard work from the designer 32 If something works in an unexpected way ot is unintelligible the interaction comes into focus Interaction is about collaboration between the user and the computer In its simplest form it is just about how to navigate between web pages while other types of interaction such as online shopping or searching might be more difficult Interaction design is needed not just for web design but also for things such as phone systems thermostats light switches and door knobs 33 When designing for the user one has to consider how the system will fulfil the users needs Preece et al 30 divide the goals for doing that into two categories The first is goals that deal with how usability specifications can be met whereas the seco
61. ey where the usability inspection consisted of an expert evaluation following specific usability principles and guidelines The survey was then used as a complement to be able to capture the users subjective reactions to the system The design rationale behind applying more than one evaluation method is that if the same conclusions come from more than one approach then the conclusion is more likely to be correct For example as pointed out by Brinck et al 6 finding a problem by inspection and then observing the same problem on users can safely lead to the conclusion that it is an important problem to solve The paper described the most prominent deficiencies that were discovered as well as recommendations on how to eliminate these Some of the problems discovered in the evaluation were not possible to solve today without an extensive restructuring of the underlying infrastructure Still many of the problems had several possible solutions where one could be applied immediately and another might have to wait Once discovered some minor problems also had rather apparent solutions After the data from the evaluation had been analysed the nature and severity of the problems had to be considered Content Studio did not contain any problems so severe that they prevented the users from completing their tasks but it had reccuring problem areas which differed in severity Overall though it seemed to be very appreciated by the users and ultimately i
62. f Content Studio already contains all functions for simple information handling for a classic website or intranet So with Content Studio the need for an external consultant decreases allowing the owner more control over their system In short the core of Content Studio consists of web publishing but on a deeper level one can find a generic platform for publishing information 17 Content Management Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform management integration and automatisation The 150 components delivered with the system collaborates in creating a dynamic and database driven platform for web publishing Content Studio has been developed for several years and 1s an established product containing all the functions that can be expected by a web publishing tool The application can be used in a so called simple mode see Figure 4 1 It enables the user to view the documents as they would look when published but have icons for adding and editing where this is possible Otherwise when used in normal mode it looks like in Figure 4 2 2i Demo Sony lanserar billigare Albos Microsoft Internet Explorer E m R fekiv Redgera Wia Favoriter yerktyg Hj lp r Qs a 5 iz f J sk IP Favorite g i Adress amp http idema conkertstudio sefcs C5_LT hem Ej msn zi w FE G shmerkenng Al ARematie 30 Popun f nster sp made 2 au Hotmal
63. forming a task Simplicity should not mean lack of functionality it should mean fast initial learning curve and consideration for the number of concepts the user has to understand 3 Making something simple to use often requires a great deal of work Maximizing functionality and maintaining simplicity often work against each other in the interface An effective design balances 35 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform these objectives Simplicity also correlates with familiarity since things that are familiar often seem simpler Whenever possible one should try to build connections that draw on the users existing knowledge and experiences By hiding inappropriate information from the users the amount of information the user must process becomes reduced 15 This leads to another aspect namely visibility Make information visible Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and makes them less visible Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed 22 The mote visible functions are the more likely the user will know how to use them and what to do next Visual attributes provide valuable impressions and communicate important cues to the interactive behaviour of particular objects A coherent environment that clearly contributes to the user s understanding of the presented information should be provided 15 T
64. g the UI provide instructive interaction which guides the user to correct usage the user perceives the interface as more complete as a consequence of having easy access to all the needed help and guidance 7 8 2 2 Documentation Of course documentation already exists However since so many of the participants in the survey mentioned a lack of documentation it is clear that there is work to be done in that area Not only did they want more extensive documentation they also requested information about new releases and updates Something such as a newsletter could easily solve this It should describe what the new function is why it is needed and how it should be used A list with a summary and a usage description together with some examples would help out a lot The documentation should be mote easily accessed from the system It is great to provide it as an external link since it then can be kept open and used as a complement when working The page one is linked to should however be more adjusted to fit the users needs The support area should for instance be more structured visible and provide a clear overview of its contents when the user enters the online help 8 2 3 Language The language can be fairly technical and might get in the way for more inexperienced users Since Content Studio is marketed as an application that does not require any programming skills a language that is not built on technical terms should be use
65. gestion This caused the recommendation to be based on a more informed decision thereby covering more ground and being more likely to be reasonable The next step should be to continue testing and making use of the customers and their opinions 10 1 Future work A new version Content Studio 4 5 was released during the progress of this work For instance the web tree was complemented with a menu structure used for navigation but changes made in that version have not been based on the findings in this report For future upgrades howevet this report contains valuable information on problems and possible solutions as well as a set of guidelines that should be considered Ideally another test would be conducted even before any changes are made This can help deciding if the recommended changes actually will solve the usability problems that were found The users might have a different opinion To conduct another test will take much less time when test subjects and some material that can be used as a prototype already exist This will also continue the iterative design process with evaluation and redesign in several steps After changes are made the system should be re evaluated 6 This makes it possible to verify that suggested changes actually did improve the usability Another aspect is to keep updated on Windows future work Their evolvement should be monitored and if Teknikhuset wants Content Studio to continue to resemble Office it req
66. hat choice By doing this it is possible that the need for selecting check out becomes more obvious Making alternatives feel like links naturally enables them to only require single clicks The test performed on the simple mode also showed that users were confused about when to use single clicks and when to use double clicks Drag and drop is a fast way of carrying out tasks However it should never be the only way to carry out a task and should be seen as a shortcut equivalence when using a mouse 13 This affects the current use of the web view since pages are only viewable if they are dragged to the icon Additional ways of viewing a document can be to select the document and then simply click on the icon for web view and to provide a web view option in the right click menu The drag and drop method works well once it is learned but is not intuitive in its current presentation By providing other ways of performing this the user can choose the option best corresponding to his or her way of work When making use if this technique it is important that the pointer tells the user when something is dragged where it can be dropped and what operation that will be applied Any operation that will destroy the selected object should be accompanied by a confirmation by the user Because the drag and drop operation is a dynamical operation the user needs dynamical information on what the result of their actions will be 13 Direct manipula
67. he software for an extended period wants to hold off the final opinions However he does say that the new design does seem to resolve many of the problems with the current user interfaces If the new interaction style works as well as early predictions indicate users will quickly expect many other user experiences to provide a results oriented design 26 McCracken 14 believes that the reaction will be negative based on Microsoft s history with Office interfaces As an example he mentions the paperclip assistant which was presented as a feature said to be loved by both novices and experts He thinks there is a chance that the UI will work for both new users and the experienced ones but raises the question on how the inconsistent look will affect the reception The new Office is not even going to appear in all the Office applications Users will have to get used to switching back and forth between applications with the old look and ones with the new look According to McCracken this will be the foremost reason for a quick influence of other applications as well or the reason the new interface will not work at all I don t see a scenario in which the 51 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Microsoft apps behave completely different from every other program on the market It will be very interesting to see how these new thoughts will apply to other environments When it comes to Content Studio
68. he threshold for being able to use Content Studio for development appears to be quite high while usage for administration is much simpler The things that were mentioned as downsides and thereby holding down the general impression was lack of documentation some difficulties with the AS components and a somewhat frustrating interface General impression 11 10 1 m 2 EJ 3 E34 m 5 EJ 6 m7 EJ don t know NOO B A ON DW Ci mean Information The feedback on how well information is presented and viewed was mostly focused on insufficient descriptions of components A wish that the view of lists of documents would be more flexible was expressed along with a possibility for colour coding The window management could be more efficiently arranged to enable a possibility to switch between open documents Other things mentioned were a too technical language for non technicians such as editors and non declarative messages for script errors Information 12 E3 8 n4 6 B5 B6 4 B7 2 m don t know omean 0 Ie n o S o eb gt cc x w 52 ne C c D o 2o 2 ow Qe o 4o 0 e wn c3 w Oc c D oS ae o o o 2 ro w E c2 S gt DO o9 oE c c o EI un Lo os dd o oo 2 o D ED D oc co gd D c o p um o Do o o 23 2 a 2D T ti cT cC oL D a oo nile e o eb a
69. here are some laws that manage our vision These come from the Gestalt theory which is a way to visually connect information by using the laws of proximity closure similarity and good continuation These show how similar objects ot objects close to each other are perceived to be connected and can thereby be seen as a group Providing actions that match interpretations and making outcomes of a system obvious makes it clear what is possible to do The term mapping describes how the relationship between controls and their effects is shown Clear mapping gives the uset better understanding of the effect of an action 27 System that provides affordance allows users to know how different aspects of it should be used Le it should be obvious what can be done to objects in an interface but according to Norman 27 screen based interfaces has learned conventions and thus perceived affordances which is why other design principles such as feedback can be more useful Open the browser window to full screen size Full screen maximizes the display allows the web application to be in focus and hides the navigation tools of the web browser The elimination of the web browser tools borders and menus makes the browser less confusing Thus allowing users to utilize the interaction models of the web application instead of the browser A possible problem is that inexperienced users may not expect such actions from a browser If it is possible the use
70. his is represented in the y axis Several of the questions showed that expert users tended to rate the interface higher than the novice users General impression novice O intermediate expert G expert2 Information B novice El intermediate El expert m expert2 c gt 5 9 oo e 5 oo Gc Oo c o 4 o t c c o o E Ego O D veg oct ES E Sg S S c D S o 2 o o 0 cz S 5 55 8 O o 9 A Oo oc O cx E os gt t cC 5 LL O cq E D Q 4 L g L o E S Q 73 Appendix C Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Learning 7 6 5 il novice E intermediate El expert 3 p E expert2 2 1 0 Exploring b Ability to undo Operations Functions are Shortcuts are features feels operations is leads to a used used a predictable result Help 7 il novice The terminology used is The online help The amount of is easy to understand E intermediate B expert Finding a The online help help provided X solution to a IS IS problem by using the online help is E expert2
71. in a flickering effect by constantly having visual items appear and disappear Rollovers are beneficial for reducing screen clutter while supplying the necessary information when it is needed 36 This makes rollovers particularly suitable for web application design It should however not be counted on as the only clarifier for interface elements 6 1 3 Feedback Through appropriate and informative feedback within reasonable time the system should always keep users informed about what is going on 22 Depending on the type of action performed the feedback can be brief or substantial but every action should provide some sort of feedback The user should even be informed when a set of actions is complete so they can relax and drop the task 32 The quicker the response is that an action has been performed and what the outcome was the more smoothly the interaction becomes 27 Microsoft 15 distinguishes between good and effective feedback The first confirms that the software responds to input and helps distinguish the nature of the action The latter is presented as close to the point of the user s interaction as possible Even when the computer is processing a particular task one should provide the user with information about the state of the process and how to cancel the process if that is an option 33 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Use underlined fonts as hot spots Actions ca
72. ing all sorts of users present in the test gave the evaluation the scope needed to be able to generalize the results When providing the expert users with questions they may not be able to remember problems they may have had in the past and are now familiar with and have a solution to On the other hand the novice users might pick up more of those kinds of problems and miss out on the ones not being discovered until having to repeat them several times a day 5 2 Asking experts When users are not easily accessible or it is too expensive or time consuming to involve them experts can perform a review of the system and provide feedback This can be used in any stage in the design cycle and does not require a lot of resources Before evaluating Content Studio by applying guidelines first a trial run of the system was made while initial impressions were recorded This was made because of the risk that learning how the system works might make it harder to be able to notice some of these initial problems 6 Second a lot of time was spent using the system to be able to reach a higher level of knowledge and thereby finding even more problems once performing the official evaluation 5 2 1 Heuristic evaluation Heutistic evaluation is a popular usability inspection method developed by Jakob Nielsen and his colleagues It is an informal technique where experts are guided by a set of usability guidelines to evaluate usability related aspects of a u
73. interface 7 2 2 Observations During informal interviews and observations some additional problems was discovered and some concerns was reinforced For instance a misleading mapping and lack of feedback were pointed out When clicking on a category in the tree structure to the left all documents in that category is shown to the right If one thereafter selects the icon my documents all documents are shown but the previously selected category is still highlighted This makes it look like the documents showing to the right belong to that category The highlighting should of course follow the latest selected object When viewing my documents some users wanted a column for document type or maybe even category This requires a possibility to change the column widths which was desirable anyway Observing the users trying to perform different tasks showed that the dialog boxes for properties were difficult to remember how to use In particular it was difficult to remember where to find various settings Remembering to check out the documents before use was also difficult and seemed to frustrate the users The dialog boxes for active scripting components for instance are very long and made it difficult for the users to find wanted options thus reinforcing the result from the heuristic evaluation Another thing that became very obvious was that Content Studio encouraged exploration None of the users were worried about making mistakes
74. interface design 15 also contain several of these items as do web specific ones Being that Content Studio tries to resemble some of the aspects from the Office family the principles on which Windows has based their design should also be considered when evaluating the system Based on the most frequent principles including some additional guidelines developed for web based applications 40 a set of usability principles have been put together to capture the most prominent ideas and at the same time better fit the interface design process for Content Studio This way not applicable guidelines aimed for the web such as ones regarding page layout and text links does not have to be taken into consideration during further development The guidelines can instead be complemented later with any project or company specific guidelines that might occut 31 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 6 1 1 Consistency Users should not have to wonder whether different words situations or actions mean the same thing 22 A consistent layout across browsers and platforms will enhance usability within applications by maintaining a stable interface that users can tely on Consistent aesthetics unite various sections of a web application and give it a coherent look and feel but placing too much emphasis on aesthetics can cause usability to suffer It is important not to allow visual treatments to overwhelm inte
75. ion forums image galleries forms calendar and such should be provided to help the users reach their goals without knowing how This approach is somewhat used by EPiServer and will be incorporated in Office 12 as well This is a good way to enable inexperienced users in particular to create good results The development of templates also allows some control over the results which can help the customers to produce more usable websites Content Studio already supports the ability to insert templates and combining Active Scripting components into functions and can therefore expand it to include galleries or other types of objects 8 3 Overall consistency 8 3 1 Coherent look and feel The head of the type of windows that is used in Content Studio cannot contain any other buttons than exit and help Therefore the button for maximizing has been deliberately coded into the application in some dialog boxes However there may not be a need for it since the window is resizable As it looks now it breaks the coherent look and feel of both this application and other windows applications This button can be removed without it affecting the usage of the program in a major way The removal will instead support consistency Regarding what the menu option create results in supplying options on what to create such as a new categoty or an otdinary webpage can be a solution This is already implemented in the right click menu and should therefore not
76. ith actions to apply on the specific object available with a single click 32 To motivate the user to learn more about the systems they have to be rewarded in some way Shortcuts make it possible to work mote efficiently and are a good rewatd for learning about the system This in turn can inspire the user to learn even more Furthermore shortcuts make it possible for the user to use the keyboard to a greater extent and thus lessening the risk for mouse related injuries Keyboard shortcuts function keys and toolbars are all examples of different types of shortcuts 29 The challenge in designing for advanced usets 1s providing efficiency without introducing complexity for less experienced users Developing shortcuts is often a useful way to support these users In addition advanced users may be dependent upon particular interfaces making it difficult for them to adapt to significant rearrangement of or changes in an interface 15 Another way to support different users is to enable them to personalize the environment 30 Allow for customization If the users are allowed to customize the interface by changing some settings or arranging other objects as they wish the efficiency can be further increased 6 1 7 Simplicity Tasks should be simple in structure minimizing the amount of planning or problem solving they require 27 Keeping the display simple and allowing access to online information helps the user when per
77. lines are more applicable to web applications according to Nielsen 11 These are aimed directly at applications not needing features such as back home and so forth which apply to many web applications When designing an application to run in a browser instead of a desktop these constraints still need to be considered Because of the Internet access usets might transfer both applicable and inapplicable knowledge if perceiving the use as similar to a web page Interface guidelines must therefore be supplemented with additional guidelines from the web environment to fully cover the needs of interface design for web applications 40 However guidelines are very general which is why they cannot be followed like a recipe expecting it to guarantee a perfect design They will make it less likely to find severe usability problems when conducting usability tests but have to be considered for the particular application in question and adjusted accordingly Preferably they also need to be combined with other factors such as evaluation and user testing 8 15 40 6 1 Principles and guidelines for Content Studio Nielsen s usability heuristics 22 Shneiderman s golden rules 32 and Norman s design principles 27 all have several items in common For instance they all emphasise the need for striving for consistency putting the user in control and supporting the users limited memory Windows official guidelines for user
78. lity The evaluation resulted in a list of problems which was complemented with recommendations of how they could be eliminated in various ways Both the list of problems found in Appendix A and the recommendations were to be used by the company as a help when developing the next version of the application When doing that it was desireable that the interface will show that something besides the underlying technique has been updated and improved When performing the evaluation a list of principles and guidelines was followed These can be used later on when additional changes or upgrades are made The goals were determined together with Teknikhuset and adjusted to fit within the specifications and the time constraints of the project By determining the goals it becomes more obvioius what kind of questions that has to be answered at the same time as it helps to keep focus on the results 21 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 5 1 2 Explore the specific questions to be answered Of course there were many questions to be answered when performing the evaluation Most of them regarded the quality of the interface such as what the disadvantages with the current system were and why Not just disadvantages were in focus although those were the ones that formed the base for the final recommendations Things that already work in a good way should be kept However the main question was if the interface 1s b
79. lrora F R I5 HAIL Sulla da plar X 4 ck En ct litore te T BUS amp A erak odi bulum vul i Lap filer odi fra Srl fre Gd de Ae giltrigica toga Tt WP f CL gat mz r8 gui eras Arataa v l dew cruce welt onl ala halle a8 cross of idal Latest activities Jf anie ntis Algae evap Chores ely reu rele ied amu bari Himmi biqudl harped be bhia Bee ee Pang george et ee nape Beer ohmcsagkb Ted Sar heb ag reg poarea dirt or frid oe anle er Ek jie rae eee OF merum ei den POT eT dr d parta D Hp CT ae Ph Tir ade g act HEE roma ie raa anally n ver Dor aor Diae mi our dpa eel em e Takipa Laiperadvks acia mapami ffa dolor Corbi 1 m mm Gm 5 M RAD UD OD OA UD GN GAS US OUms Tabi Piring plepa al rule Lp gen ter a aon Pret tik l n f al qiias iil Leak F RAR utes pn Type Text Xx ML Hati PIHAA r dob Fidis Meet pier Du DH remis Mis trn pt mom Gea acm 42m val grad gd nor fregia gram Cees Lege Peed OR f lla tamra it hea sali Ha Part See geen ibara naque rid magnu i rea Brat Geib ee Brem Pelee niii Arp Cea Bh au Eg Aeg qe rm fi iur iE porta ind ap Ere Pee aed Url ned irren Filename Tezt anna entilocs SEES Hee BA Fre Button fen ud da Eie Sy ode peresis def aer a brio C Button Fit cen ctn ia Daan Nb in Status bar Figure 8 1 Tabs used to switch between open documents The enl
80. luded Other sources are focus group sessions interviews and usability tests 18 The profiles usually contain two types of characteristics those that all users will share and those that might make a difference among the users When selecting participants users with differing experiences are preferable A reasonable grouping is described below If users from every group are not available group 2 is the least important because if both group 1 and 3 experience the same problems one can be fairly confident that group 2 1s likely to have the same problem 8 1 Novice 0 3 months 2 Intermediate more than 3 months less than a year 3 Experienced more than a year As pointed out by Barnum 1 using a scale with odd numbers provides a risk that the users will tend to avoid the edges and go for the middle alternatives However based on recommendations from others 18 scales with 5 7 steps was used in the sutvey Open questions are useful but time consuming to analyse and compare A limited number of such questions especially at the end of a section with closed questions can however result in interesting responses 1 Following the outlines of the quality of user interaction satisfaction survey QUIS presented by Shneiderman 32 the questionnaire was structured with both types of questions see Appendix B It was also divided into areas to make the interpretation of the results easier Before conducting the survey the questi
81. lways with a focus on usability in mind However usability is not reduced to just the interface It may be the product s behaviour that 1s the key not what is visible Hence many products look very appealing but do not work in use 30 Most products ate released several times with new additions or upgrades Although the new releases are not often the result of trying to come to terms with problems the users are having with a product When it does it is often made on requests from the users but the design process still does not involve them and is conducted as usually Not spending money on including usability work from the beginning often means spending more money later on fixing problems support calls getting poor reviews and dealing with unhappy customers 8 When a company s demand on accessible information increases a tool to improve and make the process easier is often needed To solve this problem Teknikhuset AB developed a product called Content Studio which is a Content Management System CMS used as a platform web publishing The idea is to make it possible for people with limited knowledge in web publishing to maintain administer and develop a website or an intranet Since usability has a big significance for the user s experience of a system an evaluation of the system was requested by Teknikhuset to measure how well they have succeeded The task therefore consisted of evaluating the interface of Content Studio and sugges
82. mg ende konsekvens Rekommendationerna baserades p resultaten fr n en heuristisk utv rdering intervjuer observationer och enk ter Tillsammans med de presenterade riktlinjerna bildar de en bra grund f r framtida utveckling av Content Studio Table of contents Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Table of Contents 1 Introductio isse sendas ees sned ssa RsRS a ERES Pa ERR PRERSR RENNES EE 7 2 Problem description issasssaukvEnEnVEKECN NS uEEKPeYFERERANCEEREEER 9 2 Goal and DUFDOSSsssduseseavuti det onanera uv n yawn terete mania paren anaes 9 2 2 GeCDUAUSEUGY iqueock ose ng Uu E UU CR ED RR Ere Di NU E a d uiv dou a 10 243 XGOnDdIEIODSu scia uxa eto DC EAR UPS ERR CORR E alt EE AA tt DERI RA PER D 10 3 Usability iiisxs vexas uisideuxwniwdde sau uaa E ERES xE Eu Fa ara a RR RE RE ERE 11 SENE UMOR TRENT TETTE TEN 12 3 2 teracHon ddesiglTs cesqireo Gavete verb Ferte Verba px sten 13 4 Content Management eee eren nnn nnn 15 4 1 Defining Content Management SYStelMS sssssssrsrseserersrsrrrrerer nr 15 4 11 The Enterprise CMS isse basia eei i aeo eO cep xk aS CGU ROC ERES 16 4 2 Additional aspects on CMS eee Rl 16 4 3 Content SEUOIO ie esos eat iuxtetecasdtucs a tiet kepwkddadidawiwEds idit 17 4 3 1 The lser Sust ditis re sod auae bU Ea dE EET LEA REED 19 44 Similar Systems seriei erri FEE a XR ERE LEE Rat HR Le ERG ERRAT ERA 20 9 JEVdl atiOn asdatiisvdsal
83. mo contentio sales ono isles Link g intemet Figure 7 1 Inconsistency for placement of buttons and options in similar dialog boxes The vertical circle to the right illustrates non selectable checkboxes where one is white and the other grey 39 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform A Demo Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by Teknikhuset AB avoriter verktyg Hj lp ar PY 3 EAT I og Cire Sk Favoriter g3 L3 wm eu Arkiv Redigera Visa Bak t amp ix Adress http demo content din se cs svfindex htm arkiv Visa Hj lp Genv gar Mappar s gar Demo a ic 1005 JE Redigera 3 Admin t LJ Content Westerberg Anne 3 Images Sitemap Produkter Figure 7 2 Double sets of menus and navigation buttons The use of popup menus which appear on the location of the mouse reduces the clutter in the UI and is only showed when the users request them which is good But at the same time their length must be held to a minimum and they need to be as small as possible since they cover the display Several of the dialog boxes for active scripting components are very long and sometimes ending a section just before the window edge which can cause users to believe that no more options are available Feedback When leaving the application exit does not give any feedback of the fact by asking for conformation Clo
84. n a separate menu but can be displayed as a separate field or a button For instance it could be included in the buttons to the left and thereby allowing the user to have an overview available at all times At least the user should be given the possibility to change fast between different amounts and views of information instead of having every item in a separate window If the users feel that they have an overview of the information they will experience that they are in control 13 8 1 2 Interface flexibility To support the users need for flexibility and personalization a minimum requirement is to enable them to change the column widths As well as users wanting more tool tips there are some that want to be able to turn them off This kind of personalization can also be supplied In addition the suggestion for window management presented above contains many possibilities for the user to choose how much information he or she wants or needs A new Active Scripting component created during this work allows the administrator to be able to choose for instance if a question for checking in a document should be shown when closing or if the document should be checked out automatically Remembering to check out a document was a problem for many of the users but this setting effectively takes care of it This fits well into the users needs and is an excellent way of increasing the interface flexibility More ideas in a similar line of thought can
85. n be embedded within text based explanations and allows execution as patt of a natural sequence Use motion cues as a feedback mechanism Motion cues can be used to show continuity and dimensionality in transitions illustrate change over time enrich graphical representations or attract attention 25 Pootly implemented animation may on the other hand distract users The interface should not depend on motion cues for understanding 6 1 4 User control The user should always feel in control of the software instead of feeling controlled by the software For instance one should assume that the user not the computer or software initiates actions and plays an active rather than reactive role If tasks are automated the user should be allowed to choose or control it Because of the vatying skills and preferences among users they must be able to personalize aspects of the interface The software should reflect user settings for different system properties such as fonts and colours and be as interactive and responsive as possible 15 Users often choose functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked way to leave the unwanted state Users like to explore an interface and often learn by trial and error Thus an effective interface supports discovery at the same time as it prevents errors which will be further discussed below Make actions reversible or recoverable By permitting easy reversal of actions and supporting undo and redo
86. nd deals with how the interaction can feel to the user The usability goals are e Effectiveness How well the system does what it is supposed to e Efficiency How the system supports the user when performing a task and how a high productivity is attained once the system is learned e Safety How the user is protected from undesirable situations Unwanted actions should not be possible to accidentally perform e Utility How well the users can do what they need and want e Learnability How easy the system is to learn How quickly the users can get started and become competent e Memorability How easy the system is to use once it is learned If users have not used the system in a long time they should be able to remind how to use it These goals are highly suitable for applications that are being updated to improve how work is performed However this is not the only relevant factors see figure 3 1 How the system is experienced is also an important aspect This is why one should also try to create systems that are satisfying enjoyable fun entertaining helpful motivating aesthetically pleasing supportive of creativity rewarding and emotionally fulfilling a fun satisfying emotionally So efficieney F br oko paw enjovabl E F A ves hun I e ertaining supportive learnability safety at a utility helpful aesthetically leasing NC mo
87. necting a presentation template to a document add is required The user might wait for alternatives to be shown as when selecting an edit template Check out should make anything not selectable unavailable to more clearly indicate the need to click it Even though the menu items are greyed out the icons next to the item text is not The entire item and not just the text should be grey When navigating in the file system for instance when creating a new document the hierarchy expands folders which do not contain other folders and therefore cannot create anything new Revision control supports exploration in an excellent way since the user always can retrieve an old version However restore version should be able to do without having to enter editing mode An undo button is also available making small changes easy to reverse The easy mode helps novice users to edit information in a simple way Not evety shortcut is available as a menu option and may only be accessed by a right click or an icon Some messages do not provide enough information for the user to make an informed choice Most explanations for fields in forms are clear which is good blank is used to select a link to be opened in a new window This can be difficult to understand and remember for inexperienced users The only way to look at a page in the web view is to drag it to the icon The drag and drop function is not obvious and to drop it on the cor
88. nskaper S kerhet Inst llningar MLC Egenskaper S kerhet Anst ttningar f MLC f Har kan du ange egenskaper f r denna kategori eg H r finns information om denna webb samt m jlighet att g ra visst underh ll Kategorinamn http demo contentstudio se URL p Informationstyp v S kv g D Content Studio Sites demo Bodyegenskaper ConnectionID 114 a Beskrivning S kbar H r kan du f information om arbetsfl den Arbetsf den j och h ndelser f r den h r webben H ndelser Har kan du f information om arbetsfl den Arbetsfl den och h ndelser f r den h r kategorin gt Klicka p fritextindex om du vill se Fritextindex LL information om indexeringen H r kan du v lja redigeringsformul r och presentationsmallar a _ Anv nd HTML mall XML index Redgeringsformul r 1D 1234 a Presentationsmaliar Klicka p inst llningar om du vill ndra Inst llningar II IL egenskaperna f r den har webben OK Avbryt Verkst ll ok Avbryt Verkst ll Figure 8 5 A more structured and consistent layout of the dialog boxes 61 Summary and Conclusions Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 9 Summary and Conclusions This work consisted in evaluating the interface of a web application platform The evaluation was performed through a usability inspection and a surv
89. nt types of design inspired from Jonas S derstr m s web page 33 14 Content Management Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 4 Content Management A Content Management System defines the way in which content is managed within an overall content management life cycle from creation to publication Martin White the Content Management Handbook At the beginning of the year 2001 the content management industry was still very new When the web moved into larger more rapidly changing sites the need for strong management tools arose The solution became content management systems CMSs Such systems help companies become and stay organized while their site can grow and change quickly Today most of the activity in content management lies within web development but the web is just one of many information channels that organizations need to manage As the information sharing between these channels increase so does the need for an organized approach 5 Most CMS products offer features that allow content to be authored reviewed version managed administered and published They may offer this in different ways but one of the biggest benefits 1s that they make it possible for employees with little or no html knowledge to add content When content is taken from storage and changed a new version is created This makes it important to ensure that no content can be edited by more than one user at a time The workflo
90. o another open page One had to copy and directly paste the selected text into the other document If the original page is closed first the option to paste became unavailable Because this was a rather frequently performed action for B forgetting to leave the document open caused much delay during a day B only used the web tree to create new documents otherwise the web view was used to navigate to the right page Exploring the system felt easy and safe In the beginning B had wanted easy access to an online help but had not used it in later versions of the application B had not even noticed the online help option in the top menu and did not know how to log in on the support site Information about updates was mentioned as a current need of help 43 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform B claimed not to use the menus much but at the same time it was observed that B always used the file menu to check out documents during the interview Furthermore this was often forgotten and B tried to edit the text without selecting check out B liked Content Studio because it allowed the company to develop a lot with the competence they already have in the building and that it was not just a tool for editing B emphasises that one must realise this before purchasing it You don t want to buy a Porsche just to listen to the radio The biggest downside with Content Studio according to B was the messy
91. o language messages such as these are too technical and not at all user focused This applies to other areas as well for instance blank is used as explanation to select a link to be opened in a new window This is difficult to understand and remember for inexperienced users To look at a page in the web view one can only drag it to the icon Just selecting the document and then clicking on the web view does not work The drag and drop function is not obvious and to drop it on the correct spot one has to cross the web tree where the pointer might show that it is not allowed to drop objects or if touching the objects in the area the tree will expand and allow the document to be inserted This means that accidentally dropping the document will copy it into the Microsaft Internet Explorer 1 The caller requested the editable content but an approved read only content was retuned instead An error occured in the errorhandier XML sent croot gt chype sO c rypec lt parameters gt lt parameter names massagekd 1828 c parameber gt lt parameter names language 2s parameter gt parameters root gt XML recived croot gt cresut 1828 fresult eresulttext gt The caller requested the editable content but an approved read only content was returned instead cjresulttext ccategoryid 161 fcategoryid froot gt Figure 7 4 Error message 41 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform
92. of animation could help clarifying the browser s actions 40 Speak the users language When wotking for simplicity it helps if the language follows the same pattern The system should speak the uset s language with words phrases and concepts familiar to the user rather than system oriented terms Follow real world conventions making information appear in a natural and logical order 22 6 1 8 Help and documentation Any information for help and documentation should be easy to search focused on the user s task list concrete steps to be carried out and not be too large 22 Certain systems can take longer to learn but help such as tutorials and manuals should always be available 30 However to supplement ease of use and support efficient 36 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform and complex operations one will inevitably need to provide some form of user assistance Provide contextual help The ideal form of user assistance integrates seamlessly into the overall design of the application Its interface should be simple efficient and relevant the interface should enable the user to get help easily and then return to a task 15 Contextual help does this Examples are tool tips and help areas connected to specific objects 6 2 Trade offs When designing a system trade offs can arise when applying design principles For example constraining an interface can make it
93. oking at other sites and learn from them Future systems such as the new versions of Windows and Office can have a big impact on Content Studio if it becomes popular Microsoft has done some major changes and if Content Studio wishes to continue to follow their lead they might have to adapt to certain ideas 47 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 7 3 1 EPiServer and SiteVision Compating the usability of competing systems is always profitable However not being able to experience the application first hand the review was limited to screenshots from an online demonstration The first impression of EPiServer was that they had put a lot of effort into making it look easy to use It seemed more focused on the novice user and less technical than Content Studio and had more comprehensible words on buttons tabs and menus Overall it had more declarative texts such as open in new window compared to Content Studio s blank to tell the system to open a link in a new window The dialog box for link properties contained a possibility to decide if the link should be made up by text or an image and so on EPiServer had a logotype that separated the application from the web toolbar which increased the feeling of a separate program It also had CSS Cascading Style Sheets templates for images Together with their templates for forms image galleries and calendars this helps the user create results This way the
94. ons of Microsoft Office use menus toolbars task panes and dialog boxes as the way for people to interact with the application However adding new features that people easily could find and use Microsoft admittedly says became more and more difficult The primary design goal for the new UI has therefore been to allow users to more successfully find and use the more advanced features Another goal is to preserve an uncluttered workspace and reduce distraction for users 16 All and all they like to call it a results oriented approach that will help the usets to better focus on their work Commands are said to be better organized and presented in a way that corresponds to how people wotk The new UI contains a ribbon which replaces drop down menus toolbars and dialog boxes The ribbon is an area at the top of the screen that holds formatting tools for an array of Office options and the tools change both on command and in context when the user works with different elements 14 In figure 7 7 for example items such as Write and References do not lead to drop down menus Instead the Ribbon changes revealing different sets of tools The result oriented approach enables the user to often get WYSIWYG thumbnails of the results they will get if choosing an option The whole goal of these changes the company says is to put features at the users fingertips which are currently buried in menus Early tests are said to have indicated th
95. ons were used as basis for the interviews This was done to get a chance to see whether or not further explanations or follow up questions were needed The interviews were conducted with two persons from the same company but with different tasks and different usage of Content Studio Each interview was conducted one on one and provided an opportunity for them to show their problems instead of just talking about them Before asking the selected usets to participate in the online survey a pilot test was performed on one user The interviews had already provided valuable input on which of the questions that were televant Still the test showed that one of the questions needed to be rephrased but other than that everything seemed clear The participants were asked via e mail to conduct the survey A period of two weeks was set as the time limit for incoming answers After one week a reminder was sent out resulting in several more answets Surveys and interviews both provided valuable information but sources within the company could also be used for customer feedback Examples of this are the technical support and personnel used to train customers 1 To be able to sit in 28 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform some training classes was a good experience to see what problems the users had and what they did not understand The data received from the survey was examined to see if there were unanti
96. or unnecessary errors made can create stress and discomfort in the long run Hence at all times lack of usability can cost time and effort Many times it is possible to profit from usability investments 24 If they are able to choose people will tend to buy systems with a higher degree of usability which is why usability also can help differentiate the product from competitors If two products have similar appearance and functions small differences in usability can have a big impact on users preferences 8 Having good usability means that one does not have to invest and develop functionality that is not being used It helps decrease the time it takes to learn and can increase the earnings through the ability to attract new customers and keeping the present ones It enables the users to more clearly get an idea of what their possibilities are which in turn results in fewer calls to the support 18 As for Teknikhuset several of the customers are entitled to free support through their licence agreement which is why the vendor can benefit from less support time In other cases product support can be very expensive and charging customers for it can increase the dissatisfaction with the product The easier the users find the product to be the less help they will need and the less time and money it will cost for them training According to Molich 18 the biggest profit comes from having pleased users from the beginning and thereby preventing
97. prepared representative tasks When performing the task the users are observed in a laboratory environment where everything they do and say is recorded The information is later used to identify the reasons the users made a mistake trying to perform a task Questionnaires and interviews are also used to obtain the users opinions 3 Field studies The key element in field studies is the fact that they are performed by studying the users in their natural settings Qualitative techniques used in field studies are interviews observation and ethnography These techniques are used differently depending on whether one chooses an insider or outsider approach to the study 4 Predictive evaluation Predictive evaluations do not need to involve users Instead it involves experts trying to predict usability problems To help them in their predictions the experts have the knowledge about typical users and guidance from heuristics Due to the fact that 22 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform E a gt i Li i k amp zking experts User testing adel 3 user bask erfommance Figure 5 1 The relationship between paradigms and techniques for evaluation 30 users do not need to participate the method is quick and rather inexpensive At the same time it has some limitations for example that the wrong set of heuristics can lead the designer the wrong way The techniques extracted from thes
98. raction elements 40 Consistency makes the interface familiar and predictable which makes the user more able to transfer existing knowledge to new tasks thus learning new things more quickly It is therefore important in every aspect from names of commands to operational behaviour and placement of elements This includes presenting common functions using a similar set of commands and interfaces and maintaining a high level of consistency for the conventions provided by the operating environment The software benefits from the users ability to apply interactive skills they have already learned elsewhere 15 Inconsistent interfaces are the ones that allow exceptions to a rule This is often arbitrary and makes it difficult for the user to remember Consistent interfaces are therefore easier to use and learn If a design is about to wind up with an arbitrary design aspect the solution might be to standardize Standards only have to be learned once but in some cases the users have to be trained to learn them 27 Consistent layout and terminology should be used through the whole design Although the existence of several forms of consistency makes this 1s a hard rule to follow and a frequently broken one 32 Use the conventions of link selection in web Web usets are used to exploration and will move their mouse until a clickable area appears The users willingness to explore can make different forms of interaction possible Both tex
99. rect spot one has to cross an area where the document either cannot be dropped or can be inserted into a folder Drag and drop is also supported for example to insert text from other documents or pages which is good When using a small screen the workspace gets very cluttered Windows on top of each other makes it difficult to locate the ones at the bottom Together they hide the web tree and the document information which is needed to open other windows When requesting help the user is forced to log in instead of being linked directly to the area in question 69 Appendix B Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Appendix B This is a copy of the content in the questionnaire The text fields for free comments are removed but the questions where the users were asked to grade their opinion on a scale are presented here as statement 1 1 234 5 6 7 statement 2 The questions lacking a scale are therefore the free comments Every scale had an option were the user could choose to be uncertain This is not showed here The survey was conducted in Swedish and presented in its original form as follows Enkat for anvandares tillfredsstallelse med interaktionen Dessa fr gor r till for att hj lpa mig identifiera f r och nackdelar i Content Studios anvandargranssnitt Det ar inte en utvardering av dina kunskaper eller arbetsuppgifter utan ett tillfalle f r dig att paverka kommande utformning av syst
100. rted in otder to be published later on different formats such as HTML XML PDF and Microsoft Word or Excel Since information is stored in a XML format a data format applicable for all types of information and not limited to a single website the information can be distributedin various formats to several receivers XML technology in Content Studio secures that information is reusable and system compatible The use of XML also ensures that information is held separate from its graphical form and structure Content Studio consists of 150 compatible components that are used through menus and drag and drop for building everything from simple websites to complex systems The technique for turning advanced program code to reusable objects 1s called Active Scripting AS The developer can create customer suited components that can be reused and upgraded with new functionality The administrator of the website does not need to have knowledge of the code and can therefore focus on the need function and customer benefit The components in Content Studio can be combined to create modules such as a chat function forums for discussion and image databases AS components can be created by using Content Studio Macromedia Dreamweaver or other similar programs and can be written in ASP and JavaScript for instance An application programming interface API is also available for those who need to extend the system by traditional programming The basic version o
101. s into focus when something does not work The user expects the product to be usable not realising that it takes work to develop usable interfaces 10 Guidelines for usability and design described in a later chapter can assist designers in creating better user interfaces but to be able to create an application with high usability one has to involve some of the people who will actually use the system Simply usability is the quality of a system that makes it pleasing error tolerant and easy to learn use and remember 37 It has nothing to do with whether or not something works A website or a system can work perfectly well but be impossible to understand This is why it is important to understand who the users are and what knowledge they have 18 To neglect usability is always a bad choice 29 It is certainly possible to release a working product without any usability work but with it several areas can be improved For the user usability affects whether a task is performed correctly or not and whether the process was enjoyable or frustrating The developers interest in usability should come from its possible impact on the product s success A software product with poor usability can even manage to decrease the productivity of the 11 Usability Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform workforce which is why company management also is affected by it 37 Tasks that take unnecessarily long to perform
102. s of applications as they become more common At least a different way of thinking and an understanding of special circumstances can help increase the usability It also became obvious that evaluation methods are most effective when combined with each other since no single method successfully finds every usability problem in an interface When it comes to the application at hand Content Studio was proved to have many satisfied customets but there still existed room for improvement Mainly three areas were focused on for a possible redesign Cluttered workspace user assistance and overall consistency Problem description Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 2 Problem description Teknikhuset AB 35 is a consulting and software producing company focusing on content management e learning and application development It is located in Umea but has customers all over Sweden Since the year 2000 Teknikhuset has developed and successfully sold a platform for web publishing and development under the name Content Studio Continuous development of the product is always made and a big technical upgrade is in the making for the future release of a fifth version Included in this work is to make an update of the graphical user interface So far Content Studio s GUI has not been developed strictly by any specific usability theories or recommendations other than by following the guidelines for Windows supplied by Microsoft
103. s placed in front of the others To make this even more 55 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform al niri nter Pt Fen 3 ee ee a Lit Menu Browser menu Navigation bar Content Studio File View Buttons Window Help Daocurnant I Arrange all i ompare to pm I Documenti x Documantz Documents Document x My Documents F i Enorma the BE inet feb Pep AG Sa ow 375379 bia stl RINNA Da zANJzsemmumicisxs Ec 1 uoo hi ow Charan Nyheter Inrikes us iin iaire sup we ioca zr db gp tees ey wii ee ite itir jiii Fw cacsmed tertar ton acii Puecibun Aa bharg bere l ood rt wii as i ero viter vei Mufa m t apiom I ui libers tees sis arl orare ru digssim quu t Faaji gn velit at Pa aire App Pb Benaeasn yal alm eile wiir Crece im vt brular quis ae uis ara an sn ajur harte piit Me de teram es sigl ultries le ied Button m mama Gerad po ana nia ada Hl Basar c porta iid bier IT Ra HL purum pum fre rre Button 3 at pee rr Fel pt thus Pipi 44 ao brides eed LL dip Manfr bl as ird arse Pelei en ean mise ha x e LL pen d a wi Fe ss 3d anro Pega ape ride Epa msi Lever it Pa Ibori hu PR ii Button Status bar Figure 8 3 Use of a windows menu which displays the open documents visible it might not have to be hidden i
104. se they are likely to overlook some usability problems In such cases it is almost impossible to find the problems without user testing The best way according to Nielsen 22 is to use both methods For instance first perform a heuristic evaluation to eliminate the most obvious problems and then when the design has been improved let the users test it to find whatever problems remain According to Barnum 1 heuristic evaluation is a good predictor of end user problems but no method is as good as actual user testing Typically these methods do not result in the same findings so again it is said that it is best to use several methods to determine the usability of a product For this work the heuristic evaluation was performed first to get an as objective review as possible Following Nielsen s 22 recommendation the user interface for Content Studio was reviewed several times This was needed to get a better understanding of the system and how it works as well as to reach a higher level of usage to be able to encounter more problems Every impression and problem was noted at first and at a later occasion more specific elements were evaluated when knowing how they fitted into the bigger context Every training tool available such as tutorials and manuals was taken advantage of as recommended by Shneiderman 32 The result from a heuristic evaluation is as mentioned often a list of usability problems each of which have references to the
105. section 7 3 1 20 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 5 Evaluation Evaluating what has been built is very much at the heart of interaction design Its focus is on ensuring that the product is usable Preece et al Interaction Design beyond human computer interaction As mentioned in chapter 3 several types of evaluation can be used to retrieve the necessary information about the users needs and to find deficiencies in the interface Of course different evaluation methods are more suitable than others for every project and to determine which these are for this work the available ones had to be examined In the case of an upgrade there is limited scope for change and attention is focused on improving the overall product This type of design is well suited to usability engineering in which evaluations compare user performance and attitudes with those for previous versions 32 5 1 The DECIDE framework By following the DECIDE framework presented by Preece et al 30 a guide for evaluation was provided The framework helped to put together a plan for evaluation and to identify possible problems and ways to deal with them The framework consists of six parts all described in more detail in the following text 5 1 1 Determine the overall goals The goal was to identify how the interface of an existing product Content Studio could be redesigned and further developed to improve its usabi
106. ser interface When the guidelines are used in the context of an evaluation they are called heuristics The evaluation is performed to check if the system or product complies with the design principles The goal is to find the usability problems compare them with the heuristics and point out where the system fails In addition to the checklist the evaluator is also allowed to consider any relevant additional usability principle that may come to mind 22 As the quotation below shows heuristic evaluation also known as usability inspection was well suited for the aim of this paper Typically a usability inspection is aimed at finding usability problems in an existing user interface design and then using these problems to make recommendations for fixing the problems and improving the usability of the 25 Evaluation Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform design This means that usability inspections are normally used at the stage in the usability engineering lifecycle when a user interface design has been generated and its usability and utility for users needs to be evaluated 22 The guidelines used to perform a heuristic evaluation are general rules that describe common characteristics of usable interfaces If needed it is possible to develop specific heuristics that apply to a specific class of products as a supplement to the general principles The guidelines used for this work are described in chapter 6
107. ser to create tables and images in Word and use them in Content Studio and accidentally being able to close the browser window which forces the need for a restart 77 of the participants were certain that they would recommend Content Studio to others Reasons for doing this were the diversity and flexibility of the program that it was considered fairly easy to work with despite their lack of HTML knowledge and the excellent support Teknikhuset provides Other comments were requests for a better user manual more tutorials and a support to call that is always present One made a comment on that he or she already had told Teknikhuset about his ot hers problem This knowledge brought some additional comments to the surface after finding the wish list of customer input the support previously had put together Suspecting the results to depend on the users experience new diagrams for the areas were put together These showed in several cases that the satisfaction increased with the amount of experience In other words expert users rated aspects higher than novice users The diagrams can be viewed in Appendix C 7 3 Research from other systems Investigating the competitors strengths and weaknesses and comparing them to an existing version of a product can help designing the product to fulfilling the users needs in a better way than the other systems have 8 Also Molich 18 encourages that one tries to learn from others by lo
108. several ideas are applicable and can be used regardless of the success of the other applications The galleries are one example Content Studio already uses components ready for use when providing Active Scripting but can expand this feature into including other types of templates as well The more result oriented way of thinking can be a good way to further support the users when they are developing on their own 7 4 Summary According to Dumas and Redish 8 problems should be organised by scope and severity detecting how widespread and critical the problem is The levels of severity are Level 1 problems prevent completion of the task Ex Users consistently chooses the wrong menu options or gives up after a few tries Level 2 problems create significant delay and frustration Ex Lack of feedback causes users to do the task again Level 3 problems have a minor effect on usability Ex Using the same word for different actions Level 4 problems are more subtle and often point to an enhancement that can be added in the future Ex it would be nice if How severe a problem is is often a combination between how often a problem occuts how difficult it will be for the users to overcome and how persistent the problem is 22 None of the methods used for evaluation found any problems that were categorized as level 1 The window management issues were classified as level 2 problems along with some feedback problems Th
109. signer This was due to the fact that Windows applications previously have influenced the appearance of Content Studio and their new look can affect the future Content Studio even more Since the new system comes with many new features and technologies this review focuses on changes made to the graphical interface and the work flow Not having access to a beta version reduced the information on which the review could be based Instead it was limited to screen shots and other reviewers experience from live previews According to Microsoft 16 the new Office UI was designed very specifically for Word PowerPoint Excel and Access Although it is not intended to be a model for all other Microsoft applications at the moment other user interface designers may be able to apply some of the principles from the new design to their own design challenges 48 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform N Enden bee TE m erri file d J node nunt Page Linge Rafael ee EET Frits T ie Pai ESS Feat ph eal Borm um mary Habes elu Aa Eis GR j UT 28 ades Cum Baria B J IAF i A A NE BE E i AS Greg Cap Figure 7 7 A set of Command Tabs for the next release of Microsoft Office Word 16 Because Content Studio relies so much on the familiarity of the icons and structures of Office a future adaptation might have to be made to the new UI if it is accepted by the users Office 12 Previous versi
110. sing the web browser with an opened document inside will result in any changes being lost There are text areas that are clickable but there is no indication given to show this fact For insert image or open a preview option is available but no indication that the text is selectable 1s given Instead preview can easily be mistaken for the already open frame which is very small and sometimes showing objects that are very big Other problems with proper indications were found in several items For instance the icon check out should make anything not selectable unavailable to mote clearly indicate the need to click it see Figure 7 3 User control Even though the menu items are greyed out the icons next to the item text is not If an item in a menu is unavailable the entire item and not just the text should be grey An undo button is always available making small changes easy to reverse and allowing the user to feel more in control Prevent errors Content Studio is equipped with revision control which creates a new version of a document every time it has been checked out from the repository This supports exploration in an excellent way since the user always can retrieve an old version and therefore does not have to worry about making a mistake that cannot be undone Howevet errors do occut and as can be seen in figure 7 4 they can be more informative for the user 40 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web applic
111. so placed in a random order This applies to some other options they have in common as well The amount of buttons has also resulted 1n two rows of buttons on top of each other which is difficult to get a complete overview of see figure 7 1 Minimize users memory load Single click and double click are sometimes following web standards and sometimes software standards The mouse interaction is further confused through difficulties remembering what options the right mouse button contains Webbsidedialogruta 1 Egenskaper f r katepori Webbsidedialopruia ie Eqerakags Ge eee Erbestsnemn i Een aper T TU Bela ei ficis ias Hann Post adnas Infonmationaty pi HTML med metadata Hi wider du mailer f r denna kategori EM Anv nd HTML mal T S kerhet e Hir galer du In ciberheten f r amandae och onupper Scared ej Hy stiller duin s kerheten f r anv ndare och grupper Flerspr iaid mel H r hatara du ret Sieger h r PLC A Langosge Chieti reiii Ph H r g r du iret alnanga f r denna enhet IHC Spr k e hinsdategori Inst Ainge al Avancerade ret lringar och girde p T Armini pet cernrigraatum H ndelser BET DoeT yn 2 Cache Ba best lisa Tm J inline publicerirsysdahum 9 C s tor fem conbent studia ics categories asp moduleskasb ab internet o J Ae J versa hitp ide
112. t and images can initiate actions and web users have come to expect this from their interfaces The important thing is to make sure functions are not imbedded within hard to find or irrelevant elements 40 Use common functionality for web applications and web browsers Using interactions common to web browsers allows transfer of knowledge between web applications As do standardization Web users are familiar with the functionality of drop down menus and checkboxes they are easy to implement and help conserve screen space Exploit the similarities in the basic functionality of all web applications 40 Avoid double clicks Web users are accustomed to a single click when interacting with web sites Eliminating double clicks therefore follows the established conventions of the web According to Raskin 31 as cited in Wroblewski 40 double clicking requires users to remember which elements that responds to a double click and what the outcome of the double click will be as opposed to a single click At the same time one must be aware that elements in a web application may resemble elements in client applications which normally requires double click 32 Usability Guidelines Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 6 1 2 Minimize users memory load The user s memory load can be minimized by making objects actions and options visible Whether they are dragging an object or navigating to a location in a document
113. t is their opinions that matters Ideally a user should not need to know whether they are interacting with an application over the Internet or on their computer However the fact that web applications are so different from one another makes it difficult to develop a general set of accepted guidelines 40 As Wroblewski says it 1s important to address the problems associated with interface design for web applications The most important thing is the need for a different way of thinking when it comes to these applications The guidelines presented in the paper can assist the developers in their future work and eliminate the most minor problems in the interface This work has taken Content Studio a further step into an iterative design process Although revisions previously have been made continuously they have not been as founded in a user centred design as now Of course more work is needed to ensure an even better design and usability quality but a part of the introduction work is done 62 Discussion Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform 10 Discussion When forming the recommendations it was very good to have the design rationale ie the reasoning that has led to the design decisions at hand Designers and developers may have had to make trade offs and may already be aware of the problem They have also invested time and effort into the product which is why a dialog with them during the process is valuable
114. t page it may be used on Most importantly it can produce Web sites and any other publication that one wishes to make from the stored content 5 Based on these definitions Content Studio can be considered to be more of an enterprise CMS since it provides additional functionality such as the ones described above 4 2 Additional aspects on CMS A proficient implementation of a CMS should enable the organisation to customize information for the users because the content can be added and stored once and then reused in different ways The way the information is structured highly affects how the users are able to navigate on the site Together with good usability good information structure enhances the user satisfaction when it enables the users to easily find what they want Usability testing is essential and not an option if one wants to achieve this For the website created with the CMS usability and accessibility is crucial for the visitors but it is important for the staff using the CMS authoring interface as well 39 Hence usability and accessibility is important factors for the software itself as for the website or other publications created with it Implementing a CMS involves many people in an organisation each with different concerns Web authors may wonder how long it will take to get used to the 16 Content Management Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform software and how much training is required
115. take several forms but often the term refers to a web content management system which generally is a web application for web site management Parts of the site can consist of HTML files and other parts can be created dynamically out of a database In a web CMS all of the following can be included 5 e A CMS application which takes care of collecting content from contributors and managing workflow and administration e A repository which holds all content administrative data and any of the resources needed to build the site such as graphics and style sheets e A set of HTML files which the CMS position to the static part of the site e A CMS generated database to which the CMS can set up data and content from its repository e Templates which move data from any source to the state it needs to be in for the site 4 1 1 The Enterprise CMS An Enterprise Content Management System ECMS integrates a web CMS with additional applications such as document management which manages the creation revision and distribution of formatted documents records management which manages the storage and retrieval of created and received documents and digital asset management which manages non text content such as images and video clips 39 The potential for an ECMS goes far beyond the web It can cover the entire content creation and organization system and provide a repository where information can be reviewed and worked on independently of wha
116. textual Tabs x Book2 Microsoft Excel File a i gt Sheet Insert ia oo Formulas Data Review Layout Format eg Switch Change Chart Save digg Row Column Data Source Type Template Figure 7 9 Command tabs both contextual and ordinary 16 50 Results Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Windows Vista Microsoft describes Windows Vista as being confident clear and connected The redesign is made to be more intuitive more attractive and easier to use thus making the work more efficient The fact that the users are already familiar with the technology Microsoft states will result in minimal need of training and support Several rules and guidelines are set up for when designing a Windows Vista user experience 17 At the time for this paper the Windows Vista UX Guidelines downloaded from Microsoft download centre were still a part of the preliminary documentation and might therefore be changed Several of the chapters were not even written Many of the rules besides the ones instructing developers how to make use of the new look encourage developers to create well written and useful dialog boxes and messages design for exploration and clean up the user interface These are consistent with the ones previously described and do not bring any revolutionaty ideas to the table Still the ideas on how to design a great user experience 17 is profound and worth considering when designing
117. time is available These recommendations encourage an overall consistency which should be applied to any similar undiscovered problems that might be a part of the current version of the application Since the future changes have to be implemented in the current system the recommendations are made to illustrate the possible solutions The suggestions are focused on the interaction between the user and the application and aimed at placement of buttons and structure of dialogs and menus Form and colours such as gradients and other visual enhancements are not addressed Thus the colours used when illustrating the suggestions more graphically are not patticularly meant as part of the recommendation The use of windows standards seemed to appeal to most of the customers And according to Nielsen 26 user testing has shown that users often demand that other user interfaces work like Office When using one style most of the day it is often wanted in other applications and screens as well Because of this there is no reason not to continue with the current style of the UI One might be sceptical towards Microsoft as a concept but on the other hand conventions do not become conventions unless they work Therefore there 1s no need to invent the wheel again unless one is certain that one has a better idea and that the replacement is self explanatory or worth the extra time it takes to learn it 12 The problem areas discovered during the evaluation
118. ting how it can be improved when it comes to human computer interaction HCI aspects This means identifying how well buttons menus dialogs and the overall structure support the users so that they are able to find what they want quickly and easily Due to a forthcoming upgrade of the tool Teknikhuset wanted to have the uset interface UI analysed from a usability perspective This was done to shed light on possible problems and deficiencies but also to confirm which ideas that were already working and to get an idea of possible solutions for future upgrades Whether or not the system was easy enough to use was figured out through a usability review and user input This paper describes the discovered problems including a recommendation to be used for further development Today user experience goals and new research findings have led to sets of guidelines which are adjusted to fit various interactive products such as the web 30 Interface design for web applications such as Content Studio is one of the areas still lacking a Introduction Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform complete set of suitable guidelines However two existing sets of design principles can be used to build the foundation on These are the Graphical User Interface GUI design guidelines for traditional software and the web usability guidelines for web sites 40 The work showed that it is important to develop guidelines for new type
119. tion and detail lessens the cognitive workload and makes it easier for the user to concentrate on the task 13 Users normally do not mind having to scroll down windows However it must be obvious that more information is available Too much space between sections can cause problems since many users tend to overlook the scrollbar 18 In the dialog boxes for active scripting components this must be applied to clearly indicate that more options are available The options should also be grouped to give a more visible structure and make it easier to find the wanted setting By using the Gestalt theory information can effectively be connected visually Sometimes it is better to use this than to follow a known standard 18 For example by breaking the standard from Windows that declares field text as left aligned in order to follow the law of proximity Another side effect of grouping is that the user can handle information in chunks Our limited short term memory is overloaded when too many loose items are present on the screen Humans see figures placed close to each other as a unit which means that we see groups of symbols as belonging to each other This can be considered in numerous places in the interface where spaces between buttons and texts can be reduced or in some places increased Further increasing the 1cons in the web view will make it easier for the user to find and select them as opposed to the current appearance Ege
120. tion such as this operation gives users direct feedback they can easily determine what happened can spot and repair problems quickly but it may consume valuable screen space 32 8 3 3 Mapping and visibility The design of dialog boxes combines menu selection and form fill in to help the user make the requested selections Instructions that describe the users tasks should be brief and supply an option to more help if needed by the novice user 32 A commonly used dialog box is the one for properties Such a dialog box is available for the main site every unit and every category The settings differ somewhat between the various types but the main options are the same The current solution 60 Recommendations Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform presents the different areas in the same frame offering buttons to perform different settings Instead each area could be turned into a tab This also makes it possible to remove many of the buttons leading to a single option in a new window see Figure 8 5 By doing this the forced modality of the first window 1s eliminated If the window only contains what is relevant for the user at that moment the user will more easily find the wanted information and the risk of choosing the wrong button is decreased As an alternative a list that displays the details for a selected list item can be used instead of tabs Combining an overview of all available informa
121. tivating a n Figure 3 1 Usability and user experience goals Inspired from Preece et al 30 13 Usability Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Not evety goal 1s fulfilled in every product but they allow the designers to use different combinations to reach different users needs Although some combinations may be incompatible it is ahways the specific task product and user that should determine what 1s important 30 Together with graphic design and information design interaction design is a patt of the interface design see figure 3 2 For instance the graphical designet decides colours shapes and fonts for buttons while the interaction designer decides whether or not a button is needed in that position and what will happen if it is pushed Although as far as the user is concerned the entire interface containing shape information and interaction zs the application 33 Most web sites contain all three types of design At the same time some sites such as advertising sites with flash movies mostly consist of graphical design Government authorities or organisations focus on information whereas e commerce and web applications such as Content Studio focus on interaction The evaluation described later in this paper was also more aimed at interaction deficiencies than graphical design The different types have different focus but they overlap and in these areas many of the usability problems can arise
122. ts The question on what they like most with Content Studio resulted in a general answer that highlighted flexibility powerfulness and ease of use when it comes to making changes Several users connected this to the WYSIWYG mode and the similarities Content Studio has with Word The AS component system also received praise from the users due to its ability to make it easier for them to combine them into powerful functions and the possibility to create their own components The customets seemed to appreciate that Content Studio puts the control in their hands On the question to what they did not like about Content Studio many of the participants commented on the inadequate function descriptions and lack of documentation Although liking the tutorials they were considered to be too narrow and too few The users also had problem knowing when new releases or updates is made available Again the whish for colour coding was mentioned along with a request to be able to structure the code and be able to keep the changes The size of windows and the lack of flexibility of the interface such as column widths and moving documents in the folder hierarchy were also disliked This sometimes could be connected to a feeling of limitation and that some of the information felt locked away Ihe menu system was found to be messy by some who also complained about the file management and wanted more drag and drop functionality Other downsides were incapability for the u
123. uation of the user interface of a web application platform Make unwanted actions unavailable Unwanted actions should not be possible to accidentally perform 30 At any certain point the user needs to be restricted or constrained from unavailable actions For example unavailable menu options should be deactivated Another type of constraint is called forcing functions which forces the user to perform one action before engaging in another one For instance the user might have to specify a required setting of a component before changing another This also eliminates the use of an error message reminding the user to do so There is then only one possible thing to do the right thing 27 6 1 6 Flexibility and efficiency of use The system should be able to cater to both inexperienced and experienced users by trying to add features supporting them Allowing the users to tailor frequent actions and providing shortcuts may for example often speed up the interaction for the expert users 22 Users learn better if the knowledge required for a task is available externally The design should not hold back actions especially for the experienced usets who have internalized the knowledge It should be easy to switch back and forth 27 Keyboard shortcuts eliminate the need to reach for the mouse find an option and select it favours memorability and make transition from novice to expert easier Toolbars icons and palettes all supply the user w
124. uires that they adapt to the parts well received by customers to continue into the next generation of interfaces 64 Acknowledgement Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform Acknowledgement The possibility to work in a close environment with the developers of Content Studio provided a great opportunity to get the explanations needed and a dialogue that otherwise would not have been possible I would like to thank everyone at Teknikhuset for making me feel welcome and for letting me participate in their everyday work I am especially grateful to Tomas Agerberg Ake Jatvklo Erik Strandman Linda hr n and Niclas str m for helping me in various ways during my work with this paper Thank you for your interest encouragement and support and for all the questions you answered I also want to thank my internal surpervisor at Umea University Lena Palmquist You have been a great help Thank you for all your suggestions and assistance A special thanks to the participating end users who provided me with excellent information and their personal point of view Yout opinions were invaluable Finally I am grateful to my friends and family and especially Robban for always being there for me Thank you 65 References Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform References 12 13 14 15 16 21 Barnum C M 2002 Usability testing and research Pearson Education Inc
125. ular requirements However at all times it is important to design for exploration Users cannot be afraid to push buttons not fully remembering what will happen if they do and must be able to relax User assistance begins with a good design methodology where one tries to understand the users how they work and the problems they encounter As often as possible the basic design principles and processes are followed to create an interface that users can learn easily and operate efficiently 15 4 4 Similar systems EPiServer and SiteVision are two other content management systems where EPiServer can be considered to be the biggest competitor of Content Studio There exist several other similar systems on the market each of them offering much of the same functionality Because of this usability might become the weapon that can convince the customers to buy a particular system EPiServer consists of a core containing functionality for editors and administrators The way of work is pretty much the same for any website made in EPiServer it is just the website itself that is unique Both EPiServer and SiteVision are focused on being a WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get editor where quick access to simple editing is of importance On paper all three seem to work vety similar in the underlying structure However it was the differences in the interface which was of interest for this wotk The result of the comparison between them is presented in
126. vi vie sa iae aae eaa iaa oar a det 21 5L The DECIDE IroameWOEK aiuc Ure epi d ec vr I opm diete quc bots anes 21 5 1 1 Determine the overall goals c cece cece eeee esse ee eeeeeeees 21 5 1 2 Explore the specific questions to be answered 22 5 1 3 Choose the evaluation paradigm and techniques 22 5 1 4 Identify the practical issues that must be addressed 24 5 1 5 Decide how to deal with the ethical issues 24 5 1 6 Evaluate interpret and present the data 24 52 ASKING CXE ooi per aa di ad ele di dpa e ten DEA Rp abd Caer eau 25 5 2 1 Heuristic evaluation ccc cece cece cece escent nnn 25 Jo c didis R m 27 5 3 1 Questionnaires and INtervieWS ssssssersrsrsrerererrrsrrer er nnn 27 6 Usability Guidelines eee 30 6 1 Principles and guidelines for Content Studio 31 Grd SCONSISUCNCY rm 32 6 1 2 Minimize users memory load eene 33 6 1 3 F RSORG rerna ae Een neon ree ea det alt er d 33 OLA USSI CODLUL Olisseutaaruaes cnaace means cadence Nee VARSE severe 34 0 1 5 PreVENE enro Sisenna a EE Gas ae P te OR eke dn 34 6 1 6 Flexibility and efficiency of use seen 35 Table of contents Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform CEL SMOC VU sis eth henge sees nay ERI adiuti am
127. w system usually built in the software is there to make sure that content is approved before being published 39 Content management systems have a simple purpose to make it possible to get hold of content to know what content is available and to make sure that it can be distributed to a variety of places automatically Yet still no standards are universally accepted for what content management systems are ot do 5 Some existing definitions of the term are therefore presented to give a better idea of the most common opinions 4 1 Defining Content Management Systems There are many definitions of Content Management and its belonging systems and most of them give a similar description That is that Content Management is a general term referring to how information such as text images and documents can be organized and structured so they can be stored published and edited with ease and flexibility A content management system is used to simplify content maintenance and design changes and helps manage content usually separating it from page design Authors and editors often need to restore older versions which is why the ability to manage versions of content is a critical aspect of content management The belonging software is therefore well suited for content that is regularly updated and published over and over again 9 19 38 15 Content Management Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform CMSs can
128. web mastet 3 The developer Someone who develops solutions based on Content Studio Besides these user types writers creating information and visitors using the website can also be acknowledged as roles in the system Users also have different knowledge and usage patterns Shneiderman 32 identifies 3 different patterns 1 Novice users Have little knowledge of the interface and do or do not know the concept of the task They need support to overcome their limitations and it is important to make them feel more confident and less intimidated 2 Knowledgeable intermittent users These users have knowledge about both the task and the interface concept but are less likely to remember where functions are located They need to be assisted with features helping them recognize the structure and how a task should be performed 3 Expert frequent users Are very familiar with the concepts and want to be able to work efficiently This applies to response times feedback and shortcuts 19 Content Management Evaluation of the user interface of a web application platform When multiple usage classes must be accommodated in one system the basic strategy is to permit a multi layer approach to learning The separation of content and structure in Content Studio enables organisations to redesign a web site without affecting its content This approach to content management also means that organisations can create web sites for groups of users with partic
129. which is why ease of use and an intuitive interface can be crucial when acquiring new customers 39 4 3 Content Studio Content Studio is a platform for content management collaboration integration and automatization Distributing information responsibility throughout the organization usually means that the I TI department s workload can be reduced at the same time as the quality of the information is increased Content Studio makes it possible for users to contribute information and knowledge without the need for knowing the undetlying technology All administration and editorial work is performed via a standard web browser and Content Studio automatically takes care of all publishing formatting and distribution The database approach of Content Studio allows for information to be reused edited and controlled by authorization and workflow More detailed information on Content Studio is available at its website 34 which is where most of the information in the following section was received from The platform can be used for handling several parallel websites in many languages and in many formats All site management is handled through a unified interface and ina single installation For distributed organizations that require sharing of information and templates Content Studio supports cross publishing and information can be moved between sites through safe channels Content Studio allows information from underlying systems to be impo

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