Instructor Blog #6: Usability

At its heart, usability is such a commonsense notion that it is amazing how long it took to break into the corporate mainstream. The basic concept of usability is that documents and products should be usable in the real world environments where they function. This can be more difficult than it sounds, however, as we all know from bonehead products that defy our basic needs as users. Some things don't work the way they're intended, they don't account for our needs, they don't work the way we expect, or they're simply more difficult than they need to be. This site contains a great collection of problem products. One of our favorites is the van seat that falls over when you try to slide it back. This is poor usability, because almost every car ever made with a mechanical seat mechanism uses a handle like this to slide the seat back and forth. The van's design defies that lifetime of experience.

Products like these, bad instructions, and difficult-to-navigate websites have inspired a greater focus on usability. There is a Usability Professionals' Association, and World Usability Day is November 16. (We hope you come to observe this holiday.) Many companies now do extensive usability testing before releasing products. Microsoft is becoming much more interested in usability. They even have a Usability Research Center, and several Purdue professors have assisted Microsoft with usability studies. Microsoft has even gone so far as to have employees live in people's homes for six months to see how they use products. Companies now realize that user-centered products are good for business.

As for usability in this class, many of you have commented that knowing and understanding an audience will be crucial to writing your instructions (as it is for writing any document). Obviously, we lack the time and resources to do extensive, professional usability testing; however, we will structure our peer review as usability testing.

Usability Tests

An important decision you will have to make is how you will conduct your test. You want to select or create a usability test that will give you the kind of feedback you need to assess your instructions properly. There are many types of usability testing, but some are more appropriate for this activity than others (partially because of the physical limitations of online distance education). We list below four usability tests that we feel can be effectively administered in an online situation. Chapter 12 of Technical Communication Today lists and describes several other tests on page 332, but many of them would be difficult to complete without face-to-face contact or specialized tools that we might not all have.

The four usability tests we recommend are:

  • a document markup, where users read your documentation as they perform the task and mark any places where they get confused.
  • a read and locate test, where readers are asked to find important information to see how long it takes (this is very effective for longer documents.)
  • a survey, that asks users about their experiences as they read the document (this could also be use to assess how effectively the instructions convey key pieces of information).
  • a summary test, where users are asked to summarize what they feel is important information from the document.

Usability Questions

Whatever test you choose, keep in mind what you want to look for. TCT lists four main questions to keep in mind as you conduct usability testing. All are relevant for the instructions project:

  • Can they find it? This has come up in several blog posts. Users want to be able to find the specific information they need very quickly. They don't want to wade through pages of text to find the few instructions they need. Make sure your document is easy to navigate.
  • Can they understand it? Instructions should be easy for the appropriate audience to understand. Pick someone who is not very familiar with the task you're covering, and have them perform it while reading the instructions. Find any places where they are confused or don't understand the terminology, directions, or graphics. Then follow up to find out what might be made more clear.
  • Can they do it? This one seems clear enough—can they perform the task at hand in the time expected? If not, something is probably wrong with the instructions. Find any places where your instructions break down and forget a step, explain something vaguely, or diverge from reality.
  • Is it safe? Hopefully none of you will be writing instructions for dynamite or alligator wrestling, but safety is still a concern. Make sure the user isn't doing anything that will hurt themselves or damage the product. This is a very real concern, because lawyers and judges (and often other organizations such as OSHA) are tertiary audiences for instruction sets.

Overall, we believe most people intuitively understand usability but lose sight of it when they start designing or writing. You can get so focused on the product or process that you lose sight of the fact that humans will be the ones interacting with your instructions. Hopefully, this activity will ensure that you stay focused on the user and needs of the audience.