Chunking Data – Testing with Wireframes

So we are speaking about chunking up data, that is grouping information so it is easier for users to find what they want on corporate sites. A wireframe may be used to discover through testing the best groups or chunks of information to present to end users. Wireframes are used prior to extensive development, such as the graphics and functionality (look and feel). This can be a very effective way to test while reducing cost and time to market.

"Chunks" or "chunking' is the technical term actually used in the user interface design information industry for similar groups or buckets of information.

A wireframe is an outline, like an information blueprint - it is used to convey structure, taxonomy or that is related or grouped information in lists, which removes the pressure of immediately deciding what the site should look like, and more importantly details what the information model will be. The appearance is in many cases secondary to the main information on a corporate website, but it may be the first thing a customer focuses on, therefore it remains very important.

For our example a senior user experience architect, based on experience, divided the information presented on your corporate site into chunks. Using these information chunks she created the following wireframe, which represents your primary customer facing Web page:

Company Logo Sign In

Local Application Language 2 Search

1st Product 2nd Product 3rd Product

sub product sub product

Free Items Sales Unique Purchase topic topic topic

customer focused versatile reason to buy

Policy Contact Us Locations Shop Support Billing

Wireframes such as this one can be used in user centered design to help your decision making process about what should be on the main page. It will show if it makes sense how to navigate successfully to sub-pages. It is used to ask users what they would choose or what they would expect to see under each of the links. In this wireframe everything is a link, except the company logo, because the user is already on the main page.

This layout of information may differ a great deal from your existing site, this is just a virtual case study – if it were a real one – the wireframe would reflect your customers and your business needs. The next step would be to test it internally with you and your teams, tweak the wireframe and test it with a few customers. It is supposed to be generic looking, unfinished – just to see if the information is expected, and generally in the right locations.

We can also ask about the expected functionality under the selections that your customers and potential customers make. Other techniques include cognitive walkthrough, heuristic evaluation, and a site visit (where UI test visits a customer at their environment such as their office or home), as well as other usability testing. We can use paper prototypes to introduce other information links. Should you have a “Feedback” link for example?

We can use paper cut outs of the words and phases to see if they work in other configurations in this layout. A usability next step might be using the wireframe to test real users to see:

1. What they click on

2. Do they get expected results?

3. What else happens?

4. Can the presentation, the logical groupings be improved?

After massaging the content, context, location, and functional plans, then the look or skin will be added, based on the demographics that data mining uncovers about your customers.

This look, combined with the functionality of the site will in part generate a 'feel', which informs the customer a great deal about doing business with you. These things combined can make the user experience satisfying along the way.

Next time: What do all those Web Design Top Ten Lists mean? How are they useful?

How to Start Thinking About Redesigning Your Corporate Site

Where Do We Start, What Will We Get?
Redesigning a customer facing corporate site is expensive, it can be a joy or it can be painful - how do we start thinking about it? What will we get, what can we expect?

Among the many variables in how to approach renovating existing business or customer facing websites, there are three top level considerations:
1. Information
2. Functionality
3. Look and Feel

What you sell drives your website’s look and feel. What your customers need to do on your website or with their information drives your site’s functionality. An entertainment and communication site for example, can be as lively, vigorous, and exciting as wished, as long as it presents the information your customers seek, in a way that is easy to find. It is said that:

“Beauty Communicates.”[1]

“Good design adds value faster than it adds cost.”[2]
“The Motorola RAZR is now selling at a rate of about four million units each month -- 1.5 per second. If Motorola spends another million or two improving the design, they can make it back in a day.” - Joel on Software

Look to your competitors. The larger they are -- the more money they have to invest in usability studies. A large business competitor such as ATT, or Amazon, is doing a great job communicating with their customer base on their websites in an organized and friendly way. They have probably performed a great deal of research around the presentation, and it only makes sense to adapt what they learned where it is appropriate to your firm. It is also a great idea to look at your smaller competitor’s sites, and the local ones.

First let’s talk about how to make decisions, how to make sure they are the right ones. Then, in later blogs we will find out what some experts advise, and do a walk through your site to contrast and compare to your competitor’s website, while gathering relevant ideas along the way.

Customers and Business Intelligence
The most important place to begin is with the customer, and discovering what they need or want through a Business Intelligence process.

Business Intelligence has three top level goals-
• Making better decisions faster
• Converting data into information
• Using a rational approach to management

Business Intelligence advises us to make business decisions based on well-informed logic -- that will meet or exceed our goals. Many goals even when realized do not immediately make money, but they generally point in that direction, or are goals which uncover ways to help earn money or satisfy our customers. In the case of a website redesign, the governing discipline of user interface, application design, and related decision making is Information Management; specifically user-centered design.

Measurement
You may also want to verify that the decisions made have a good return on investment by measuring them. The metrics of business intelligence which are useful and relevant to a decision, called key performance indicators (KPIs) are those things from which we may determine return on investment (ROI). On the Web this is related to Web analytics and conversion rates, which means the tracking data and its relationship to customers buying your products or services. These are most interesting because they can be traced, and over time, iteratively improved.

“Key Performance Indicators” and “Return On Investment” are fancy phrases for how you know you are right. Measurement is what keeps the iterative practices pointed in the right directions.

Information Management
Contemporary information management offers this sage advice –

Every single decision about the strategy, content, and presentation of information on business websites needs to be driven from a stated business goal.

Here 'websites' means portals, intranet, and extranet sites.

It is not possible to collect and evaluate all the relevant information required to make solid decisions at a reasonable price (time/effort), therefore reasonable inquiries, of the stakeholders, of the business goals, and of the end users requirements are needed to create the strategies which most align with those business goals and objectives.

So how is this achieved? The process begins by collecting business objectives from the different stakeholders, including the primary actual end users of the information on these sites. Business goals and users end goals may not be exactly the same, or may even appear diametrically opposed, e.g.:

Users and Their Goals
Business
Make Money
Add customers
Retain customers
Reduce support costs

Customer
Save Money
Get lots of usable stuff
Have Fun
Get information now

But the information collected can be used in a discovery process which shows us how to please both parties. A fundamental information management design statement is:

“Know your user ... and you are not your user.”

That last part is most important to designers and decision makers who may believe that they know what their end users want without asking them.

"You are not your end user."

The intention of such a whimsical and obvious fact is to help drive home the point that businesses must discover who their end users, that is, their customers are; what are their demographics: ages, genders, locations, etc? What are their wants, needs, limitations, communities? What are their languages, technical skill levels, attention span, interest level, and so forth?

For example, how many of your end users encounter accessibility issues online? Any of these things may be turned into a business advantage:

"Enabling accessible technology is a growth opportunity, it meets customer needs, and it's the right thing to do … As the Baby Boom generation ages, more and more people will face the challenges of reduced dexterity, vision, and hearing. So enabling accessible technology is a growth opportunity... [3] “ Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft), 2001, Businessweek.com

You may inquire about your users in a variety of ways, but all of them include asking the customer for input or feedback, some even without them knowing. You want to learn to “See through your customers' eyes.”[4]

What Methods Do Big Companies Use to Know Their Customers?
· Amazon conducts a form of choice modeling[5], called A/B testing live on its site – does the user chose A or B?, which one the end user actually selects drives how the information about the product is presented. They have a large in-house UI design team.

· Premera (Blue Cross + Blue Shield insurance) meets in person with a selection of its end users, brokers for example, and asks them what they want. They contract with specialist companies to conduct usability testing.

· Classmates meets with end users and asks them in person among other things, if certain functionality was available would they pay for it?

· Microsoft uses a wide variety of tools and skills, including extensive user interface testing, Web surveys, customer feedback forms, opt-in PII data and error collection. They outsource a great deal of their backend and UI design, and they have several internal usability teams. They design new standards.

Why do companies do all this work to discover what the user wants and who they are?

The end user is king.

Knowing about the customer drives the business in their decision making. Business earns revenue from customers. If a business does not know their customer, they will not know what they need and want. Without this knowledge and the skill to use it businesses will not be able to conjure the means to effectively satisfy and ultimately attract and keep their customer.

Next time:
An example, and next steps ...

[1] Paul Moment, http://www.electroglyph.com/, "Beauty Communicates" company tagline, Seattle, Washington, 2005

[2] "Thomas Gale, a well-known automobile designer for Chrysler, put it well when he said, "Good design adds value faster than it adds cost." "
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/design/1stDraft/01.html/ accessed March 7, 2008.

[3] A Chat with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Businessweek.com, http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2001/nf20010613_081.htm/ accessed March 3, 2008

[4] Kelly Fraznick, Blink IA, http://www.blinkia.com/, "See through your customers' eyes" company tagline, Seattle, Washington.

[5] Choice Modeling definition, wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_Modelling accessed March 3, 2008.