Android app usability a.k.a Making an app useful Riaan Cornelius - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Android app usability a.k.a Making an app useful Riaan Cornelius

Topics Because nobody likes a surprise • A quick intro to usability • What, Why, How and When? • Usability Heuristics • Quick intro to the design process • requirements for an app • A look at existing apps • Designing a new app • Requirements • Prototyping it • Testing it 2

What is usability Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. Usability includes methods of measuring usability, such as needs analysis and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance. In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability studies the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a web site is designed. Definition on Wikipedia 3

What is usability The 5 quality components Usability is defined by 5 quality components: • Learnability • Efficiency • Memorability • Errors • Satisfaction 4

What is usability Quality metrics Usability and utility are equally important. To study a design's utility, you can use the same user research methods that improve usability. Utility = whether it provides the features you need. Usability = how easy & pleasant these features are to use. Useful = usability + utility. 5

Why is usability important? Quality metrics Usability is a necessary condition for survival. If an app is difficult to use, people uninstall . If users get lost in an app, they uninstall . If an apps information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they uninstall . 6

How do we improve usability? Through hard work Most basic and useful method: User testing . User testing has 3 components: 1. Find users 2. Let them do stuff 3. Observe them doing stuff Shut up and let the users do the talking. 7

How do we improve usability? Through hard work Testing 5 users is typically enough to identify worst usability issues. Rather than 1 big study, do lots of small tests and fix issues between every test. The more interface ideas you test with users, the better. Iterative design is the best way to increase UX quality. 8

When do we look at usability? Short answer? Always! Usability plays a role in each stage of the design process. Here are the main steps: • Before starting the new design, test the old design. • Test your competitors' designs. • Conduct a field study to see how users behave in their natural habitat. • Make paper prototypes of one or more new design ideas and test them. • Refine the design ideas that test best through multiple iterations • Inspect the design relative to established usability guidelines • Once you decide on and implement the final design, test it again. 9

Usability heuristics What we use to rate an app Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines. • Visibility of system status • Match between system and the real world • User control and freedom • Consistency and standards • Error prevention • Recognition rather than recall • Flexibility and efficiency of use • Aesthetic and minimalist design • Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors • Help and documentation 10

When do we look at usability? The cold hard truth 11

Requirements What would a load shedding app need? • I need some help for this part 12

Some existing apps • * GridWatch - Load Shedding (News24): 100k 500k Downloads (4.3 Stars) • * Loadshedding Cape Town : 1k 5k Downloads (4.2 Stars) • Load Shed Sched : 1k 5k Downloads (4.2 Stars) • * Load Shedding Notifier (Sharenet) : 10k 50k Downloads (4.2 Stars) • Load Shedding Alert : 10k 50k Downloads (4.1 Stars) • Load Shedding Notifier : 5k 10k Downloads (4.1 Stars) • * SA Loadshed : 1k 5k Downloads (3.9 Stars) • ShedAlert load shedding alerts : 10k 50k Downloads (3.8 Stars) • Blackout : 500 1000 Downloads (3.6 Stars) • * Loadshed : 5k 10k Downloads (3.3 Stars) • Load Shedding Schedules SA : 10k 50k Downloads (2.9 Stars) • MyEskom (Eskom): 10k 50k Downloads (2.8 Stars) • * Loadshedding SA : 5k 10k Downloads (2.8 Stars) • Load Shedding SA : 10k 50k Downloads (2.7 Stars) 13

Gridwatch Load Shedding 100k 500k Downloads (4.3 Stars) 14

Load Shedding Cape Town 1k 5k Downloads (4.2 Stars) 15

Load Shedding Notifier 10k 50k Downloads (4.2 Stars) 16

SA Loadshed 1k 5k Downloads (3.9 Stars) 17

Loadshed 5k 10k Downloads (3.3 Stars) 18

Loadshedding SA 5k 10k Downloads (2.8 Stars) 19

Requirements What would a load shedding app need? • Current load shedding status • Choose an area you are interested in • Multiple areas? • How about detecting your location and narrowing it down? • Maybe even detect my zone / region based on power outages? • Show load shedding times for my area • What about for the next week? • Push notifications • Countdown to start / end of load shedding? • Power utility contact details • Social media (Twitter, etc) for Eskom / power utility 20

Requirements What about other usability issues? • How do you keep all schedules updated? • Which areas do you support? • Performance? • Updates? • App size? 21

Prototyping Make it real Low fidelity: • Paper • Prototype On Paper (POP) • Balsamiq High fidelity • Photoshop • InDesign • InVisionApp • Axure RP Pro 22

Prototyping Make it real Prototype On Paper (POP) 23

Demo Demonstration http://invis.io/262VK87TU 24

Questions? References: Usability Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability http://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-101-introduction-to-usability/ Usability Heuristics: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ Prototyping: http://www.nngroup.com/courses/wireframing-and-prototyping/ Protoype On Paper: https://popapp.in/ Invision: http://www.invisionapp.com/ Material Design Templates: http://www.okilla.com/search.php?s=material+design Axure RP Pro: http://www.axure.com/ Axure Library: http://www.axure.com/c/forum/tips-tricks-examples/14842-material-design-axure-library.html 25

Reference: Load Shedding Apps Some existing apps * GridWatch - Load Shedding (News24): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.news24.loadshedding * Loadshedding Cape Town : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.loadshedding.capetown Load Shed Sched : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=za.co.antix.loadshedsched * Load Shedding Notifier (Sharenet) : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.uk.sharenet.loadshedding Load Shedding Alert : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bitzulu.loadsheddingalert Load Shedding Notifier : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abisoft.loadsheddingnotifier * SA Loadshed : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stoneagetechnologies.saloadshed * ShedAlert load shedding alerts : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ionicframework.clunk534363 Blackout : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rbg.loadshed * Loadshed : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ionicframework.loadshed186899 Load Shedding Schedules SA : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ionicframework.loadshedder235300 MyEskom (Eskom): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.za.fogg.eskom.myeskom * Loadshedding SA : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.rezonet.loadsheddingsa Load Shedding SA : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=loadsheddingsa.darkwater.com.loadsheddingsa 26