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Making Connections

Making Connections. Teaming Up to Connect Users, Developers, and Usability Experts A presentation by The Usability Center at Southern Polytechnic and Ipswitch, Inc. Your presenters. Carol Barnum, Co-Director of Usability Center, Southern Polytechnic David Dayton, Usability Center Associate

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Making Connections

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  1. Making Connections Teaming Up to Connect Users, Developers, and Usability Experts A presentation by The Usability Center at Southern Polytechnic and Ipswitch, Inc. IPCC Conference

  2. Your presenters • Carol Barnum, Co-Director of Usability Center, Southern Polytechnic • David Dayton, Usability Center Associate • Kevin R Gillis, Dir Product Mgt, Ipswitch • Ben Henderson, Chief Technologist, Ipswitch • Joe O’Connor, Information Development Manager, Ipswitch IPCC Conference

  3. The Usability Center at SPSU.edu usability.spsu.edu Evaluation Room Control Room Exec Viewing Room IPCC Conference

  4. Our agenda • Background • Collaboration – process and product • The WS_FTP product history/issues • Goals of testing • Findings • Iteration/Retesting • Measuring results – Internal/External • What’s next IPCC Conference

  5. The WS_FTP product: history & issues • The product • 15+ years old, 40 million users ranging from students and eBay users up to Fortune 500, Government and Public Sector • Historically, 2 products - commercial (WS_FTP Pro) and a free education version (WS_FTP LE) • In 2004, launched WS_FTP Home and pulled LE • Never put through formal usability IPCC Conference

  6. How usability entered the picture • Adding more features to the application • Technical support incidents were rising • User base appears to be less technical • How do people “use” the product? • How do we build an interface that is usable by novice and professional users? IPCC Conference

  7. Background for collaboration • Background • Ipswitch selects Southern Polytechnic • Changing focus to early and iterative • Collaboration process • Team approach • Co-development for testing/analysis • Commitment from Ipswitch to participate fully • Iteration and retest IPCC Conference

  8. Findings: startup wizard • Walks through creating a connection • Evolution from create site wizard to startup wizard • Changes: • Wizard text and examples improved • Walks through creating a connection and connects when wizard is completed • Improved feedback for failures IPCC Conference

  9. Location: Create site wizard within the start dialog IPCC Conference

  10. Location: Wizard displayed on first startup IPCC Conference

  11. Help text and layout: Before IPCC Conference

  12. Help text and layout: After IPCC Conference

  13. Error text and layout: Before IPCC Conference

  14. Error text and layout: After IPCC Conference

  15. Getting started tour • Novices did not understand file transfer concepts: • What is an FTP site? • What do I connect to? • How do I connect? • Answers have always been in the help system (text explanation) • Tour represents a quick demo … show me, but don’t explain IPCC Conference

  16. Tour starts with files on desktop (known concept) User can control the tour IPCC Conference

  17. Imparts new concepts via the “story” IPCC Conference

  18. Findings: Multiple Document Interface (MDI) • End-user feature request • Manage multiple sites simultaneously • First tested version used MDI to display multiple sites • Users could not navigate the MDI setup (for site-to-site transfer) • Time wasted setting up multiple file views so they could navigate between IPCC Conference

  19. Before: A separate window for each site IPCC Conference

  20. After: Use tabs to switch between sites and local views IPCC Conference

  21. Findings: PGP setup (for secure transfer) • Advanced users • In initial testing, no advanced user successfully completed the PGP scenario • Users did not understand concepts: • Creating a key pair • “Signing” a key • “Trusting” • Users drawn to the PGP mode button in toolbar IPCC Conference

  22. Before: Import keys IPCC Conference

  23. Before: Sign keys IPCC Conference

  24. Before: Import keys IPCC Conference

  25. After: Sign keys IPCC Conference

  26. PGP mode: before Select public key Is the selected key certified? Prompt to use un-certified key Start No Yes Yes Enable PGP Mode Cancel PGP Mode IPCC Conference

  27. PGP mode: after Yes Select public key Is the selected key certified? Prompt to use un-certified key Start No Yes Default: Use key & certify Verify certification request Does signing key exist? Prompt for signing key passphrase Create or Import? Launch Create Or Import Wizard Cancel PGP Mode Enable PGP Mode IPCC Conference

  28. Measuring results - internal • Survey of attitudes • 96 Ipswitch employee responses • strongly positive view of usability testing • some expressed desire to do more • negative views small percentage • observing tests effective in changing views about usability testing • many hadn’t heard about the testing IPCC Conference

  29. A web-delivered survey • Initial email from Ipswitch president inviting employees to fill out web questionnaire • Two reminder emails over following week • IRB-approved consent form to start • 96 respondents total; ~64% response rate • Basic demographic and job information • Likert-scale statements to elicit opinions about usability testing IPCC Conference

  30. Respondents profile • Avg 9.8 yrs software industry experience (from < 1 year to 35 years) • Avg 3.7 years with Ipswitch(from < 1 year to 11 years) • Age  Job Function 18-24 3 30 development 25-34 43 30 sales & marketing 35-44 25 22 tech & adm support 45-54 23 12 upper & product mgmt 55 & up 1 2 no answer IPCC Conference

  31. Measuring attitudes • Likert-scale opinion items adapted from a survey of software developers • 9 opinion items for all respondents • 15 additional opinion items for those who had observed usability tests • Several open-ended questions solicited opinions about usability testing IPCC Conference

  32. Strongly positive view:9 Likert statements IPCC Conference *reverse coded: higher score reflects pro-usability-testing attitude

  33. Strongly positive view:open-ended answers • "Sum up your opinions about the effects of usability testing on product development and product quality at Ipswitch." • About three-fourths responded (76) • Positive statements outnumbered negative 56 to 7 (8 to 1) IPCC Conference

  34. Breakdown of the 76 open-ended responses 2 strongly negative 5 mildly negative 23 general, positive statements 24 strongly positive statements 9 positive & wanted stronger usability effort 11 didn't know enough to give an opinion 2 no opinion IPCC Conference

  35. Significant? We like to think so • 3 of 13 respondents(23%) who observed usability tests before Ipswitch saidobserving u-tests had changed their opinions about usability testing. • These did not observe tests at Southern Polytechnic • To the same question: 8 of 20 respondents (40%) who observed usability testing for the first time at Southern Polytechnic answered affirmatively. IPCC Conference

  36. Surprising finding: many had little info • 13 of the survey’s respondents said they didn’t know impact of testing on product design • including two senior software developers • a member of upper management • two members of the marketing team. • 24 of 68 respondents (35%) who had not observed testing at Southern Polytechnic said they didn’t know much about it — beyond that it had taken place IPCC Conference

  37. Measuring results - external • Success metrics • conversion rates of product trial evaluations • support calls • shorter duration • smaller number IPCC Conference

  38. Measuring results - external • Success metrics • conversion rates of product trial evaluations • After 2 years of declining WS_FTP client unit sales, experienced 3% growth. • For 12 months since WS_FTP Professional 9 and WS_FTP Home 9 shipped, conversion rates of WS_FTP Evaluators increased nearly 20%. IPCC Conference

  39. Measuring results - external IPCC Conference

  40. Measuring results - external IPCC Conference

  41. Measuring results - external IPCC Conference

  42. R&D process changes • Improvements in design of other products • Usability added to “bug report database” IPCC Conference

  43. R&D process changes • Ingrained in development methodology • At least one usability round factored into dev schedule • “Broken as designed” replaced with a defect categorize under Usability • Internal and impromptu usability occurs midstream • Improvements in design of other products • Usability added to TestTrack – Ipswitch R&D’s Defect Tracking database IPCC Conference

  44. R&D Process Changes “Usability” IPCC Conference

  45. Lessons learned • Internal, informal user tests to professional usability testing • Prototyping (we went with live software versus paper or mockups) • Iterative - refinements to test based on walkthrough and pilot IPCC Conference

  46. What’s next? • Collaboration continues • latest product never tested before • very few issues uncovered • transition to web-based application successful • Executive viewing room stays packed • Nearly ½ of the company attends 1 or more sessions • Ipswitch continues to grow and respond to its users • customer visits • contextual inquiry IPCC Conference

  47. Questions? • Carol Barnum • Kevin R Gillis • Ben Henderson • Joe O’Connor IPCC Conference

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