As we think, our stream of consciousness seamlessly flows in and out of the concepts and topics that we are thinking about. Stream of conciousness navigates through our mental space at various degrees of engagement with the topic at hand. We can hop from one topic to another and focus our attention on a specific detail of a given thought, then a detail of that detail that may lead to another topic.
Physical and electronic artefacts help us focus our attention and guide the path of our stream. As I read a novel, the words and sentences are guiding my stream of conciousness in a given direction, that of the story plot as it unfolds.
The first paragraph of a story often covers mutiple levels of physical and emotional reality. This allows the author to set the scene and put the reader in context.
"The spaceship reduced its speed as it approached the federal galactic prison. Peter stared into the portal to see his final destination. All he could see was his reflection staring back at him. The grimace on his face reminded him of the continuous pain in his gut from yesterday's beating."
We read novels for entertainment and gladly let the author take over the control of the flow.
When we engage in professional activity, we need to be in control the flow.
Electronic media has given us greater control over the paths we can take as we use this support to guide our stream of conciousness while gathering knowledge and acting on it.
Formalising the various levels of engagement we have with information can guide us as we design information spaces that support professional activity.
The topics covered by the information system are defined by the knowlge space of the activity. Levels of engagement are either common to all knowledge gathering activity, or specialised for a given task.
Following is an initial list of engagement levels:
1- Scan : scanning lists to identify potential content of interest.
2- Peek : looking for additional information to asses if an item is worth following up on.
3- Follow-up : zooming one's attention on an item having decided it is of interest based on the information obtained through scanning or peeking.
4- Consume: active reading, analyzing content of interest.
6- Transform: transforming the content by either sharing, contributing or changing the content.
There probably is significant research and documentation on the topic of cognitive engagement levels and how these can be applied to designing information systems. If anyone knows of one or more existing taxonomies of engagements please advise.
Financial Navigation Language
Financial Queery Language (FQL) has been proposed as a worthwhile effort to persue. Are users (people) ready to learn FQL to rapidly access information or should we strive to provide a mixture of search and edit to deliver easy access to financial content?
Agile Usability Tests
Usability test objectives
Xtra 6 and Trader 4 have a business objective of being usable OUT OF THE BOX (OTB).
This means that absolutely no training is required for users to:
Download, install, start using all basic features of the product.
A set of usability tests will be targeted at ensuring this business objective is met.
The following features planned for Xtra 6 are expected to contribute to the OTB experience.
- Search UI and Syntax
- Auto-suggest / quick search
- Explorer
- Navigator
- Flex creation wizard
- Auto-synchronization of objects
- Tabbed browsing
- Install / upgrade procedure
- New object toolbars
- Inline message for objects
- Multi screen support
Each test cycle (10-20 users) can test one or more of these features/workflows.
The following supports will be used to conduct the usability tests:
- Xtra iteration releases
- UXG prototypes
- RKWM – as this is Explorer v0
- Others if and when needed
When the Xtra iteration release is the support for the test, 2 separate requirements need to be scoped.
1 – Initial requirement with corresponding development estimate. These will be implemented in a given iteration.
2 – Post test requirements – assuming they significantly differ from the initial requirements and were not included in initial scoping. These will be implemented in the next available iteration.
Hardware
Laptop * 2 : 1
Lenovo (IBM) T60
Dual Core Processor; 1GB; 60GB; 1024x768; CD-RW, DVD-ROM
1,424.00 USD
Total = 2,848.00 USD
Software
Morae 1.3 Licence:
Manager, 1 Recorder, 1 Viewer, 1 Year Essential Plan
1,298 USD
We currently have a licence for Morae 1.0.1 (
Upgrade will cost 25% of the full licence fee:
325 USD per licence
2 CardZort licences:
150 USD per licence = 300 USD
Total = 3,473.00 USD
Users
Recruitment fees paid to professional recruiter
300 to 400 $ depending on nature of user profile
Incentive fee paid to the end user
200 to 300 $ depending on nature of user profile
Total = will vary based on user profiles required and contractor used to recruit.
Assuming 100 users 50,000 to 70,000 USD
In House resource
Testing on Reuters premises should bear no cost in
- Facilitator and note taker will be provided by extended UXG community (UXG + functional reports)
- There may be ad hoc requirement for prototype development (1 – 2 weeks)
- A project manager needs to be assigned to these tests (1-2 weeks)
- A QA representative should be assigned to learn the process (this is all about Quality assurance of soft product metrics)
How important is usability?
"Answer, very important, but it alone is not enough. Companies succeed because they make sales (more accurately, because they make a profit from those sales), and for the company to succeed, all aspects of the product must perform well: the business model, the marketing and sales efforts, the cost structure, the competitiveness, and of course, the product itself, in appearance, function, and usability. Which particular aspects dominate will depend upon the context.
For us, as a discipline, to be successful, we need to understand the entire picture. Wonderful user experience is important, but neither necessary nor sufficient. If the company fails, it doesn’t matter how good the experience was. Our job is to make the company succeed." Donald Norman - Do companies fail because their technology is unusable?
For us, as a discipline, to be successful, we need to understand the entire picture. Wonderful user experience is important, but neither necessary nor sufficient. If the company fails, it doesn’t matter how good the experience was. Our job is to make the company succeed." Donald Norman - Do companies fail because their technology is unusable?
Password protection
I have always been annoyed by the fact that products don’t display my password and replace it by ******* instead, when I enter it.
The rationale behind this; ensure no one else can see your password while you are using the product. Since a password is a measure of “security” to protect your data it must not be inadvertently exposed to others.
It has long been known by the UX community that this is actually not true. With safety and security, more can be less
"The ever-increasing burden of security, authentication, and identification
But there is a paradox: the more thorough the demands of security, the less secure the result. Why? Because when the demands of security get in the way of doing our jobs, we find ways around them. We write passwords on paper, hiding them in insecure locations. We prop open doors, make copies of sensitive material – all because we are dedicated to getting the job done. Thus, the honest workers can undermine the entire security apparatus. " Donald Norman
Passwords actually don’t protect data – they most often create the context for a serious breach in security because they do not cater to human cognitive skills.
Passwords – and all the codes we need to remember in our modern lives – are not real protection because they do not take into account people’s limited cognitive skills in memorizing meaningless sequences of data points.
We are the best species on this planet to remember meaningful – structured – information; we are just not good at remembering meaningless ones. Most likely because this cognitive skill – remembering meaningless information - was has not required by our species to adapt to and survive in our environment.
Who knows this may change if passwords stay around long enough ;-)
Humans are great at finding workarounds when asked to perform meaningless tasks - like remembering arbitrary information.
For example we try to use our partner’s name or pet’s name instead of Erty098Zut as a meaningful unit of information easily remembered.
Having realized this, “Security experts” - to make things even more complicated - do not allow us to use meaningful sequences and require that we always include capital letters and numeric data to make the exact password even more difficult to decipher – and of course remember.
To make things even worse, they also require us to change passwords frequently enough so that if we did spend the energy to remember it, it will soon become useless.
Humans always find creative ways to adapt. So, they often write the code on a post-it note – or somewhere easily accessible – so that they can refer back to it when needed. This of course makes the password even more easily discoverable by ill intended people and completely negates the original intention.
Biometrics will probably solve this issue when it finally becomes generalized but in the meantime we will all suffer from “passworitis”.
There is a temporary “solution” that addresses our cognitive ability and ensures we do not need to “expose” our passwords inadvertently in our wallet or computer screen: the [secret question]. This is an attempt at trying to put meaning back into the process and allow users to revert back to a memorable word to receive their password when forgotten.
The rationale behind this; ensure no one else can see your password while you are using the product. Since a password is a measure of “security” to protect your data it must not be inadvertently exposed to others.
It has long been known by the UX community that this is actually not true. With safety and security, more can be less
"The ever-increasing burden of security, authentication, and identification
But there is a paradox: the more thorough the demands of security, the less secure the result. Why? Because when the demands of security get in the way of doing our jobs, we find ways around them. We write passwords on paper, hiding them in insecure locations. We prop open doors, make copies of sensitive material – all because we are dedicated to getting the job done. Thus, the honest workers can undermine the entire security apparatus. " Donald Norman
Passwords actually don’t protect data – they most often create the context for a serious breach in security because they do not cater to human cognitive skills.
Passwords – and all the codes we need to remember in our modern lives – are not real protection because they do not take into account people’s limited cognitive skills in memorizing meaningless sequences of data points.
We are the best species on this planet to remember meaningful – structured – information; we are just not good at remembering meaningless ones. Most likely because this cognitive skill – remembering meaningless information - was has not required by our species to adapt to and survive in our environment.
Who knows this may change if passwords stay around long enough ;-)
Humans are great at finding workarounds when asked to perform meaningless tasks - like remembering arbitrary information.
For example we try to use our partner’s name or pet’s name instead of Erty098Zut as a meaningful unit of information easily remembered.
Having realized this, “Security experts” - to make things even more complicated - do not allow us to use meaningful sequences and require that we always include capital letters and numeric data to make the exact password even more difficult to decipher – and of course remember.
To make things even worse, they also require us to change passwords frequently enough so that if we did spend the energy to remember it, it will soon become useless.
Humans always find creative ways to adapt. So, they often write the code on a post-it note – or somewhere easily accessible – so that they can refer back to it when needed. This of course makes the password even more easily discoverable by ill intended people and completely negates the original intention.
Biometrics will probably solve this issue when it finally becomes generalized but in the meantime we will all suffer from “passworitis”.
There is a temporary “solution” that addresses our cognitive ability and ensures we do not need to “expose” our passwords inadvertently in our wallet or computer screen: the [secret question]. This is an attempt at trying to put meaning back into the process and allow users to revert back to a memorable word to receive their password when forgotten.
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