International UPA 2010 Conference: Research Themes and Trends

The Continuing Evolution of Eyetracking

I was very impressed by the quality and quantity of discussion related to eyetracking. By my count, there were at least three eyetracking vendors in the vendor area, and there were several talks on the topic. I was able to attend only one, but I think it attracted a good majority of the people who have experience and a continued interest in the refinement of eyetracking and analysis.

Discussion: Eyetracking Meets User Experience

Jennifer Knodler led a panel discussion titled “Eyetracking Meets User Experience,” which included Elisabeth Andre, Detlef Ruschin, Cathy Zapata, Dante Murphy, and Kate Caldwell. Their collective experience represented a good cross-section of vendors, consultants, and corporations who are using eyetracking in slightly different ways.

In previous presentations on eyetracking that I’ve attended, the discussion was about the merits of the method overall. In this presentation, however, there was not much of that at all. Rather, the discussions—which became rather heated at times—were about the nuances of different report formats, protocols, and the interpretation of different metrics such as fixation time.

One topic in particular about which panelists had different opinions was the relative effectiveness of heat maps versus gaze paths. Some defended heat maps as easy to interpret summaries of attention patterns that were easy to communicate to business stakeholders and other team members. Others felt heat maps were a bit too simplistic, while the gaze sequence information in gaze path graphs was significantly more valuable. While the panel’s general consensus was toward the more information-rich gaze path plots, I could see merits in and situations for using both approaches. The whole debate was indicative of the maturity of eyetracking methodologies and provided a reminder to those who don’t yet have much experience with them that they should get up to speed and consider eyetracking for their research toolkit.

Research and Design Beyond Usability

I was very happy to see several discussions of doing research and design with a focus on delight or happiness on the program. In my work, I find that clients now expect usability and ease of use as a given in the solutions I design. What clients really want is for us to develop transformative solutions that will delight users and exceed their expectations. While achieving this represents an opportunity for UX professionals to evolve our role, we also need to develop methodologies and approaches that align with these needs.

Designing for Delight

In his presentation “Designing for Delight,” Giles Colborne showed several examples of design solutions that were delightful, but also talked about implications for research and the design process. Giles started by showing that, for experts and designers, delight is about novel approaches, attention to detail, associating yourself with delightful others, and humor. For example, he pointed to the skull and crossbones that appears in Google Chrome when a site certificate is questionable—a clever new approach that adds a little interest to the design. However, for people who are not designers—that is, most of the target population—these are interesting details, but not necessarily delightful.

Giles collected stories about experiences that people found delightful, and the results were very different from the designer’s take. For example, one person relayed a story about buying two airline tickets by mistake. When they talked to customer service, not only did the airline refund one ticket, they refunded the more expensive one—delightful! All of the experiences that delighted users exhibited the same overall pattern: the user had some anxiety, the anxiety was resolved almost effortlessly—or at least, better than others had been in the past—and the result was delight. Consequently, from a research and process perspective, Giles suggested researching and probing specifically for potential moments of anxiety and highlighting them in process flows and other documentation. By focusing design solutions on effortless, personal, and clever resolutions to users’ anxieties, we can structure the research and design process for developing delightful designs.

Design for Happiness

Invited speaker Pieter Desmet took this concept one step further in his talk “Design for Happiness.” Instead of working toward a delightful solution by being prepared and reacting to moments of anxiety, Peter’s work focuses on determining the attributes of products and designs that make people happy, then doing user research and designing with a focus on those attributes.

Peter explained that work in psychology—such as the Positive Psychology theme Martin Seligman proposed—found that there are several dimensions to happiness. While genetic makeup and people’s general personality determine part of their happiness, external factors can have a significant impact on their happiness. Products and designs that contribute to both a meaningful and a pleasurable life can contribute to someone’s overall happiness.

Of course, meaning and pleasure can be different things to different people. For example, to some people, living a meaningful life might be raising a child or making a difference in their community. The implication is that, in our research, we should focus on these considerations explicitly in an effort to help people achieve true levels of happiness. I don’t pretend to understand the nuances of the psychology behind his theories, and Peter also admitted this is a work in progress that he continues to explore. However, the idea that we should consider doing research, analysis, and design that build toward positive outcomes—rather than just avoiding negative outcomes and optimizing to reduce errors—is certainly a compelling future direction for our profession.

Maturing the Profession and the Professionals

Speaking of the continued evolution of our profession, several talks at the conference focused on the evolution of our skills as user researchers and practitioners of usability. We can all become better at what we do, so it was encouraging to hear presentations from those who discussed how.

Rent a Car in Just 60, 120, or 240 Seconds

In a continuation of his Comparative Usability Evaluation (CUE) studies, Rolf Molich led a discussion titled “Rent a Car in Just 60, 120, or 240 Seconds.” The title of his presentation refers to a study that he organized, during which 15 separate usability teams evaluated the Web site for Budget, a car rental company in the US. The Web site claimed visitors could “Rent a Car in 60 Seconds,” and Rolf thought the claim would be interesting to study from a usability perspective.

While Rolf was interested in the specific results of the evaluations, he was even more interested in how different teams would independently conduct their evaluations and report on their findings. He found that different teams disagreed on their findings. For example, some found that the 60-second claim was accurate, others suggested that it be changed to 120 or 240 seconds, and still others suggested that the time wasn’t really important at all, as long as users remained confident in their ability to rent a car and that they had all of the information they needed at the right time. The differences in the recommendations of the 15 teams were striking.

This led to a discussion about the our profession’s state of maturity. If all of these groups could come up with such different recommendations, should our profession be more scientific? Should all groups have come up with the same findings? Or is user research and analysis more of an art?

Based on his years of experience in the industry, Rolf suggested that he could certainly recognize which teams were more rigorous in their approach and were better at communicating their findings. But he warned that the disparity suggested we should all be mindful of the quality of our own work, be constantly humble and aware, and strive to improve our own performance. In my mind, this is especially important in light of the sentiment surrounding express usability, which I discussed earlier. As we speed up our processes to meet tighter deadlines, we need to make sure we understand the implications of our approaches to user research and analysis.

Mentoring to Build UX Skills in Business Environments

To help people improve their understanding of different approaches to user research, Deb Sova and Laurie Kantner gave a presentation titled “Mentoring to Build UX Skills in Business Environments,” describing their mentoring experiences in different types of organizations.

Deb shared some success stories about a mentoring program in a large corporation for which she was able to map out learning plans, structure a review process, and enable a one-on-one learning environment in which a senior practitioner would teach a junior member of the team. Deb described a process of learning by shadowing where the junior team member would attend and assist the senior practitioner with project activities as they arose. Laurie, on the other hand, described a process in an agency where all the members of a team would learn from each other through regular topic discussions and design critiques. While the basics of their experiences were relatively straightforward, I found the emphasis on mentoring and shared learning compelling.

To achieve Rolf Molich’s goals for user research, experienced professionals need to learn from each other and mentor others. Consider it a call to action!

Conclusion

Overall, the focus on real-world experience and practitioner-focused content at the UPA conference continues. Looking at the conference from the perspective of a user researcher, I was encouraged to see that there are thought leaders pushing the envelope on the application of traditional user research methods, while at the same time building upon core elements of techniques that have proven successful and maintaining rigor in their approaches. I hope our continuing attention to detail will help everyone in our profession prove their worth to those we work with. I look forward to the continued evolution of this discussion in 2011, in Atlanta!