RR_14: Web 2.0 and usability

A run of Google search for “Web 2.0” today will yield more than 340 million hits. Web 2.0 is here, despite the fact that some view it as another “marketing ploy” in the IT industry after the dot-com boom (Dilger, 2010, p. 15). “Web 2.0” was coined by Dale Daughtery and O'Reilly in 2003 to distinguish the emerging web that was “qualitatively different” from its earlier version (Wolff, Fitzpatrick & Youssef, 2009, par. 2), which signified a “turning point for the web” after the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 (O'Reilly, 2005, par. 2). According to O'Reilly, “Web 2.0” is not a concept that has “a hard boundary,” but rather one that has “a gravitational core” (par. 7). It is visualized by O'Reily as “a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core” (ibid). These principles include, according to O'Reilly, the web as platform, harnessing collective intelligence, data management as a core competency, end of software release cycle (constant and frequent iterative development), users as co-developers, lightweight programming models, design crossover multiple devices, and rich user experience. More recently, O'Reilly and Batelle (2009) also emphasize on the high-level of automation, or the machine's ability to “learn” about its users and “sense” the world, as well as other deeper and more extensive developments of the characteristics of Web 2.0.1 Web 2.0 , as part of the complex world of technologies today, is messy and fast-changing, but 'Reilly's description of Web 2.0 perhaps is among the most systematic and comprehensive. In order to make use of this concept to inform usability, I will focus a brief discussion on two most fundamental and interdependent characteristics of Web 2.0: (1) web as a platform, (2) web as a database.

First, Web 2.0 is a “platform” (O'Reilly's, 2005), and websites existing on this web have gone beyond a collection of web pages. A Web 2.0 site does not only provide information from its owner to its audience. Rather, it provides services to its users, such as helping them manage their bookmarks (delicious.com), helping them store their documents and access from multiple locations (dropbox.com), or helping them keep up to date the blogs they are interested in (Google Reader and other readers enabled by RSS). The boundaries between websites and applications are blurred in Web 2.0, and the web has become a platform to run applications with which the users can do something. B. Dilger (2010) summarizes this characteristic succinctly: “As opposed to the 'strategic positioning' of the Web as a conduit for information delivered in discrete units metaphorically called 'pages,' Web 2.0 imagines itself as a platform much like a computer operating system on which applications are run and services delivered” (p. 17).

Second, the web has becoming a huge database. As O'Reilly (2005) has pointed out, data are of core value in Web 2.0. Different from Web 1.0, where information is usually provided by the owners of a websites, in Web 2.0, a great amount of data are generated by the users, either consciously (as in the cases of twitter, blogging, and folksonomy) or unconsciously/automatically by simply using the web (as in cases of search data and IP addresses). Through data management, Web 2.0 “mixes” the user data and creates a sort of “collective intelligence” (O'Reilly, 2005), one of the web's most valuable assets.
Consequently, Web 2.0's functionality is increasingly complex and heterogeneous, websites within the web and the web and other media and technologies are highly interconnected, and the users' participation is deeper then ever. These consequences have profound implications to web usability.

Cooper (2006) has remarked that when one crosses a thing, be it a camera, a alarm clock, or a warship, with a computer, it becomes a computer. Now, in a somewhat absurd way, Web 2.0 verifies this observation once again: when one crosses the web with a computer, the web becomes a computer. The complexity and sophistication of web applications of Web 2.0 is incomparable to Web 1.0, and the users' web experiences are richer than ever before—think of web apps such as Google Documents. These developments mean that only focusing on aspects of static “documents” such as page layout or “little” IA that only involves “organizing the content of a website” (Redish, 2010, p. 196) is not sufficient for web usability. Instead, we need to take a broader view of web usability, a “big” view that considers user's experience, or the “big” usability” in a richer context and aims at creating websites that “work for its users” (ibid).

In addition, the sophisticated and heterogeneous functionality of Web 2.0 affords heterogeneous user goals when they use the web. This is distinct from Web 1.0, where, according to Barnum (2002), users want to use the web for three reasons, “information (content), sales (commerce), and interaction (communication with other people)” (p. 365). In Web 2.0, users can manage their bookmarks (Delicious), citing sources (Zotero), making flash presentations (Prezi), managing your personal library (Library Thing), and above all, interacting with other users. Again, users use the web more and more like using their own computer, only with the added value of collective intelligence and sense of community. Therefore, web usability in Web 2.0 must take into account of the heterogeneity of use; a goal-oriented and user-centered approach in web usability is more than ever necessary.

Another consequence of the heterogeneity of website functionality that affect usability is the emergence of two large groups of websites, which has not been addressed in existing web usability literature. The first group consists of websites that function as applications. Some examples in this group are Dropbox, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, or, let's not forget, Google. The other group consists of “traditional” websites, which increasingly incorporate Web 2.0 applications such as RSS, sharing, geotagging, and blogs. Some examples include cnn.com, whitehouse.gov, amazon.com, and unesco.org. In the existing literature on web design and web usability, websites are categorized very often according to the entities that they are associated with. For instance, D. Farkas and J. Farkas's (2002) categorize websites according to “purposes” and “genres” into news and information, E-commerce, web portals, persuasion, building and sustaining community, and personal and artistic expression. Nielsen and Loranger (2006) categorize the “genres” of websites largely according to the industries the owners of websites belong to: “from automobiles and financial services to entertainment sites and intellectually oriented medical and cultural sites” (p. 7). Neither of these categorizations can properly place websites such as Delicious, a bookmark management application, Dropbox, a personal file management online system, or wikis, collectively created (usually) informational websites.

The new categorization has usability implications. Because of the different purposes and functions these two groups of websites have, perhaps different usability guidelines need to be developed according to their characteristics. For instance, the homepage designs can be very different between these two groups. Although the recommendations in Krug (2006)'s chapter on home page design in Don't Make Me Think! are still relevant to the first group, recommendations specially for each group need to be added for the severity of the issues they deal with may differ across groups, or even individual websites. One of the recommendations for the first group will be to put a short instructional video on the homepage if the function of the site is complex (e. g., prezi,com and dropbox.com). This is because these sites usually offer a specific and often new service, and therefore, learnability and the support to learning is of high priority on the usability list. On the other hand, this might not be a huge issue for the second group of websites.

Another consequence of two characteristics of Web 2.0—the web as a platform and the web as a database—is the distinct separation of the data and the interface as well as the deep interconnection among websites. In fact, the metaphors of “platform” and “database” already tell us something about this split— a split between content and form. This split enables websites to become tools to manage the shared data. In other words, data travel across the web faster and more easily in Web 2.0 than in Web 1.0 through features such as sharing and sidebarring (Wolff et al., 2009). Consequently, websites are deeply interconnected. By “deeply,” I mean that websites are not just connected by hyperlinks as in Web 1.0, but share and manipulate the same data. The “remixibility” (O'Reilly & Battelle, 2009) of data in Web 2.0 affords the “seamless” interconnection (Wolff et al., 2009) among websites.

One of the implications of these developments in web usability is the need for standardization in some aspects of design. If “seamless” connection has become not only a goal, but a requirement for Web 2.0, standardization has also become necessary. For instance, testing for different browser has been recommended by usability specialists before Web 2.0 took off (Barnum, 2002), but in the context of Web 2.0, as more competitive browsers are available such as FireFox, Safari, Chrome, IE, and Opera, it has become an integral process in website development. Beyond that, designers of traditional websites discussed earlier need to make sure that the content on their websites can be easily used by other websites. Issues such as tagging the images on the page for easy capture, and using technologies that are compatible with most websites have become important usability issues. On the other hand, designers of the first group of websites (such as Google Reader) are compelled to design better interfaces that can work with a variety of contents.

In addition, in terms of learnability and memorability, the standardization of terminology and visual elements such as icons that emerge with the new functions of Web 2.0 sites has become a problem. Traditionally, web usability requires compliance to conventions (Krug, 2006; Nielsen & Loranger, 2006). However, the fast changing Web 2.0 sites and emerging new features make this task a difficult one. This has been noted by Wolff et al. (2009) who argue that although the varied use of the same terms is considered poor in traditional usability, it is possible that Web 2.0 users are better at adjusting to the “shifting definitions” depending on the contexts of use (par. 25). In any case, these issues pose new problems for usability researchers to work on.

Not surprisingly, standard interface design has also been observed by many (Arola, 2010; Dilger, 2008). However, not all welcome this change. Arola (2010) argues that the standard design of Web 2.0, or “template,” such as that of Facebook renders the design and its rhetorical function invisible, and also takes away the users' power to express their identities through designing their own web page. It is important to acknowledge that standard designs of Web 2.0 sites do tend to efface individual user's “faces” in a way. However, Dilger (2008) is right to point out that function is the core of Web 2.0 sites. The simplicity and standardization of design relieves the users from the burden of interface designing and learning new interface constantly so that they can focus on what they want to do. In fact, making the interface transparent, a principle of good design, is in a way making the interface “invisible” to the users (which is the opposite of the critical view to making the interface “visible” (e. g. Arola, 2010; Selfe & Selfe, 2009). It is important that users should be invited to critique the design, but at the same time, to those who are interested in usability and user-centered design, this trend does not pose “threat” but new web usability challenges to meet.

Last but not least, Web 2.0 websites thrive on users' participation. Many have pointed out the characteristic of user generated content (Dayton, 2008; Wolff et al., 2009). However, they have not stressed enough the importance of user participation to Web 2.0. In Web 1.0 era, websites can function without the users' participation—at most they are just unpopular—but in Web 2.0 era, some websites, mostly those in the first group as discussed earlier, cannot even function without user participation—just imagine a Facebook without faces. As O'Reilly's (2005) has pointed out, users add value to the websites in Web 2.0. They go to many websites to use the information provided by other users or users as a collective whole. Therefore, designers of Web 2.0 must design websites elements that afford users providing, obtaining, and sharing information. For instance, we need to design elements of the websites to make it easy for users to tag an image or an article, to share the pages on other sites, or to leave comments. We need to study where to position links, buttons or icons for these purposes, and so on, just as we did with the search engine and other elements in Web 1.0 environment.

In addition, usability researchers need to understand how much control and what kind of control the users should have to strike a balance between efficiency and flexibility. Users are co-developers in Web 2.0 (O'Reilly, 2005), and designs must afford users' innovations and creative ways to use the web—what Sun (2004, 2006) calls the “user localization.” An example of user localization is MySpace users' taking advantage of a glitch in the design of the Web site to use html codes to customize their profiles, post pictures or videos in their comments or blogs, and so on. Another example is twitter users' use of “@” or “#” (“hashtags”) to indicate reply to other users' tweets or tag a topic (What are hashtags? 2010; What is an @rrply?, 2010). Good design in Web 2.0 environment should afford these unintended uses created by the users to meet their specific goals.

To summarize, all the discussions above share a common theme: the user must be positioned at the center of Web 2.0 design. The user is an agent who not only uses the applications, interacts with the machine and other users, but also generates data that add value to the web, who constantly innovates the web use, and who enjoys both a material and a virtual existence. Therefore, the tools of user-centered design and usability research are invaluable in understanding and designing usable websites and applications.

RR_13:

Over the past two decades, the World Wide Web has been increasingly used by a rapidly growing number of users across the world and has become an indispensable medium in public, organizational, and personal communication. By 2010, the world Internet user population has exceeded 1,966 million, with a growth of 444.8% since 2000, and the Internet penetration had reached 28.7% worldwide (World Internet users and population stats, 2010). The users of the Web are increasingly diverse in terms of regions and languages, as users populations in developing countries have dramatically increased in the past decade. As of 2010, although North America, Oceania/Australia, and Europe have the highest Internet penetration rates (respectively 77.4%, 61.3%, and 58.4%), Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America/Caribbean have the greatest growths in user population since 2000 (respectively 2,357.3%, 1825.3%, and 1032.8%) (ibid). These fastest growing regions are followed by Asia (621.8%), which has the largest Internet user population of 825.1 million that accounts for 42% of the worldwide Internet user population (ibid). In terms of languages used on the Web, although English speaking users constitute the largest language group (27.3%), the number of Chinese speaking users has grown 1,277.4% since 2000 and constitutes the second largest user group (22.6%) only by a small margin (Top ten languages used in the Web). Arabic and Russian speaking user groups have also grown dramatically since 2000 (respectively 2,501.2% and 1,825.8%) (ibid).

These statistics of Web use in the past decade indicate that users of a diverse cultural backgrounds, and in particular, non-English speaking users have an increasingly significant impact on the nature of Web based communication across the globe. To understand the Web and Web based communication and, in application, to design usable web technology and artifacts for a “universe of users” (Bowie, 2009), technical and professional communicators must take it seriously the imperative of the consideration of culture and its impact of how users use technologies and information artifacts in their specific contexts.

References:

Top ten languages used in the Web. (2010, November 7, 2010). Miniwatts Marketing Group. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

World Internet users and population stats . (2010, November 7, 2010). Miniwatts Marketing Group. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

RR_09: Research design (2) - interview protocol

INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Area I: Purposes and behaviors

The questions in this section will depend on the results of the surveys and the online observations, and will vary depending on the participants. However, some of the sample questions can be:

1. Your status updates seem to document your personal life. Can you comment on this? What kind of information about your personal life you would like to share with your friends on Kaixin? What information you do not like to share? How do you draw the line?
2. You do not seem to share much information about your personal life but re-post items from other sources very often. Can you comment on this? What motivate you to re-post items?
3. You have many friends on Kaixin or Renren who you do not personally know (you have not met in person). How did you become friends on Kaixin or Renren? Can you comment on that?
4. Among groups of classmates, friends, boyfriend, and family members, what group do you think you communicate most via Kaixin or Renren? Why?
5. You use a mobile device to use Kaixin or Renren a lot. What are the situations of using mobile access to Kaixin?
6. You seem to communicate with your friends a lot with private messages on Kaixin or Renren. What is the differences between using Kaixin or Renren private messaging and other messaging technologies such as email, mobile text messaging, or private messaging on other websites?

Area II: Technology adoption

1. Why did you start using Kaixin or Renren? What factors motivated you to do that?
2. How often did you use Kaixin or Renren when you first started using it? Is there an increase or decrease of use comparing now and then? Why do you think you have (not) increased or decreased your use of Kaixin?
3. What did you use Kaixin or Renren for mostly when you first started? What do you do use it most for now? Is there any change? Why?
4. Do you know how to use Kaixin or Renren better than when you first started? Do you use more features on Kaixin or Renren than when you first started? What are these features? What motivated you to use them now and/or what prevented you from using them in the beginning?

Area III: Usability problems and user's solutions

1. Do you consider Kaixin or Renren easy to use? Why or why not?
2. What about Kaixin or Renren that bother you or limit you from doing what you wish to do? How do you deal with these problems?
3. If you have a problem using Kaixin or Renren, what do you do? Why? (related to question # in the survey instrument)
4. Are you happy with the features and interface of Kaixin or Renren? Why or why not? What about it that you wish to change?
5. Are you happy with the general service Kaixin or Renren provides? Have you experienced breakdowns, errors, bugs, interruptions, loss of data, privacy violation, or other problems? Is information you need about how to use Kaixin or Renren accessible? How is your experience with technical support or customer service if any? How do these experiences affect your use of Kaixin or Renren?
6. What are other similar websites you are using? Do you use them more often than Kaixin or Renren? Why?

Area IV: Learning artifacts

1. Are there any promotional materials, user manual, online help, technical reviews, or other documents or artifacts that motivate you to Kaixin or Renren, help you learn to use it, or improve your use of it? What are they?

Area V: Characteristics unique to Kaixin and/or Renren compared to Facebook

Area VI: Personal perception

1. How important is Kaixin or Renren as part of your life? In what ways is it important or not important? How does it fit in your life? What made you think this way?
2. In what ways will your life change if you stop using Kaixin or Renren? How do you think these changes will affect your life in general?

RR_08: Research design (1)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How do cultural contexts affect the design of Web 2.0 websites/applications for social affordances?
2. How do users localize Web 2.0 websites/applications? In other words, how do users incorporate specific Web 2.0 websites/applications into their lives?

METHODS
I will conduct a comparative study between three groups of participants, Chinese users living in China, Chinese users living in the U.S., and U.S. users. The study will consist of three phases.

Phase 1: comparative analysis and heuristic evaluation

In this phase, I will conduct a comparative qualitative analysis and heuristic evaluation of the designs of the three websites, Facebook, Kaixin, and Renren. Dilger (2010) rightly argues that function is the “core value” in “Web 2.0 style” (p. 17). Therefore, the analysis and heuristic evaluation will focus on the functional characteristics (not only features) of the three websites—their similarities and differences. Meanwhile, with a user-centered approach, my analysis will be organized by the roles the users play when they use the websites, namely design characteristics for users as writers (creators and senders of information), and those for users as readers (receivers of information).

The purpose of the analysis and evaluation is to identify the distinct characteristics in the design of the three websites. The results of the analysis and evaluation will be used in formulating specific questions for further inquiry in how the properties of the websites afford the users' activities in their sociocultural contexts and how they fit in the users' lives. The results in this phase will be used to design the survey instruments, interview instruments, and the guideline for observations in the next two phases.

Phase 2: surveys and activity report/diary study

In this phase, I will conduct email surveys with the participants. The survey instruments will be designed based on the results of the comparative analysis and heuristic evaluation of the three websites. The survey instruments will cover questions in three areas. First, the participants' demographic information and their use of social networking websites in general. Second, the users' specific use of one of the three websites, one that they use most frequently and most integrated in their lives. Third, some additional questions on their experience with and perceptions of different website among the three if applicable.

Meanwhile, the participants will be asked to log their activities on one of the three websites that they use most frequently for a specific period of time (e.g., 3-4 days). This log will include all of the user's activities on the website. The participants will be asked to record the content of specific messages occurred during this time if they are willing to. If they do not agree to share the content, they will be asked to report some basic information of the messages such as the purpose and the length.

The data analysis in the phase will be both quantitative and qualitative. The goal is to identify the users' goals, choice of tools/features, and problems/breakdowns of use.

Phase 3: in-depth semi-structured interviews and fieldwork/observation

These are qualitative case studies of individual use of the sites. The interviews will follow up the issues identified in the surveys and activities log/diary analysis. The participants will be asked to explain their perceptions, preferences, activities and behaviors revealed in the second phase of the study.

Then field observations will be conducted in the familiar environments (mostly likely their homes) of some volunteering participants. The participants will be asked to use the Internet as they typically do, while think aloud what they are doing and why they are doing it. The observation sessions will be videotaped.

The data collected in this phase will be transcribed and analyzed qualitatively. Each participant who participate in this phase will be an individual case study of the use of these websites in his/her specific context.

SITES SELECTION

The study will be conducted in Kunming, China and Atlanta, GA, U.S.A. The two cities are similar in size and regional status. Kunming is a Southwestern city in China, the capital city of Yunnan province. As of 2008, Kunming has a population of 5,290,000 (National Bureau of Statistics of China [NBSC], 2008). It is the economic, cultural, and political center in Yunnan province, and is China's gateway to Southeast Asia. Kunming is also a historical city that has had human settlers since as early as 30,000 years ago, and has been a cultural and political center in the region since the 3rd century BCE (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010).

Atlanta, GA, is the capital city of the State of Georgia in the Southeast of the U.S. As of July 1, 2008, Atlanta metro area has an estimated population of 5,729,304 (U.S. Census Bureau [USCB], 2008). The city is the economic, cultural, and political center in Georgia and the Southeast U.S., and is a transportation hub in the region. Atlanta is a historical city as well, developed with the railroads in the 19th century and was a major city in the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Both cities can to a certain extent represent medium to large metropolitan cities in their respective countries. They also share similar status as historical cities where cultural traditions of the region are preserved.

WEBSITE SELECTION

The websites selected in this study will be two Chinese social network websites, Kaixin (www.kaixin001.com), and Renren (www.renren.com), a U.S.-based website social network Facebook (www.facebook.com). These websites are chosen because they represent the most accepted and successful practice of social network website design in China and the U.S. respectively, evidenced by their large number of users and heavy traffic. Built in 2004, Facebook is the most successful social network website in the world. According to Alexa (2010a), a web information company that tracks the traffic of all websites in the world, Facebook's traffic ranks the second in the world, only second to Google,1 and 927, 483 websites link to it.2 Kaixin's traffic ranks the 123rd in the world and the 20th in China, and has 3,089 websites linking in (Alexa, 2010b). Renren's traffic ranks the 109th in the world and the 18th in China, and has 1,840 websites linking in (Alexa, 2010c). The three websites are very similar in their design and the two Chinese websites are the most popular of their kind in China, where Facebook, undoubtedly the most popular social network website in the world, is blocked by the government. The popularity of these websites among Chinese and U.S. users makes them representative of most users' choice of social network websites.

References

kaixin001.com. (2010, October 10). Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/kaixin001.com

Kunming. (2010). Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/324836/Kunming

renren.com. (2010, October 10). Retrieved October 10, 2010, from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/renren.com

National Bureau of Statistics of China. Main social and economic indicators of provincial capitals and cities specially designated in the state plan. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2009/html/K1003e.htm.

U.S. Census Bureau. Annual estimates of population of combined statistical areas: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/popest/metro/CBSA-est2008-annual.html.

RR_07: usability & participatory design

The readings this week present some of the fundamental issues in usability research and practice. The authors offer their different perspectives on the nature of usability research and methodologies developed from various intellectual traditions. While Gillan and Bias (2001) argue for a view of usability as a science, others challenge the “Big Science” approach (Coppola, 2005). Technical communicators who have a firm grip on rhetoric argue for a rhetorical approach to usability that contextualize research and practice in complex ways (Salvo, 2001; Johnson et. al., 2007; Skeen, 2009).

In these readings usability is often understood as a mode of research to understand users and their interaction with technology. As Michael Salvo (2001) has noted, usability is “a critical research practice as well as a design mechanism” (p. 280). According to P. Sullivan (1989), “[t]he subject matter of usability research can be usefully described as the studies of users learning to use and using various computer products, in the design and evaluation phases of development, for the purposes of learning more about how people use machines and of improving the machines and educational materials” (p. 256-57). In other words, usability is a mode of inquiry with the objective to understand users and their interaction with technology.

The understandings of usability as a mode of research among researchers are by no means without contradiction and contention. The divergence very often resides between the scientific and the non-scientific approaches to usability. According to Johnson et al. (2007), historically, usability has been considered a “scientific activity—an activity guided by strategic methods and often quantitative measurement systems—that attempts to create verifiable and replicable results” (p. 323). One example from the scientific camp is Gillan and Bias's (2001) notion of “usability science.” The authors state that a “new applied scientific discipline, usability science” has emerged to bridge “the conceptual area between the basic cognitive and behavioral sciences (primarily cognitive and perceptual psychology) and usability engineering” (p. 352).

However, Johnson et al. (2007) critique Gillan and Bias's “usability science” by pointing out that their confinement of usability to a few disciplines in psychology and engineering results in a “narrow range of inquiry” (p. 323). Johnson et al. argue that technical communicators' interest and work in usability studies have brought “something of a disruption of the dominance of usability as science” in the field of usability studies, and usability has thus also been recognized as “a rhetorical art” (p. 323). Gillan and Bias's notion of “usability science,” according to Johnson et al., only “seeks to sever communication between the art and their proposed science of usability” (p. 323). Based on their critique of Gillan and Bias's “usability science” and drawing on rhetorical traditions, Johnson et al. define usability in terms of rhetoric, paying close attention to context, and in so doing “seek to return this discussion of usability to the application and use of scientific findings rather than displacing science or emplacing science in application” (p. 327). In other words, to Johnson et al., the inquiry of usability must consist of both “scientific and replicable” and “nonscientific” research (p. 327).

Johnson et al.'s effort to break the boundaries between scientific and non-scientific natures of usability was expressed by Sullivan (1989), who has pointed out that the multidisciplinary and multidimensional nature of usability research. She argues that a broad understanding of usability research will include “the work of people who design systems, test them, develop educational materials, and study users” (p. 256). This view broadens the scope of usability research beyond cognitive and behavioral sciences and engineering to include the work of technical communicators.

The tension between the scientific and the broader understanding of usability as research can be seen as part of the tension between the Big Science and the bricolage in technical and professional communication (Coppola, 2005). In response to the prevailing presence of Big Science in the field, Coppola emphasizes the importance of importance of the attention to context and individual experience in research, an approach in line with bricolage in Lévi-Strauss's term. Coppola points out a certain bias in the field against bricolage approach in favor of the Big Science:

Big Science has become identified with funded research, the seemingly best way to create meaningful investigations of the physical world; bricolage has become associated with close reading, a lesser way to create meaningful interpretations of the human world. From the beginning, both were scientific, unafraid to shed myths in favor of methodological scrutiny. Both were unafraid to take things apart. Both endured. Only one, however, prevailed. (p. 262)

The theme of bricolage is also present in Spinuzzi's (2005) discussion about participatory design as research. As C. Spinuzzi (2005) points out, “participatory design has its own highly articulated methodological orientation, methods, and techniques, just as does participatory action research, the approach on which it is based” and thus” (p. 163). He concludes therefore that “[p]articipotory design is research” (ibid). Historically, according to Spinuzzi, participatory design is associated with “action research,” an activity “alternating alternating between practical work to support changes (such as design activities) on one hand, and systematic data collection and analysis on the other hand,” and ethnographic methods (p. 164). Understanding participatory design as research is to recognize the user's knowledge, i.e., “tacit or craft knowledge” linked to metis, “cunning intelligence,” which has been invisible in many other research approaches (p. 166).

To Spinuzzi, a goal of participatory design is precisely to “preserve” the user's knowledge to illuminate the design of technology that can “fit into the existing web of tacit knowledge, workflow, and work tools, rather than doing away with them” (ibid). Here, Spinuzzi's approach can be seen as a bricoleur's approach in Coppola's terms for it contrasts the “rationalist studies that assume workers' tasks can be broken down into their components, formalized, and made more efficient” (ibid)—i.e., a Big Science approach. It is in this sense that Spinuzzi contends that participatory design takes a “constructive” paradigm, which “assumes that tacit knowledge cannot be completely formalized” as apposed to the “task-and-efficiency orientation typical in many user-centered design methods” including usability testing (ibid).

The readings in this section can serve very well to support a broader approach to research in web usability in addition to lab usability testing.

RR_06: Johnson, R. R. (1998). User-centered technology: a rhetorical theory for computers and other mundane artifacts. Albany, NY: State University of New York at Albany.

Johnson's book provide a rhetorical theoretical view of the user-centered approach to technology. The points well articulated in the book abound, and I want to discuss a few of them that are particularly pertaining to my project.

First of all, Johnson offers a succinct description of what the user-centered approach to technology is and seeks to achieve compared to the system-centered approach:

In a user-centered approach to technology, users are active participants in the design, development, implementation, and maintenance of the technology. This is not meant to imply that users are the sole or dominant forces in technology development. Rather, they are allowed to take part in a negotiated process of technology design, development, and use that has only rarely been practiced. Users are encouraged and invited to "have a say," in other words, and thus they are physically or discursively present in the decision-making processes of technological development. Invited to become actively involved with the technology in a greater, more integrated fashion, users become members of a team, but not just token members as they are in many usability approaches that merely invite users in at the end of the development cycle to validate a product. Because the users are involved with decision making in the user-centered model, they have power that historically has been concentrated solely in the province of the designers of technology (or in the province of the technological artifact itself, if you adhere to a strong determinist stance). (p. 32)

This definition of the user-centered approach to technology touches on a couple of important points:

First, in a user-centered approach to technology, users' active participation is an important part in the life cycle of technology, from the stage of design, through development and implementation, to maintenance. This is in contrast to some system-centered approach that involves the user only in some stages such as perhaps towards the completion of technology development for user testing, or as what Johnson calls treating users a kind of “token members” (p. 32). One example he points out is the user involvement in interface design: “The interface is crucial to the user of the technology, but more often than not this intimate connecting point between the technology and the user is relegated to the end of the development cycle—at a point where there is often little that can be done to solve any problems the user may have while operating the technology” (pp. 27-28). As the intermediate between the user and the system, the interface perhaps is the foremost familiar if not important part of the system to the user, and thus its development is more likely to involve the user than any other part. Relegating it to the end of the development cycle often means that users get involved in the development process only up to this point, which to Johnson is a serious problem.

Second, rather than the “dominant” agent in the process, the user takes part in the negotiation of the technology design, development, and use. In other words, the user is only one stakeholder in the process, who is allowed to voice her/his opinion and contribute her/his knowledge to the process. Johnson makes this point clear so that the user's knowledge from use will claim a valued position in a way that does not oppress others. From this point, we can also see the egalitarian view that guides the user-centered approach. By encouraging users claiming the “power that historically has been concentrated solely in the province of the designers of technology” (p. 32), the user-centered approach aims to decenter the power. It is in this sense that user-centered design should not only be conceived in an engineering perspective, but in a sociopolitical perspective.

Without being too reductive, one could argue that taking a rhetorical position, Johnson's description of user-centered approach to technology falls into the humanist camp of usability studies, which values complexity over reduction and which has strong political and emancipatory concerns.

Perhaps the biggest contribution of Johnson in this book is the user-centered rhetorical complex of technology he developed that can be used as a framework to analyze technology that centers on the user and the contextualized use. Borrowing I. A. Richard and James Kinneavy's rhetorical triangle metaphor, Johnson develops a triangle depicting a user-centered rhetoric (see figure below).

The triangle depicts an technological environment that consists of the user, the artisan/designer, the artifact/system, and user tasks/system actions with the user situated in the center. The elements in environment are essential for the interaction between the user and the system. Based on this triangle, Johnson further complicates the situation by surrounding it with three layers of context, or “pressures and constraints” in the surrounding contexts or situations, forming what he calls a user-centered rhetorical complex. The first layer consists of the user activities of “learning, doing, and producing” (p. 38). The second layer consists of “constraints that larger human networks place upon technological use,” which Johnson depicts as “disciplines, institutions, and communities” (ibid). Finally, the outer layer consists of “the factors of culture and history” (p. 39).

In relation to the user-centered rhetorical complex is another concept developed by Johnson, the user's situation. Johnson defines the user's situation as the activity “the user is engaged in and, in some cases, the moment in which this engagement occurs” (p. 31). Although he points out that the activities can be described specifically as learning, doing, and producing, the notion of user's situation should be understood in a broader sense. In other words, the user's situation is affected by all the elements in the user-centered rhetorical complex. For instance, when Johnson discusses the importance of localizing the user's situation in a specific context, he notes that it is important to understand the user's role in an organization. In the case of documentation, “[t]he specific nature of users' work, then, drives documentation that is customized to the context of use instead of generically explained to a universal user who is the construct of a writer's imagination” (pp. 129-130). In this case, Johnson is pointing out the importance of considering the second layer of the context of use in the user-centered rhetorical complex, namely institution and discipline and the user's relationship with them, when we trying to understand the user's situation.

The user-centered rhetorical complex is a very useful framework when we consider cultural usability of technology. Note here the complex and sometime confusing use of the term “culture,” which has multiple meanings depending on the specific context of use. Here in the user-centered rhetorical complex, Johnson seems to use the term “culture” in a narrow sense to denote the higher level of human actions and meanings as a society. However, later in the book, when he discuss computer user documentation, Johnson uses “culture” in a broad sense “to mean any community that might have common bonds due to context or practice: that is, workplace cultures, classroom cultures, and even electronic cultures such as those emerging from the use of the Internet or other computer networked arrangements” (121). The reason for Johnson to use a narrow meaning of culture in his discussion of the user-centered rhetorical complex is because used in broader sense, culture can include all the elements in the three layers (rings) of context. Therefore, using the term broadly cannot achieve any meaningful objective here. However, when speaking of cultural usability and cultural localization, we should not understand culture only in the narrow sense in terms of national cultures or other higher level cultures, but also consider the local cultures that the user resides.

Finally, it will interesting to compare Johnson's model to Sun's (2004) framework of cultural usability (see figure below) (p. 59). I will return to this topic in the future post on Sun.

Reference

Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

RR_05: Cooper, A. (2004). The inmates are running the asylum. Indianapolis, IN: Sams.

Offering valuable insights in usable software-based products design, Cooper's book is foremost a rhetorical piece that advocates in the IT industry for a process of software-development that starts with interaction design preceding programming. On achieving this purpose, Cooper pushes for the methods for interaction design such as persona and goal-directed design. Although there are a few points I do not completely agree on, I found Cooper's work convincing and a useful resource for my project on cultural usability and Web 2.0.

First of all, Cooper's notion of interaction design is a useful concept worthy of our attention. Cooper distinguishes interaction design from interface design and prefers the former “because 'interface' suggests that you have code over here, people over there, and an interface in between that passes messages between them. It implies that only the interface is answerable to the users' needs” (p. 26). He goes on to argue about interface design that “[l]ike putting an Armani suit on Attila the Hun, interface design only tells how to dress up an existing behavior” (ibid). For an interaction designer, according to Cooper, the design of a product does not only involve interface design, but also behavioral design and conceptual design. He explains that “[b]ehavioral design tells how the elements of the software should act and communicate” (ibid). However, “[i]nteraction designers also work from the outside in, starting from the goals the user is trying to achieve, with an eye toward the broader goals of the business, the capabilities of the technology and the component tasks” (ibid). Thus it is important to include conceptual design, “which considers what is valuable for the users in the first place” (ibid), in the design process (ibid). Cooper argues that the order to the design process should start from conceptual design, then move on to behavioral design, and finally interface design (ibid).

Cooper's view on the interface is very narrow, which is limited to page layout or graphic design, something that “dresses up” the more crucial behaviors of application. Intentionally or unintentionally, Cooper trivializes interface design just as the way he trivializes the “aesthetic” element of design (p. 149).

There are a couple of prejudices and misconceptions involved in his views. First of all, the prejudice against “aesthetic” design that is subject to “subjective” judgment. Judgment of aesthetics is subjective to a certain extent, but that does not mean that such judgment is invalid or groundless. It is also dismissive and a bit pompous for Cooper to assume that design before the digital age only involved aesthetics but had nothing to do with “cognitive friction,” or “the resistance encountered by a human intellect when it engages with a complex system of rules that change as the problem changes” (p. 19). Think of architecture or industrial design, and Cooper's assumption is just a misconception that reinforces the misunderstanding of design as visual design that he himself opposes.

More importantly, to equal interface design as visual design with the only purpose for aesthetics is another misconception of Cooper's argument. The interface is often expressed visually, but it is more than just the “look” of the more heavy lifting code. Norman's (2002) notion of the “system image,” or the “physical structure” of the system (p. 16), can be used to understand the interface. According to Norman, the system image bridges the gap between what the designer designs (the design model) and what the user thinks how the system work (the user's model). Interface, as the physical thing where the interaction between the user and the machine happens is where the system image is materialized to the user. Therefore, interface design does not only involve the page layout, graphic design, or the looks of a system, but how the system is translated and presented to the user. If Cooper's concept of “cognitive friction” is useful at at all, we have to recognize that, contrary to what he claims, the interface is precisely where the cognitive friction occurs for the interface is the site where the human and the machine meet.

Despite these problematic claims, Cooper's insight is valuable in many ways. To be fair, his emphasis on the interaction over visual design (not interface design) seems to fit today's Web development better because of the increasing merging of Web sites and Web-based applications. More importantly, his work points out the problem with software-development processes many companies in the industry employ, and that is programming without interaction design. The product that often results from this process is what he calls a “dancing bear” which does not work well, but because the user does not have any other choices and has to get the job done, she/he has to tolerate the hard-to-use product. In this sense, Cooper is a champion advocate on behalf of the users. The process he advocates compared to the processes that do not work is illustrated as below (pp. 204-205):




From the illustrations, we can tell the Cooper would not agree with usability advocates such as Nielsen that user testing is the only way for good product design. Cooper points out some of the problems with user testing. First of all, he argues that “[t]he main reason why empirical user testing has been widely accepted in the high-tech business is that it fits easily into the existing sequence” (p. 204). That means that user testing actually reinforces the old process of software-development. One of the biggest challenges with user testing is that “[m]ost user testing depends on having a working program to test with, so necessarily it must wait until the program is up and running. This places user testing in the sequence conveniently in parallel to bug testing” (p. 204). This creates a problem, for “[n]o matter who does the designing, regardless of the method she might apply, the effect of design will be negligible if the coding is underway. A fundamental premise of bringing design to the software-development process is that it must occur before the programming begins” (p. 204).

Cooper argues that testing before programming, or what he calls the “pre-facto user testing” is “similar to the pure research that one would expect to find in a university setting” (p. 206). He uses an example of his colleague who tested the effectiveness of the status bar in the interface of a program. He argues that although the test result—users don't pay much attention to the status bar—is valuable, it does not “shed much insight on the underlying problems” (p. 206). Here again, the biggest challenge with pre-fecto user testing and testing or testing during the development of the product is that the product that gets tested is not yet built or completed, and thus any simulacrum (“either a quickly written prototype program or a 'puppet-show' made from paper cutouts or some equivalent, low-tech material” (p. 206)) used in the testing will result in inaccurate testing results.

Although he points out these problems with usability testing, Cooper does not completely dismiss its value. He agrees that “[t]houghtful user testing can uncover a designer's incorrect assumptions. Exposing your design work to users and then redesigning iteratively is always better than not doing so. Some new technologies […] are so untried that the insight provided by basic user testing can be of great value” (p. 207).

That said, usability testing to Cooper perhaps has more rhetorical value than engineering value:

Arguably, the most valuable contribution of usability testing is made when programmers are forced to sit behind the one-way mirrors to view typical users struggling with their programs. The programmers shocked and incredulous, shouting sentiments like, “You are testing mental retards!” Usability testing is a useful whack on the side of the head of recalcitrant software engineers, showing them that there is indeed a problem. It can serve the same purpose for management, too. (p. 207)

Considering that Cooper's mean concern in the book is how to persuade companies (and the personnel in the companies from the management to programmers) to embrace the development process that incorporate interaction design before programming, his view on user testing should not be thought as dismissive. However, I'm not sure if he does justice to the user testing method in usability studies.

Perhaps the most important and useful insight Cooper offers in his book is the idea of “goal-directed design” (p. 151). Unlike many others' work on usability (such as Nielsen or Barnum), Cooper distinguishes goals from tasks radically. He emphasizes that “[g]oals are not the same things as tasks. A goals is an end condition, whereas a task is an intermediate process needed to achieve the goal.” (p. 150). He then goes on and notes that “[t]here is an easy way to tell the difference between tasks and goals. Tasks change as technology changes, but goals have the pleasant property of remaining very stable” (p. 150). This means that the consideration of tasks is more closely linked to the product (and especially the features of the product), whereas the consideration of goals must focus on the user. Cooper argues that “[d]esigning from tasks instead of goals is one of the main causes of frustrating and ineffective interaction” and “asking, 'What are the user's goals?' lets us see through the confusion and create more appropriate and satisfactory designs” (p. 151). The goal-directed design requires the designers to analyze the user's goals to solve problems, which often can result in “very different—and much better—solutions” (p. 151).

The goal-directed design shifts the focus from technologies to the user. Especially, the personal goals are considered by Cooper as the most important goals the designer has to consider when designing a product. We can sense this approach in Norman's (2002) work, but Cooper is really pushing this idea forward in his work. The approach of goal-directed design, when applied to user research, will require the researcher to look at the original goals of the user, and then think of the system on the basis of these goals. When applied to research in cultural usability, the approach requires the researcher to shift from asking what color scheme on a Web site is more appealing to users from a certain culture, to understanding what are the important things a user wants to achieve (e.g., to fulfill her/his responsibilities for her/his parents in Confucian cultures), given her/his specific cultural context.

RR_04: Farkas, D., & Farkas, J. B. (2002). Principles of Web design. New York: Longman.

As the title of the book suggests, Farkas and Farkas are primarily concerned with the principles of Web design. This suggests that this book is a guiding overview of Web design, but at the same time, inevitably lacks the details and depth of any of the aspects of Web design it covers. The focus on principles also explains the theoretical priority of the book. Although the authors have devoted chapters to talk about the application of these principles in the process of Web development, they did not put as much effort into providing examples to show the audience how to do it. As to the theory, the authors cover fairly extensively the issues and consideration concerning Web design at their time. However, an eight-year old book on the Web is inevitable outdated, not in the sense that what the authors discuss is irrelevant to today's technological and social context, but that these principles are no long adequate for successful Web design today. New understanding of the Web and design principles are needed to accommodate the new technological and social changes.

The authors rely on hypermedia theory to understand the Web. However, hypermedia theory, which perceive the Web as a network of nods and links, is no longer adequate in understanding today's Web, or Web 2.0 so to speak. Instead of linked nods, the Web perhaps should be understood today more accurately as databases and the user interfaces (which are not just the screen, but everything involved in user's interaction with the databases). What I mean by database is different from, say, Manovich's notion of database. In The Language of New Media, Manovich argues that the “key form of expression” of new media is database as opposed to the traditionally dominant narrative (p. 194). He argues that:

Many new media objects do not tell stories; they don't have beginning or end; in fact, they don't have any development, thematically, formally or otherwise which would organize their elements into a sequence. Instead, they are collections of individual items, where every item has the same significance as any other. (p. 194)

In this sense, Manovich's (2001) understanding of database agrees with Farkas and Farkas' hypermedia theory, which regards the Web as a network of linked nods that (1) is structured (and often in hierarchical structure) and (2) allows users to navigate from one nod to another with certain freedom (which means a void of “master” or “authoritative” narrative). Manovich's database consists of linked “objects” and Farkas and Farkas's Web consists of linked “nods.” Although an “object” can be any element of information in all kinds of forms, and a “nod” is “a substantial chunk of digital content" (which often but not necessarily is a Web page) (Farkas & Farkas, 2002, p. 126), Manovich and Farkas and Farkas use these concepts and the collection of them (database and the Web) respectively to emphasize the non-linear and variable nature that is a break from the more traditional media such as print and film. In other words, hypermedia theory and Monovich's new media theory both emphasize on the freedom on the part of the audience (the user) to construct her/his narrative.

However, neither hypermedia theory nor new media theory can adequately account for the Web today. For instance, emphasis on the freedom of the user/audience in both theories regards only to reception of information. Farkas and Farkas analogize a Web site as a “lecturer” and the user as “the sole member of the audience” (p. 132). The user's power over the system primarily comes from her/his choice or preference of what information to receive. This view is based on their view that “ most websites are first and foremost information environments rather than environments for online computing” (p. 133). In other words, Farkas and Farkas's understanding of Web sites still stays at the document metaphor stage. This view implies a rather static understanding of the Web as hyper linked information environment.

Interestingly, Farkas and Farkas's views on the user and the Web are more or less shared by Manovich as he writes that databases “appear as collections of items on which the user can perform various operations: view, navigate, search” (p. 194). Not surprisingly, Manovich marvels this power of user compared to the audience of earlier media: “The user experience of such computerized collections is therefore quite distinct from reading a narrative or watching a film or navigating an architectural site” (p. 194). These views, however, do not account for the user's more active role in Web reality today. The authors may be able to explain how the user's ability to search for information affects the reality she/he is presented via the Web or new media (two different concepts; I'm not meshing them together as one). However, their theories cannot explain how individual user's search behavior affect the information she/he receive in the future or how users' search record/data affect how information is structured on the Web and, further, what the Web is becoming.

One characteristic of the Web today that authors in the early 2000's like Farkas and Farkas or Manovich were not able to clearly see (because of the technological and social constraint at the time) is the radical separation of the structure/system and the content/data. To Farkas and Farkas, for instance, a nod is both data and part of the system. However, the contemporary Web, or Web 2.0 does not work like that. Web sites are built increasingly using database and Web-based applications based on technologies such as JavaScript/Ajax. The understanding of the Web functioning as databases (not in Manovich's sense) and interfaces (which including Web-based applications that enable users to interact with the databases), however, recognize this separation, and thus provide a better lens to understanding how the Web operates today, which will serve as a basis for principles of Web design.

To be fair, Farkas and Farkas have dedicated one chapter to Web sites as online computing environments, which is more relevant to today's Web 2.0. However, the discussion is very general—no more than a few “guidelines.” Also, some of their recommendations, such as refraining from plug-in programs, should be rethought given the new technological development and users' increasing comfort level with technologies.

One point Farkas Farkas have made may deserve more attention in today's highly automated Web environment. That is their concern about power and information. They warn the readers when they talk about the “adaptive” systems such as the customized home page Yahoo's provide:

Although there is great potential in adaptive linking, it is not easy for adaptive systems to draw correct inferences about human behavior and information needs. [...] Finally, citizens must be vigilant about allowing governments, corporations, and other organizations to manage and filter the information we get over the Web. (p. 214)

Perhaps even more dangerous than the monopolization of traditional media, the monopolization of the Web—a few corporations such as Google and Facebook—means the concentration of power of control over not only information to be disseminated but also of the data collected automatically about every Internet user. If Foucault is right in saying that the control of personal information is a means to control the population, then we are indeed entering a time when possibility of control is, although invisible, evermore pervasive.


References

Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press.

RR_03: Norman, D. A. (2002). The design of everyday things (1st Basic paperback. ed.). New York: Basic Books.

Norman's book is perhaps one of the most widely cited books in usability and human-computer interaction literature. With a foot in psychology, Norman explains the user's cognitive process as she/he interacts with technology in daily life, which Norman use to informs a user-centered design approach to design things from tea kettles to computers that can be easily used by the user. One reason for this book's success is that Norman explains in an understandable layperson's language the complexity of the interaction between human beings and the world, and provides many important basic concepts, frameworks, and principles that can be used to lay down a theoretical foundation for UCD. I'll discuss a few of them that relate to cultural Web usability and design.

First of all, Norman uses a model called “seven stages of action” to explain how human beings interact with the physical world (p. 48):

1. Forming the goal
2. Forming the intention
3. Specifying an action
4. Executing the action
5. Perceiving the state of the world
6. Interpreting the state of the world
7. Evaluating the outcome

The Seven Stages of Action

The “seven stages of action” has several implications to design and usability. First of all, it implies a goal-oriented usability design, which is very different from the task-oriented approach. Norman points out the difference between goals and tasks, which is often neglected by programmers and usability experts, according to Alan Cooper. Norman explains the relationship between goals and intentions below:

Goals do not state precisely what to do—where and how to move, what to pick up. To lead to actions goals must be transformed into specific statements of what is to be done, statements that I call intentions. A goal is something to be achieved, often vaguely stated. An intention is a specific action taken to get to the goal. (p. 46)

Here what Norman calls “intention” is what Cooper, among others, would call “task.” Good design should not design for tasks, but goals. Only focusing on tasks, designers or usability experts may lose the sight of what goals the user wants to achieve through these tasks. However, very often usability studies focus on testing how well the IT product, be it an application or a Web site, can afford the user's successful completion of tasks, rather than understanding how well the product can help the user achieve her/his goals. (Further discussion on the categorization of goals and goal-oriented design will follow later in my response to Cooper's The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.) In Norman's “seven stages of action,” the goal is put in an initiating position that guides the execution and evaluation of the action. Based on this understanding, usability research should start from the goals, instead of from the tasks. The first question to ask should be “What does the user wants to accomplish to make her/his life better?” rather than “(How fast) can the user complete task X?”

The goal-oriented approach in Web design and usability studies will be very useful when it comes to look at Web sites in various cultures. This is because people who have different values may want/need different things in their lives, and thus have different goals to achieve when using the Web. Therefore, by only testing the performance on completing pre-selected tasks, researchers already have made assumptions about the users' goals, and thus may miss out important and rich data that will tell us more about the users and what they expect for the technologies to fit in their lives.

Another implication of Norman's “seven stages of action” to cultural usability is that throughout every stage, the user's cultural background and the cultural context of the action are necessarily factors that affect the outcomes—the user's perception of the world, her/his choice of action, and her/his evaluation of the action, etc. Recognizing the complexity that the cultural contexts contributes to user's interaction with the world through technologies is crucial to designing IT products that benefits the users in world where cultural diverse is increasingly valued.

In his book, Norman also uses the framework of conceptual model and system image to explain how human beings interact with a device and why the design of the interface is critical. Norman defines he conceptual model as a model formed mentally of a device to “simulate its operation” (p. 12). The conceptual model consists of the design model, “the conceptualization that the designer has in mind” (p. 189), and the user's model, the user's “mental model developed through interaction with the system” (p. 16) and to “explain the operation of the system” (p. 189). Norman argues that “[i]deally, the user's model and the design model are equivalent” (p. 190). In other words, the user's model needs to match the design model for the user to properly use the system. However, this is not always the case in practice when the user's model and the design model mismatch. The breakdown, according to Norman, often happens in the system image, which is the link between the user's model and the design model. Because “the user and designer communicate only through the system itself: its physical appearance, its operation, the way it responds, and the manuals and instructions that accompany it” (p. 190), the design of the physical appearance, i.e., the interface, is crucial to user's interaction with the system.

Conceptual model is a very important concept in Norman's work. In fact, he argues that the two fundamental “principles of design for understandability and usability” are “(1) provide a good conceptual model and (2) make things visible” (p. 13). At a closer look, the two principles of design for usability are closely related if not overlapping, for to provide a good conceptual model, the design has to offer an accurate system image, which relies on the visible physical structure of the device, and a system that sends feedback to the user constantly so that the users will know what's going on. The importance of the conceptual model and visibility leads us to a discussion about affordances, constraints, and mappings, three qualities of technologies expressed through the visible structure of the system that communicate to the user the “clues to how things work” (p. 12).

Affordance, constraints and mappings are three important concepts that can be used to evaluate usability of technologies. Affordance is “the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used” (p. 9). Constraints are forces that control the permissible choices of actions can be taken with a product. Norman classifies constraints into physical, semantic, cultural, and logical constraints (pp. 84-86). Finally, mapping describes the relationship between “the controls and their movements and the results in the world” (p. 23). Norman especially emphasizes on the importance of natural mapping in design, which means “taking advantage of physical analogies and cultural standards, leads to immediate understanding” (p. 23).

These concepts are especially important to understanding usability for Web 2.0, for which the traditional usability guidelines have become inadequate. They can serve as a useful framework to guide the exploration of new usability criteria and issues for Web 2.0. The framework can help us examine the interaction between the user and Web 2.0 from the more fundamental goal-oriented perspective, and allow us to go beyond the scope of the older version of the Web and look at the Web with a fresh eye. I'll give a simple example. One difference between Web 2.0 and the older version, let's just call it Web 1.0 for convenience, is that Web 2.0 connects Web sites, applications, and users in a remarkable more extensive way than Web 1.0. As Bill Wolff and his colleagues in their article “Rethinking Usability for Web 2.0 and Beyond” point out, this interconnectedness poses new usability problems. One of them is related to sharing: “Whose responsibility is it to ensure the usability and functionality of each share on each page?” This is a emergent usability issue that is not addressed in traditional Web usability research and guidelines. However, through the lens of constraints, we can speak of a usability that takes account and even takes advantage of this constraint for Web 2.0.

To summarize, I will argue that precisely because of the very fundamental nature of Norman's work, it will be very useful in the usability research in a new Web environment of today.

References

Cooper, A. (2004). The inmates are running the asylum. Indianapolis, IN: Sams.

Wolff, W. I., Fitzpatrick, K., & Youssef, R. (2009). Rethinking usability for Web 2.0 and beyond. Currents in Electronic Literacy, (John Slatin Memorial Issue). Retrieved from http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/2009WolffFitzpatrickYoussef

RR_02: Nielsen, J., & Loranger, H. (2006). Prioritizing Web usability. Berkeley, Calif.: New Riders.

Nielsen and Loranger's book is perhaps one of the most well researched and comprehensive Web usability on the market. The information delivered in the book—both the discovery of users' behaviors and the guidelines for Web usability design—is very useful. For instance, the severity scores of the usability problems draw attention to the careful design for better search, findability (IA, category names, navigation, links), page design (readability, layout, graphics, amateur, scrolling), and information (content, product info, corporate info, prices) (p. 131). Despite that the book is both a market success and a useful reference for designers, there are a few issues with the book that need to be addressed.

Continuing the point of severity, I found the concept of “severity” not a very useful attribute because of its complexity. According to Nielsen, the severity of a usability problem is determined by its frequency, impact, and persistence (p. 125). The calculation of the severity score based on the scores of the three attributes (rated on a 10-point scale) is to “multiply the frequency rating by the impact rating, then multiply that number by the square root of the persistence rating and divide that by the square root of 10” (p. 123). Granted that factoring in three attributes and comes up with a single score of severity is a very attractive idea and is useful to a certain extent (such as to give an overall idea of what are the most severe areas of usability problems as the authors have done), I do not think this score can be of practical use when guiding the design, because the three attributes, frequency, impact, and persistence really describe different aspects of a problem and need to be considered holistically in a real situation when a designer or a usability specialist are trying do decide which problems are to be fixed under the specific financial, technological, and personnel conditions. In other words, in a real design situation, using a single value to determine what usability problems should be prioritized is problematic. In fact, the authors surely understand the messiness of the prioritizing usability problems in a practice. Nielsen and Loranger have pointed out that severity should not be the only factor when making the decision of what problems to fix: “when enough little irritations add up to a bad user experience, people are likely to leave and not return” (p. 132). However, they failed to offer a better method of application of their data. In fact, providing a discussion of how to consider and balance the treatment of problems based on the three attribute rather than simply meshing them together into one single attribute will be more helpful in a practical situation.

Another issue with the book is related to cultural usability and Web localization. Although the authors claim that their research is based on testing with users from all over the world, the guidelines still fail to address possible cultural differences in Web usability design. In fact, the guidelines are more suitable for cultures of, using Hofstede's and Hall's cultural categories, high individualism, low power distance, high masculinity, and low-context, characteristics of the U.S. (see Singh & Pereira, 2005).

For instance, when analyzing a Web site with “high-severity usability problem,” the authors write, “The problem on this bank's "About Us" page is that it does not tell enough to establish trust and credibility. Yes, the bank says that it is a "home of traditional banking," but it doesn't back that up with facts such as when the bank was founded, how many branches it has, how solid it is, or any other specific information that would make you feel comfortable handing your money over to it” (p. 127). What the authors have pointed out is surely a usability problem. However, some would argue that this problem is considered more severe in the U.S., a masculine, highly individualist culture, and low-contextual, where statistics and facts are highly valued, than in more feminine, collective culture, and high-contextual, where community and family are valued more than hard numbers. The language on the Web site such as “take advantage of nearly 150 years of banking experience,” and “We're proud of our history of helping thousands of families and individuals to save money, buy homes, plan for a wedding or college education, prepare for retirement, and to make banking—and everyday life—easier and more convenient” is very appealing to an audience that values community and family. The images of seniors and a middle-aged couple are also appealing to a high-contextual culture. On the other hand, the problem with the lack of specific statistics might not be a huge problem in high-contextual cultures. In fact, according to Singh & Pereira, politeness and indirectness are highly valued in high-contextual cultures, and “the use of indirect words like 'perhaps,' 'probably,' and 'somewhat'” can emphasize the politeness on Web sites in these cultures (p. 145). Throughout the book, issues of cultural specificity have never been brought up, which is a disappointment.

This problem can be seen as part of an larger issue with this book, namely the logocentric tendency that noted by scholars concerned with the importance of context in usability. As Sun (2004) has pointed out in his dissertation Expending the Scope of Localization: “Nielsen’s view of usability attends to issues within a narrow scope: Contextual factors such as social and cultural aspects are detached from the use of product functionality. This view favors the system and defines usability as attributes measured by quantitative methods” (p. 37). This tendency can be seen throughout the book. For instance, the extensive use of statistics, and the emphasis on directness, efficiency, and simplicity. These characteristics are not necessarily bad things—quite on the contrary, they add much strength to the book—but not recognizing the complexity of contexts is a weakness in the book.

Along the same line, the book emphasizes on e-Commerce and business Web sites more than anything else. Although the authors also mention Web sites such as hospital and government Web sites, their emphasis on business makes usability seem limited to retaining users and “converting” them from users into consumers. At the Computer and Writing 2010 conference, researchers Michele Simmons (Miami University) and Meredith Zoetewey (University of South Florida) presented their research on usability of civic engagement. In their presentation, they pointed out the limitation of Nielsen's usability that is primarily for businesses, and argued that for civic Web sites, simple and fast information design could not meet the requirements of citizens who sought more complex, complete, and comprehensive information. They proposed that Nielsen's guidelines of usability should be revised for civic Web site. I completely agree with them, and want to add that this is also true with educational Web sites, where certain challenge for users/students should be part of the design.

The last point I want to make is that the book, although updated from its 1994 version, lacks a discussion on the usability in Web 2.0 environment that has been becoming the Web itself. The only place where the authors mentioned Web 2.0 is in the preface when they talk about the fact that their usability guidelines do not apply to teens' MySpace profile page design. I agree with them on this point, but there is more to Web sites and applications such as MySpace, RSS, Facebook, Wiki, Twitter, YouTube and many others which are called by some Web 2.0 Web sites/applications. I will discuss Web 2.0 with more depth in later posts. The point is, published in 2006, one would assume that this book would mention at least some aspects of the Web we have today, but it seems the Nielsen and Loranger still stay in the e-Commerce era.

References

Singh, N., & Pereira, A. (2005). The culturally customized Web site. Burlington, MA: Elsevier.

Sun, H. (2004). Expanding the scope of localization: A cultural usability perspective on mobile text messaging use in American and Chinese contexts. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

RR_01: Barnum, C. M. (2002). Usability testing and research. New York: Longman.

Barnum's text book, although maybe a bit dated, is a great start for usability students. It is both a theory book that maps out the theory and key issues of usability research and user-centered design (UCD), and a how-to book that meticulously explains how to conduct usability testing and create documents for the testing. I'll discuss a few issues that interest me or relate to my dissertation project below.

First of all, Barnum summarizes nicely the definition of usability and UCD. She draws on the definitions of usability by key sources/writers/researchers such as the Internationalization Organization for Standardization, Nielsen, and Dumas and Redish, all widely cited in usability studies literature, and points out that the focus of usability studies is the user. To make her point, she defines usability negatively, as not (p. 6):

• Quality assurance
• Zero defects
• Utility of design features
• Intrinsic in products

Pointing out that “[t]hese terms reflect issues related to the product itself, not to the interaction of a person with the product” (p. 6), she draws attention to the distinction between product quality and usability. She further explains that usability has two requirements, “usefulness” and “satisfaction,” and contends that usability is determined by the user's perception of the quality of the product (p. 6-7). Two points are worth discussing here. First, her notion of usefulness is a key concept when we consider the split between task-oriented and goal-oriented usability studies. While task-oriented usability focuses on designing usable products, the goal-oriented usability focuses on designing useful products.

Although the terms “task” and “goal” are often used interchangeably by some authors, and the distinction between these two is not always clear in a lot of literature, this split can been seen among usability researchers and practitioners such as Nielsen, Cooper, and Krug. Barnum seems to agree with Cooper's view that we should design for the user's goals instead of tasks. When later on discussing task analysis, Barnum lists the goals of task analysis as (p. 88):

1. What users' goals are, not just the tasks they perform
2. What processes they us to achieve their goals
3. What characteristics shape the way they perform tasks and achieve goals (different groups of users may have different characteristics and goals)
4. What previous experience shapes users' approaches to tasks
5. What is most important to users or what is most helpful to them in performing tasks
6. What impact the environment has on their ability to perform tasks

This list shows the distinction between goals and tasks. The goals are what users want to achieve in their life, such as succeeding a course. The tasks are more specific than goals. They are the means to goal, i.e., what the user needs to do to achieve her/his goals. In the example of the user's goal being succeeding a course, one of the tasks will be buying textbooks online. The users have multilevel goals, so the task of buying textbooks online are also means to achieve other goals such as saving money, and saving gas going to a bookstore and time browsing there. Understanding these goals, articulated most eloquently in Cooper's The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, is essential in designing useful and usable products for the users. The goal-oriented approach is useful in cultural usability research for it can yield rich data about users due to its focus on their goals that are necessarily formed in their specific context of use.

Second, Barnum's argument of perception can be controversial. Although this book focuses on usability testing, Barnum's approach to usability research is inclusive in terms of methods. She talks about different methods in UCD in which the researcher or designer interact with users in different ways. These methods include focus group, prototyping, interviews, survey, etc. These methods are designed to get feedback from users. In other words, they are designed to obtain data about the user's perception of the product's usability. However, some hardliner usability testing proponents such as Nielsen and Krug will argue that using these “soft” methods, usability issues or usability breakdowns cannot be revealed accurately or adequately. They argue that empirical usability testing is the only way to know if a product works for the user. The tension between these two views is not surprising if we take the researchers' backgrounds into account. Barnum is a technical communication scholar who has a background in humanities (rhetoric). Nielsen and Krug both have engineering background on their resume. I will argue that methods that originated in humanities and those in sciences can help us obtain different data to understand the user and her/his interaction with technologies from different angles. Especially in today's complex technological environment where technologies are so profoundly entrenched on everyone's life, pure empirical methods may not be adequate to collect rich and nuance data about users.

The last thing I want to discuss about this book is its chapter on Web usability (chapter 9). To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed with this chapter. Not only the material is dated (which however is understandable because of its subject matter), but it seems that the whole chapter is pretty much a rip off of Nielsen's work. Also, Barnum does not seem to have carefully thought through Web usability issues. For instance, when she talks about understanding the real users' needs, she summarizes the users' reasons to use the Web into three groups, “information (content), sales (commerce), and interaction (communication with other people)” (p. 365). The grouping is not only crude but also leaves out many other reasons (goals) for users to use the Web, such as entertainment, (personal, political...) expression, advocacy and mobilization, etc. These groups are so broad that I suspect that they are actually of any productive value. She may argue that reasons such as expression and advocacy can be grouped under interaction. If that's the case, I will argue that everything can be grouped under information, because ultimately the Web is information. Barnum here is a bit self-contradictory—as an advocate of designing for users' goals, and the individual needs of users, her crude grouping does seem a bit careless.