Given at UXPA-DC's User Focus Conference, Oct. 19, 2012

1. Usable Usability Reports
That Will Delight Your Customers
and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
October 19, 2012
www.userworks.com
(301) 431-0500
Dick Horst

2. Usable Usability Reports – Who Cares?
 Whether writing for clients or colleagues, the report
communicates not only the substance of what you have to
say but:
• Your style of communicating
• Your care in constructing deliverables
 “Cobbler’s children have no shoes” problem?
• No time
• No budget
• That’s why we have technical writers and editors
 Report design, format, style, quality of writing may
influence reader’s view as much as the quality of thinking
that went into the design recommendations that are the
subject of the report
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 2

3. What I DON’T Want to Talk About
 Writing composition
 Grammar per se
 Spelling
 Visual document design; report’s look and feel
 Tables and graphs
 Specific business domains, particular types of user research
reports
All of these are “givens,” they have to be well-done, and there
are generic style guides and other resource materials readily
available (e.g., new edition of APA Style Guide)
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 3

4. What I DO Want to Talk About
 Issues that are largely specific to “usability” reports
 Strategies, approaches, rules of thumb
 Not only report structure and text, but tone
 Not only report composition, but file naming
 Issues that should apply to everyone on the team, not just
the technical writer or editor
 Issues that would apply not only to technical reports, but
proposals, planning documents, research papers, etc.
 Largely based on my pet peeves (and I’d like to hear yours)
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 4

5. Pizazz-iness of the Title
 Creating Usable Usability Reports (2011)
vs
 Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers
and Amaze Your Colleagues (2012)
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 5

6. A Recurring Theme Here
Consistency is King!
 Hard for the reader to accept your critiques of
product design inconsistencies if the report itself
is riddled with inconsistencies
 Doesn’t much matter which of several alternative
schemes you choose, but use it consistently
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 6

7. How to Refer to Web Pages, Menus, Menu
Items, Links
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 7

8. How to Refer to Web Pages, Menus, Menu
Items, Links
Some participants had difficulty beginning the customization process
For this scenario, participants were brought to the home page of the site and asked to
modify the home page of the site to include highlights from NewsEdge and a link to the
Rapid Reduction Technology Office Web site. No other information was given, and
participants were free to explore whatever area of the site or process would accomplish
the task. Four participants (33%) had to be guided by the moderator to the “Customize
Your Home Page” box and/or category links in order to begin the customization
process. Had the moderator not drawn their attention to that section of the site, it is
likely that more participants would have abandoned this task.
Many participants were confused by the home page customization
categories
Five participants (42%) expressed confusion with the category options on the home
page for “Customize Your Home Page” and indicated that they were not sure which
box would be most appropriate for the resource for which they were looking. In fact,
two participants said that they would prefer to have a keyword search box to locate the
resources rather than having to scan through each category to determine which one was
correct.
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 8

9. How to Order and Prioritize the Issues
Addressed
 By tasks given the participants
 By audience group
 By severity of the problem (high, medium, low)
(catastrophes, important, nice to have)
 By nature of the problem (e.g., navigation, labeling, content,
search, visual design, accessibility, system performance)
 By nature of the solution (e.g., reorganize site architecture,
streamline transactional workflow, create controlled
vocabulary, rewrite content, introduce new content
management, improve tagging of content for search,
remediate accessibility non-compliance, improve online
Help)
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 9

10. Two Sample Organizational Schemes
 Task 1  Navigation problems
• High severity problems • Home page
 Navigation  High severity
 Labeling  Medium severity
 …  Low severity
• Medium severity problems • Registration process
 Navigation  High severity
 Labeling  Medium severity
 …  Low severity
• Low severity problems • Checkout process
 Navigation  High severity
 Medium severity
 Labeling
 Low severity
 …
 Task 2  Labeling problems
• High severity problems • Home page
 Navigation  High severity
 Medium severity
 Labeling
 Low severity
 …
• Medium severity problems • Registration process
 High severity
• Navigation
 Medium severity
 Labeling  Low severity
 …
• Checkout process
• Low severity problems  High severity
 Navigation  Medium severity
 Labeling  Low severity
 …
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 10

11. Some Rules of Thumb
 “Participants” rather than “Subjects” when talking about
usability studies
 “Participants” when referring to those individuals you
observed in the study; “Users” when referring to the broader
population of site visitors or product users
 Past tense when discussing what happened in the study;
present or future tense when referring to what users can do
now or speculating about what they may do in the future
 Write for your main point-of-contact’s boss, not your main
point-of-contact. Who knows who all might see your report!
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 11

12. Make it Easy to Navigate the Report
 Include an Executive Summary, Table of Contents,
Appendices
 Accommodate both the casual reader who just
wants the big picture and those who want the
gory details
 Embed video clips in report?
 Hyperlink among related sections of the report?
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 12

13. Make it Highly Visual
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 13

14. “A spoonful of sugar …”
 Before delivering the bad news, write about some
positive aspects of the design or test results
• What worked well
• Participants had no problems using the following
• Participants appreciated the following
• Overall user satisfaction was rated highly
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 14

15. Naming the Electronic File That Contains the
Report
 Name the file so it is recognizable to the recipient,
not to you; and not next week, but next year
• “Usability test report for XXX” may not jog XXX’s memory when
they see it in their file system a year from now
• “UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test, 10-19-2012.pdf” would
be better
 It’s never “final”
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test -- final.pdf
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test – final, v2.pdf
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test – final, v2b.pdf
• UserWorks’ report of XXX usability test – final, v2b2.pdf
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 15

16. Questions?
 What are your pet peeves regarding usability
reports?
 What are some of your best practices in report
writing?
Usable Usability Reports That Will Delight Your Customers and Amaze Your Colleagues
User Focus 2012
Dick Horst - UserWorks, Inc. 16