In my previous job as an expert in usability and accessibility, I was a member of the Software Quality Area inside my company. There I realized that, although they are closely related, usability and software testing are, in practice, developed as totally independent disciplines, with:

• different experts and teams
• different methodologies and techniques
• different tools

Couldn't they be more integrated?

… sigue / more +++

I've published UCDmanager, a collaborative web tool aimed to manage and document User-Centered Design and usability techniques in an integrated manner:

  

… sigue / more +++

Last week I was visiting a NASA exhibition in Madrid. As a usability/UX specialist, I was prepared to see complex interfaces and panels full of buttons; and they were there. But two other things related to UX were called to my attention.

First, prototypes. One of the items at the exhibition was a sequence of prototypes of the lunar module that landed on the moon during the Apollo missions.

 

Second, checklists. Several old-fashioned paper checklists used during space missions were shown.

I don't know whether checklists are generally considered as a usability or user-centered design technique; anyway, I think they should. For more considerations about that technique, read the surprising and interesting book The Checklist Manifesto.

So two conclusions came to my mind:

• When we talk about usability methods, it may seem that they are some kind of magic trick or very advanced technique; but most of them are simple and based upon common sense. And they have been performed during many years.
• Since those kind of techniques have been performed during many years, and (most of) the missions were successful… hey, they somehow work!

Hitler se entera de que no hay pruebas de usabilidad (en español)

Rich Internet applications (RIA) (or 'web applications' as opposed to 'web pages') are very common nowadays; they may come from a standard web page that has been improved with extra functionalities, or from a desktop application that has been migrated towards a web platform. In any case, there are very few well-established standards for that kind of interfaces.

That's why I have compiled a list of RIA-specific usability heuristics (or best practices) that may help when it comes time to develop or to evaluate a rich web application. They are not intended to fully cover all the aspects of the application, but to address issues specific of rich web interfaces; these heuristics should be a complement of more general ones.

As with the psychological usability heuristics, they are in the form of a Google Docs spreadsheet to make it easy to download or clone it for your own work.

RIA Usability Heuristics spreadsheet (Google Docs)

These are some of the sources I have used to compile the heuristics (thanks to them!):

• Usability for Rich Internet Applications (Digital Web Magazine)
• Minimizing Usability Risks in Web Applications (Blink UX)
• Staff Picks: 10 Usability Favorites for 2006 (Blink UX)
• Usability Heuristics for Rich Internet Applications (Boxes and Arrows)

What do you think of those heuristics? Do you know any other?

Definition of usability by ISO 9241:

"The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use."

QED

A lot has been written about the new GMail interface; most of it is a matter of opinion, but I'm afraid Google has committed an obvious mistake: using icons (in buttons) that don't have a clear single meaning.

Let's take a look at two of the buttons; isn't this your first guess when you see them?

Wrong. The real functions of those buttons are:

Using fancy original self-designed icons is a common mistake made by novice interface designers; icons are hard to memorize, and users usually recognize just a few of the most common. Many times, the best way to describe a function is simply a text label.

I'm surprised Google has fallen into that error; maybe they have been paying too much attention to people complaining about their ugly interfaces. Anyway, Google, please, give me back my text labels for actions!

Some User-Centered Design techniques are supposed to be conducted during the requirements phase of the software development life-cycle, but in most real-world projects the usability/UX team cannot perform them, usually for reasons like these:

• Requirements are defined by another team (business analysts) and the UX team is not involved in this phase; they usually don't take part until the design phase.
• The UX team is involved when the project is almost finished (and the interface problems are already pretty severe).

Yes, we know that the UX team should participate since the early stages of the development, but… what can we do when we are faced to given requirements, which are usually incomplete, long lists of technical features, and which have nothing to do with UCD techniques like use cases or user stories?

UX Interpretations

Last June, Greg Lauger explained in his article 'Matching Requirements with User Experience' on Johnny Holland Magazine some techniques used in that kind of situations, and I think that the 'UX Interpretation' approach (he calls it a "collaborative clarification") is a great idea and could be used as a UCD technique on its own.

… sigue / more +++

Some time ago, Susan Weinschenk (@thebrainlady in Twitter) wrote about the psychologist view of UX design, listing a number of facts discovered by psychology about the human mind that may be directly applied to interfaces design. And I think that's an important point; although usability experts try to put the user in the center of every step through the design process, principles and best practices are usually referred to technical aspects of the development of interfaces. That's what happens with most of the principles used when evaluating interfaces in heuristic evaluations.

So… why don't we use those psychological facts as heuristic principles when evaluating interfaces, instead of the typical technical ones? To that end, I have translated Susan's points into heuristic principles and checkpoints that may be used to evaluate interfaces, creating a spreadsheet to make evaluations easier. Here you have it:

Psychological Usability Heuristics spreadsheet (Google Docs)

Of course, the translation of facts into heuristics is subjective, and this work may be updated and/or expanded at any time; anyway, I think this may be a good approach to usability from a more human perspective.

Feel free to use this spreadsheet for your own work (you may have to download or make a copy before). Any feedback about this work will be welcome!

Update 19-sep-2011

I have contacted Susan Weinschenk explaining her this idea, and this is her kind reply:

Hi Jordi,
Thanks for writing.
It's a very interesting idea. I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself!
Have you read my book: 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People? Probably more ideas in there too.
Susan

I haven't read '100 Things' (yet), but I have read her previous book and multiple articles in her blog. I wonder if 100 things may lead to 100 heuristic principles. It seems like a lot of work for me alone; maybe if this first idea achieves some success…