Stories

The articles below are about real people, real problems, and sometimes, really elegant solutions. These stories can be used by anyone who needs to tell the story of usability – whether citizen, journalist, or usability professional.

Please note that many of these stories came from other published sources, so if you repeat them in writing, please give credit where credit is due, and observe fair use conventions.

Share your usability stories by emailing our stories editor at usabilitystories@worldusabilityday.org.

They made you pay three grand not to listen to music?

As the president of a Web design firm, I pride myself on being a usability expert. I'm technically savvy and am usually the first adopter of new technology. I've found, however, that many designers make things more complicated than they should be. Take my truck's navigation system, for example.

Does Your TV Remote Control Intimidate You?

You are not alone and help may be on the horizon. Daniel Woo at the University of New South Wales in Australia conducts an interactive exercise, called a Remote Control Shootout, with his HCI students using several different TV remote controls to try the same task (recording a TV program).

Site Visit Saves Money and Increases Use

Brenda Huettner, one of the organizers of the World Usability Day 2005 event in Tucson, Arizona, told us about her experience improving information for pilots.

Give the user some time!

Several years ago a telecom company was implementing a network-based voice dialing system. The success rate was pretty low at first, about 30%. For the service to survive, it had to get a lot better than that.

Tom Tullis: Making It Easy For Seniors (and Everyone Else)

Tom Tullis of Fidelity Investments' Center for Applied Technology talks about making websites easier for older adults to use. "We've learned quite a few things over the past few years from the usability testing we've done with older adults about how to improve websites for them. Interestingly, most of these improvements tend to help everyone, not just older adults."

Whirlpools' Washing Machine Talks to Blind Users

One of the new trends in appliances is more buttons and lights. But a dazzling array of LED displays is incomprehensible if the user can't see. Making an every day activity like doing the laundry seem like less of a “chore” was the goal of a group of engineering students at Michigan State University who recently designed a device that will allow blind users to hear the status of their washer.

Elta -- Looks Great, Doesn't Record

I was going to Africa to do ethnographic field-work and wanted an audio recording device. While looking for a tape- recorder, I was persuaded to by a much handier device: an MP3-player that was also a memory stick and a voice recorder (so I was told) as well.

The Elta product looks nice, but the instructions that this overtly German firm included with it are written in a version of English that must have come from China. The person from whom I bought it from spent about an hour with me unsuccessfully trying to get it to record or play.

Towels Under Mirror

The ladies' room in the very fancy restaurant had dark paneled wood, mirrors to the ceiling, marble countertops,and golden fixtures. Clearly no expense had been spared to create an elegant space to which Ladies Could Retire.

There was only one problem with it.

User Centered Design of Work Processes

We discovered that our sales people primarily use their commission statements to ensure that they are getting paid properly, so we redesigned the statement to 'show our work', that is to show all the math that was used to calculate their commissions.

With No Knives in Airports, What to Do About Packaging?

Has anyone ever found a bloodless way to get into those plastic, crimped packs of electronic goods hung in airport and mall stores?

Design of a Web-based Diseases and Conditions Index for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Diseases and Conditions Index (DCI) provides citizens with a web-based, plain language description of health conditions and treatments. Users can access information in three ways – keyword search, browse by topic, or alphabetic look-up. A design goal was to present valid, up-to-date medical information in an easily accessible, readable style, aimed at the lay public.

Usability Improvements to the Process of Applying for Financial Aid for College

The U.S. Department of Education’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the means by which over 16 million students annually initiate the process of applying for financial aid for college. UserWorks has been working periodically with the U.S. Department of Education since 1999 to improve the usability of the FAFSA, as well as other aspects of the federal student aid process.

Ticket, please?

We open with a story that's a touch complicated. Hang in here with me, the usability point will come through in the end.

My husband loves his railways. He's mostly into railways as they actually are today, as a practical means of everyday transport. And so, he researches things like the best routes and ticket prices. We live near London (about 50 miles, and about 50 minutes by train). He then commutes within London using the Underground. The Underground is zones, so you pay according to the number of zones that you cross.

Notes from the Field

The Usability Professionals' Association and its many partner organizations have encountered many interesting places where usability can be applied.

High Tech Company Has Low Tech Conference Rooms

Over the past few months, I've attended several meetings remotely, either from home with colleagues who are in the office, or from the office (IBM Hursley Labs, Winchester, UK) listening to a conference call in the US or Canada. What strikes me most is that despite the high technology that IBM produces, meetings via a telephone, maybe with slides, more often than not feel incredibly low tech.

Innovative IBM Web Browser Software Grants Enrich Communities

Vicki Hanson, a scientist at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center and one of the champions of her company's Web Adaptation Technology program, receives success stories continuously from seniors and students alike relating how IBM’s Web Adaptation Technology, available in nine languages, has made their lives better – from staying in touch with family members, planning trips and dinner menus, shopping, conversing in English – to doing homework.

A fly in the urinal – what does it make you think of? Dirty? Disgusting? Obscene? Tasteless? It is actually an example of excellent usability. Dutch manufacturers realized that a fly painted on the porcelain of a urinal nearly always became a "target" for men using the facility. And the fly is positioned in precisely the right place for minimal spillage or splashback.

A PDA for the Bushman

Dr. Susan Dray was the featured speaker at the WUD 2005 Minneapolis event.

Dr. Dray is a pioneer in Human-Computer Interaction, and her firm in Minneapolis is internationally known for its work in human factors and user-centered design. She travels frequently to countries in South Africa and Asia to conduct usability studies for clients.

Usability Basics: Getting to Know Your Web Site Users

It is hard to design for people you don't "know." The goal of the following descriptions is to help developers see users as "real people" and understand the richness of the ways in which they use the web, too. These are personas, not real people, created by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Content and Navigation, It's in the Bag

Edward Lopez’s experience with a company’s web site shows that lack of content and navigation can have a negative impact on an excellent product.

Making It Easy for All Kinds of Learners

Why do we put up with technologies and information that are difficult to learn and understand?? I work at Landmark College, a college that exclusively serves students with learning disabilities and attention disorders. We've embarked on a research agenda to improve universal usability for all learners.

'Humanitarian eBay' Usability Reviews

For World Usability Day, the Hong Kong UPA Chapter will conduct a walkthrough on the Globalhand web site to help the charitable organization improve their web site, and ultimately help get information to those groups supporting the poor.

Usability in the Airplane Cockpit

A recent AP news story told of how a pilot who lost radio communications was surprised to find his plane surrounded by security forces as he landed. He thought he had entered 7600, the code for "lost communications," but code 7500 told those on the ground that he was being hijacked.

Sony remotes are too much trouble - The Queen

iPod user HRH Queen Elizabeth II has admitted she finds Sony products too difficult to use.

Research: Web Site's Appearance Matters

A recent usability study rating web sites at Glamorgan University Business School in Wales suggests aesthetics may have more of an impact on consumer behavior than subject or function.

UPA members join New Zealand Web Guidelines Group

On January 2006, all Public Service departments, the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Defence Force, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service must have websites that comply with the New Zealand Government Web Guidelines.

Fed Website Usability Numbers Up

A new poll of public users of federal Web sites indicates an overall satisfaction score of 73.5 on a scale of 100, which is a 3.2 percent increase over the same quarter last year. This data from the University of Michigan, and reported by David Perera at Federal Computer Week.