Re: benchmarck of UCD practices
William Hudson <[email protected]> Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:53:58 -0000
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.web.ucd |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Giorgio - > William, I think that in 2000 you've made some survey about > UCD. Could you provide to some more data about that? Sorry for not volunteering it - I'm not usually shy about such things, but I didn't think it was quite what you were looking for. I asked subscribers to CHI-WEB, BCS-HCI News and the usability-list-that-shall-not-be-named (really, they'll cut my tongue out<g>) to indicate their use of a variety of usability and UCD tools. It was fairly informal, especially since I did not define each precisely (so respondents were left to decide what "user analysis/profiling" meant, but I think it did provide some useful insights: the most important being that most folks are not using a "method" (in the software methodology sense) as such, but rather just a collection of techniques. Anyway, in my chapter in _Object Modeling and User Interface Design_ (details below), I incorporate the "user-centred top-ten" techniques into the informal UML process used by many software developers. More recently I've done something similar for Agile (see http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/articles.htm and look at the recent papers section at the top). Here are the survey results. I have some spare copies of the book available through the Amazon.co.uk book (my copies are very similar to Amazon's<g>, but cheaper. Many thanks to those who responded to the survey. I received a total of 102 responses from the three lists (CHI-WEB, the usability-list-that-shall-not-be-named, and the British HCI Group). 9 responses were excluded from the figures below due to confusion over the instructions. Responses were fairly international, with respondents based in the US making up just over 60% of the total. (Since many email addresses were .com or .net, signatures, web sites and just plain old asking were used to determine the location of respondents.) Responses by country us 61.3% uk 12.9% nl 3.2% se 3.2% be 2.2% fr 2.2% il 2.2% au 2.2% ca 2.2% de 2.2% fi 2.2% ie 1.1% ir 1.1% it 1.1% mx 1.1% The majority of respondents were usability practitioners: usability practitioner 64.5% information architect 7.5% developer 6.5% developer + usability/HCI 6.5% HCI researcher 4.3% project manager 3.2% technical writer 2.2% software testing/QA 2.2% design director 2.2% technology manager 1.1% Not surprisingly, many were involved either in a mixture of web and "traditional" software development or web development exclusively: web only 45.2% mixed web + desktop 33.3% desktop only 11.8% other 5.4% (speech, medical x-ray, electronic lab equipment, air traffic control) consumer electronics 2.2% mobile comms 1.1% multimedia 1.1% Most respondents spent almost all of their time applying user-centered methods: All or most 68.8% less than half 19.4% occasionally 11.8% Finally, here is the list of techniques that respondents used (excluding any used by only 1 person): informal usability testing 93.5% user analysis/profiling 89.2% evaluate existing system 88.2% low-fidelity (e.g. paper) prototyping 84.9% expert (heuristic) usability evaluation 83.9% task identification 82.8% navigation design 78.5% scenarios of use 76.3% set usability requirements 74.2% visual interface design 74.2% use of style guides 67.7% formal (e.g. quantitative) usability testing 67.7% stakeholder meeting 66.7% comprehensive (e.g. hierarchical) task analysis 64.5% user's conceptual models (of the problem domain) 60.2% Contextual Analysis 59.1% usability checklists 58.1% set quantitative usability goals 58.1% attitude questionnaires 54.8% usability surveys 50.5% use case analysis 48.4% Essential Use Cases (Constantine and Lockwood) 21.5% Personas (Alan Cooper) 20.4% Usage-centered design 11.8% Other methods (in house) 10.8% focus groups 8.6% LUCID 7.5% observations 6.5% user interviews 3.2% competitive analysis 3.2% storyboards 2.2% cognitive walkthrough (with team) 2.2% usability walkthroughs (with team) 2.2% OVID 2.2% GUIDE 2.2% ISO 13407 2.2% Regards, William Hudson Syntagm Ltd Design for Usability US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM UK 01235-522859 World +44-1235-522859 mailto:[email protected] http://www.syntagm.co.uk Contributor to Addison-Wesley's _Object Modeling and User Interface Design_ Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0201657899/syntagmltd02 Amazon.co.uk - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/asin/0201657899/syntagmltd -------------------------------------------------------------- POSTINGS (in plain text): [email protected] SUBSCRIPTION CHANGES: http://lists.syntagm.co.uk (or send email to mailto:[email protected]) --------------------------------------------------------------