Contents:

|| 1. Events: Discount Extended, Subscribers Only!
|| 2. Modeling: Mapping Scenarios and Use Cases.
|| 3. Design: Reassuring users.
|| 4. Training: Exercise for the Experienced.

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1. Events: forUSE 2002 discounts extended.

“Please, please, please!” the email read. “I need more time to persuade my boss.”

Okay, okay, okay! We hear you. We know only to well how tough it can be to get the approval, the budget allocation, and all the right signatures. We’ll give you more time.

For our newsletter subscribers only (or any friends or colleagues you want to let in on the deal; just forward this newsletter), we have extended the early-bird discounts for this year’s premier design and usability event, forUSE 2002, 25-28 August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

SAVE: $200 each on conference registration and $100 each on tutorials. To get these extended discounts, you MUST register on the special subscribers-only form at http://foruse.com/2002/friends.htm NOT through the regular conference registration page.

Come join your colleagues from IBM, SAP, SAS, GlaxoSmithKline, Fidelity, Siebel, Target, even the IRS (to mention just a few) plus our 38 speakers from 7 countries and our corporate and professional sponsors: the Usability Professionals’ Association (http://www.upassoc.org/), Classic Systems Solutions, Inc., (http://www.classicsys.com/), and Ariel Performance Centered Systems, Inc., (http://www.arielpcs.com/). Get ready for an intensive week of learning at forUSE 2002, 25-28 August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

2. Modeling: Task Maps and Scenario Threads - Getting the big Picture

The discussion in the last newsletter regarding task case maps in diagrammatic form (http://foruse.com/newsletter/forUse23.htm#2) inspired Trevor Osborne from TietoEnator.com to jump into the discussion with some of his experience and a very useful idea to share.

“I enjoyed reading your comments on the business of Task Maps and Use Case Diagrams. Someone once said that ‘We have a great many specialists and we have lots of generalists, but holists are few and far between!’ Well, that's what I do: the birds-eye view. And in several projects now I have found it very useful indeed to construct essential use case models (based on your approach) both as a design aid and as a communication tool.

“I find these use case diagrams work well provided that

a) the task cases are at a high level of abstraction.

b) we avoid the ever present temptation to break them down
(using extension, composition, etc.) beyond the extent
that genuinely enhances understanding.

c) any one model (diagram) is limited to one role or
a small group of related roles.

“I find that a further step building on these diagrams can be very helpful. It's really very simple. I have found that I can usefully show paths between task cases in the diagram indicating the most likely ways in which a user may compose a series of task cases into a real-life scenario.

“The conclusion that I have come to is that if the task cases are well conceived [as small, incremental tasks], then this kind of ‘scenario map’ becomes hopelessly complicated if you attempt to show all possible (or reasonable) paths. This happens for the very reason that fine-grained task cases will often empower the user to combine them in a wide variety of ways, some of them perhaps unexpected even for the designers. This, I believe, is as it should be and in some cases may even a design ideal.

“Anyhow, although a complete scenario map is of no real use, the actual process of tracing a whole bunch of possible scenario constructions in the task map is, of course, a valuable way for us to determine how well conceived our task cases actually are.

“In addition, a task map showing only the most likely (or important or frequent) scenario paths can be a great help with everything from prioritization and product focus to the ever present problem of helping the uninitiated to understand how a particular task model maps against complex real-world goals and processes.”

Terrific. For us visual thinkers, tracing scenario threads onto task maps is an exciting concept. Like us, you may not have previously mixed such scenario traces with task models in diagrammatic form, but a few quick experiments should convince you of the tremendous value of this view. Just sketching a colored trace over an existing task case map makes a very informative picture. Several related scenarios can be overlaid without confusion by using different colors for the scenario threads. Things do get a little messy with scenarios that have repetitions or branching logic, but the temptation to start flowcharting needs to be resisted; simple graphic loops or forks in the scenario trace are easy to interpret and follow. Leaving out (or fading out) the task relationships (inclusion, extension, etc.) makes it easier to see and follow the scenario traces, although it can be useful to in some instances see the relationship between the fundamental task structure and particular scenario instantiations.

Another format in which to construct and explore scenario threads would be on a whiteboard with sticky-notes or taped on index cards for the tasks. Thanks, Trevor, for sharing a useful technique for getting the big picture.

3. Design: Reassuring users. Confirming this, confirming that.

Yes, we, too, can slip up on the obvious.

A peculiar thing happened recently. After countless conference registrations without a hitch, we suddenly started getting anxious queries from people who had tried to register but complained that they had not received any confirmation. We quickly checked out the site with a couple of browsers and the forms processing seemed to be working exactly as always. What was happening? It took a bit of sleuthing to figure out what the problem was and why it was cropping up at this late date.

If you register for the conference on the conference Web site (for insiders, which is you, remember that means via http://foruse.com/2002/friends.htm), you fill out a form, labeled “Registration Form,” click on the “Register” button, and get presented with a confirmation page, which is labeled “Confirmation Form.” A legend at the top of the page reads: “Thank you, John Smith, for registering for forUSE 2002. Please review the information below. To change any information, just click on the Change Form button; otherwise, click on the OK button. Final confirmation will be sent by email reply within 24 hours.”

At the bottom of the form you can either click on the “Change Form” button if you need to make a correction, or on the “OK” button if everything is OK. Once you click through on “OK,” you are returned back to wherever you were before you decided to register.

For the first N attendees this scheme worked just fine, but then it was unexpectedly not enough. A few questions and we learned that some users were expecting yet another confirmation after clicking on “OK.” Why now, why all of a sudden was the confirmation page not enough confirmation? Then it hit us that all the anxious inquiries had arrived with the last flurry of registrations just before expiration of the deadline for early-bird discounts. These last-minute earl-birds wanted to be sure their registration was accepted and properly credited with the discount!

Basically, the Last-Minute-Early-Bird Registering Role is a distinct and subtly specialized user role. To address the understandable need for reassurance in this role, we would need to confirm the confirmation, an exercise in redundancy that we normally would never think of designing. Under normal circumstances, many typical users are likely to be annoyed by an extra page of confirmation. In balancing these conflicting needs, the ideal tradeoff is unclear, but I suspect if we had thought about it, we would have erred on the side of extra reassurance.

The general lesson to be taken from our slip-up is about the need to pay close attention to the attitude and psychological state of users in particular roles. Impatient users need to be enabled to reach their goals quickly and efficiently; anxious users need clear confirmation and reassurance. This experience also reinforces the importance of delineating all the roles that differ in important characteristics. For this it helps to have ready access to someone with in-depth domain knowledge. In our case, that would have been an experienced conference organizer. We’re only rank amateurs but learning fast. So, just wait until next year!

4. Training: Master Class with Lucy Lockwood and Larry Constantine

For those of you who are ready to take your work to the next level, we will be conducting a Master Class, “Pushing the Envelope,” for experienced designers. This special post-conference class is open to interaction designers, information architects, user interface designers, and other usability professionals who want an intensive review and coaching experience. Register now for the conference and master class while the EXTENDED early-bird discounts are still in effect. You can save $200 on conference registration and $100 on this (and any other) tutorial by registering NOW at http://foruse.com/2002/friends.htm.

 Details at http://foruse.com/2002/.

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forUse is published 9 times a year by Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd., trainers, consultants, and innovators in usage-centered design. On the Web at <http://foruse.com/>. © Copyright 2002, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.

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