November 20, 2014

There Is a U in User Experience

User experience, also referred to as UX, has been the flavor of the month for the past few years. As technology progresses, everyone scrambles to convince users that their products are the obvious choice. Long gone are the days when user experience was an after thought and engineers and business executives made user experience decisions. User experience is an important part of the design process that nobody notices until something goes terribly wrong.

I say this as we approach the anniversary of HealthCare.gov. The much publicized website ended up being a case study to factor in some important usability check points before launching any product. If you are a part of the team that works on your website, regardless of your contribution level, you are a big part of the user experience.

UX is all about how a person, or sometimes also referred as a user, feels when using your website or an application of any digital property. The experience part of UX is made up of several elements; Usability, Accessibility, Findability, Functionality, Performance, Design, Utility, Interaction, and Emotion.

Government websites tend to reflect the organization rather than their offerings. If your users don't understand how to interact with your websites, it just doesn't matter how big of a photo you have on the homepage or if the rotator speaks of some of your recent achievements. If the user is lost, they will either pick up the phone or walk into one of your offices; which is a much costlier option for state agencies.

Last week we concluded our GOVTalks series for this calendar year with a talk on accessibility; a very important part of UX. As you get ready to work on your website, do ask yourself if you are thinking about your users. Pooja Berrong’s post, Understanding Users with Disabilities, does a great job in listing out the various user disabilities. But an able user on a poorly designed website feels equally disabled. A website with a poor user experience is highly noticeable. Here are a few tips to do a periodic usability check for your website:

  1. Visible status on location.
    The website should always keep the users informed on what's going on. This needs to be done through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time. Most users are concerned about where they are and where they need to go. We cannot assume all users get to our site pages from the home page. If they find their way through a search engine result, they need to immediately know where they are. Using appropriate titles for sections and pages, and using the breadcrumbs helps.

  2. Are you speaking the user's language?
    Any large organization, including government, relies on a heavy glossary of acronyms. While the insiders might be on the same page, the users tend to get confused with the alphabet soup. Try and maintain consistency in language that users will associate with and understand.

  3. Have a way out.
    Users like to be in control. Always provide enough options for users to proceed or go back via content links. As far as possible, try to create a site structure where the users wont have to use the browser back button.

  4. Consistency in content.
    Within your site use content and verbiage with consistency. If a link within the content says a certain word, make sure the page it is linking to has the same verbiage in the title of the page. Inconsistent wording can confuse users who think they landed on a wrong page because the title doesn't match the link.

  5. Standardization.
    The GeorgiaGov platform is standardized to give users a consistent user experience. The standardization on the web makes your users feel connected to the state government as an enterprise instead of feeling stranded on a secluded island.

  6. Be efficient and functional.
    Make your site pages easy to bookmark. Avoid using frames where the users are not able to bookmark the right content page. Consider using GET instead of POST on your forms. GET attaches the parameters to the URL, so users can bookmark the results of a search. When they come back, they get their query re-evaluated without having to type anything in again.

If your site is hosted on the GeorgiaGov platform, most of these issues are covered for you. Your contribution is very important as you add content and if you are aware of these usability aspects, you will make a big difference to maintain a successful website.

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