Category: usability

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Me2B Alliance

Background

The Me2B Alliance is a standards development organization comprised of software engineers, policy analysts, UX experts, business and philanthropic leaders who are committed to giving individuals more say in how technology treats people. We are setting up a rigorous independent testing and certification program for websites, apps and connected devices. The Me2B Alliance is comprised of working groups for Me-s (the consumer), B-s (the business) as well as the Policy and Legal and Certification working groups. Together, we are setting the standard for Respectful Technology.

My Role

My role at the Me2B Alliance is twofold: I am leading up the Research and Validation practice to provide user experience and other research services to the various working groups, exploring questions around the consumer experience of their relationship with digital technology.

Secondly, I am developing the product integrity testing framework for digital technologies, in particular mobile apps and websites. This framework, coupled with data integrity and security testing, makes up the requirements for Me2BA certification.

User Research Methods

Ethnographic Research

I am engaging consumers in one on one conversations about their relationship with technologies they use in their day to day lives. Research questions range from and their understanding of privacy policies, terms of use agreements and other agreements they make implicitly by using a technology. for example, do users change how they interact with a website when they are familiar with the legal terms of the website? And would a score make a difference?

Preference Testing

I performed a series of tests of the certification mark to be used as a symbol of trust in connected digital technologies. This included interviews, focus groups, unmoderated 5-Second preference tests and surveys.

Product Integrity Testing

I developed a UX Integrity framework for the Me2B Safe and Respectful Technology Framework (now published as the Me2B Safe Specification). This framework was based on an applicaiton of IA heuristics to ensure that notices of data collection, use and sharing is Clear, Findable, Accessible, Credible and Communicative or understandable by a wide audience of human and machine readible or accessible devices.

Tools

Interviews and Focus Groups: Zoom, UserInterviews.com, Surveymonkey

Preference Tests and 5 Second tests: UserInterviews.com

Collaboration: Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Microsoft365, Trello, Monday

Artifacts

Safe Tech Audit: IA as a Framework for Respectful Design (April 23, 2022)
Conference Presentation: Information Architecture Conference 2022

Spotlight Report #5: Me2B Alliance Validation Testing Report: Consumer Perception of Legal Policies in Digital Technology (January 18, 2022)

Spotlight Report #3: Me2B Alliance Validation Research: Consumer Sensitivity to Location Tracking by Websites and Mobile Apps (November 5, 2021)

Shedding Light on Dark Patterns: A Case Study on Digital Harms (April 28, 2021)
Conference Presentation: Information Architecture Conference 2021

Webinar: Me2B Research: Consumer Views on Respectful Technology

Future Plans

We are planning to conduct three focus groups per month of consumers and digital product designers/managers. The research will continue to evolve our understanding of how consumers experience their relationship and risks with respect to digital technologies.

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The Best Time to Bring in a UX Expert

I answer questions about UX, Information Architecture and other topics on Quora. A selection of these answers will be reposted on Medium with occasional, minor editing for clarity. Following is a question I answered in September.

When is the best time to bring in a UX expert, when you are first building a product or after you have user data?

September 28, 2017

I work as a UX consultant on a digital ID standard. One of the areas I am researching is usability of identity management products and services. Some of the companies I have interviewed are very small, one or two person startups that do not have budget for outside expertise and others are very large, nationally known brands that themselves have not allocated budget for UX testing. In some cases the product managers and developers are very interested in user experience of their products while others interpret “user” as an electronic agent rather than a human at a computer or device, so invest little to no dollars on UX.

Those who do understand the importance of UX, particularly products intended for the mass consumer market or those for purposes involving repetitive or multitasking/heavy attention load activity that may lead to potential worker injury, for example, will follow usability guidelines such as NNGroup/Jakob Nielsen/Don Norman’s research or actively seek outside UX expertise. At the very least, all user facing products should do some UX studies, sit with users and stakeholders who understand user needs, complaints and feedback and identify key user tasks and potential negative outcomes. Do these exercises at every step of development particularly pre launch and when introducing changes (even if they seem minor).

For our financial wellness tools at Decision Fish, we tested with dozens of prospective users very early, well before launching our first web app, when it was still just an Excel spreadsheet! We did surveys and interviews on how people manage their finances. We watched people use all kinds of personal finance tools from paper to software to just thinking it through. We surveyed them about their pain points. We observed individuals and couples as they walked through our alpha modules and asked them directly to tell us what we are doing wrong. We pivoted quite a bit based on user input.

We even offered financial coaching sessions to prospective users and partners to get deeper feedback into individual concerns. In doing so, we discovered underrepresented use categories that challenged some of the assumptions we made in our design. We collected contact info on interested users for a beta test once we launch and will be offering it as a pilot to companies and partners who are interested in providing it as an employee benefit.

All of the data and feedback we gathered in these sessions helped us to develop our product and adjust our assumptions of how to present information and guide our decision-making tool. All this has happened well before we had actual user data to analyze. That will be our next step, to create a plan for analyzing and learning from our users when we’ve launched and have data to look at. But we will continue to observe, coach and survey users, because we expect continual improvements and adjustments. Because we want our decision tool to be the best it can be for our users.

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IDEF Registry

Client: OASIS/Identity Ecosystem Steering Group
Visit Website

My Role

I led user testing for the Identity Ecosystem Framework (IDEF) Registry as part of the National Strategy for Trusted Identity in Cyberspace (NSTIC), a White House initiative. The IDEF Registry, a digital identity standard assessment tool, launched its alpha version on June 6, 2016. Because development of the alpha version of the attestation form was ongoing, I was brought into an agile process with the goal to iterate improvements after the public launch. I worked directly with a contracted project manager, third party marketing and design companies, the Chair of the IDESG User Experience Committee and members of the IDEF Registry working group.

User Research

The goal of the user study was two-fold: first, to ensure that the assessment form was understandable to those users who wish to list their products and that it included sufficient and expected information needed to complete the form accurately, and second, to ensure that the registry listing itself was usable and understandable to users who are seeking identity solutions.

Test participants for the first goal included IDESG members and observers who provide identity services, including certification, authentication, authorization, registration and transaction intermediation, or who rely on identity services in their own internal systems and commercial products. We selected expert users because we expect that those who will be completing the attestation form have a high level of understanding of the privacy, security, interoperability and usability of their own products.

Tests included needs assessment interviews of 12 prospective users, followed by additional user tests of seven users. For the needs assessment, I interviewed 12 prospective study participants about their needs for identity standards assessment and how the current IDEF Registry assessment tool compares to similar industry and government standards. I wanted to understand if the IDEF tool addressed all of their concerns about privacy, security, interoperability and usability and to get a sense of whether the planned registry served their needs. General findings were presented in a Google slide presentation showing typical responses to eleven study questions, suggested improvements and the impact on the user expereince. These were discussed over two, 2- hour meetings of the IDEF Registry Working Group.

Usability Tests

After delivering my findings to the development team, I began to design usability tests. I employed an observational walkthrough of proposed and completed designs, an expert heuristics review, user surveys and follow-up interviews with seven registry users. I utilized card sorts, preference tests, cognitive walkthrough of wireframes and a live website, as well as observations and survey feedback of seven alpha site users as they completed the attestation form on the alpha website to develop recommendations for improvements.

I engaged four members of the User Experience Committee, all usability experts, to participate in a heuristic analysis using Neilsen-Norman Group’s 10 usability heuristics and Abby Covert’s IA Heuristics. These expert users primarily evaluated the assessment form, but also provided input on the usability of the registry listings themselves, as a proxy for typical registry listing users. Due to the early stage of development, the client did not wish to

Results

The results showed that while the IDEF was rigorous, the implementation of the assessment and registry listings needed improvement, particularly to address situations where more than one person or company department might need to be involved. There were a number of issues with the interface including layout and data visualizations that could use improvement. Since Usability was a major component of the assessment, I also developed a set of user experience guidelines and metrics for service providers to use in evaluating usability requirements of the attestation. These will be incorporated into the Usability section of the assessment guidance documents.

UPDATE (5/22/2017): As of late Spring 2017, nine companies have completed assessments. The website remains in alpha with my recommendations set for implementation when the next round of grant funding is approved. Should I be reengaged, the next studies will include user tests of participants seeking identity services.

UPDATE (6/15/2019): The Registry is currently 65% complete and has transferred to the Kantara Initiative’s Education Foundation as of December 2018. I am continuing to serve on an agile advisory team and am working on use cases for health care. I presented the registry and participated in roundtable discussions at the 2019 Health Information Summit in Washington, DC on June 4, 2019.

Note: I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement and am unable to share any images aside from those made public at idecosystem.org and idefregistry.org. Detailed information about the project, the assessment and the User Experience Committee is available on the public IDESG Wiki. Some of the documents including a draft rewrite of the Usability Guidelines and Metrics have been made public at: https://wiki.idesg.org/wiki/index.php?title=Talk%3AUser_Experience_Guidelines_Metrics

Announcement:
The IDEF Registry: an open invite to commit to trusted digital identity solutions

Resources:
Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG)
IDEF Registry
Identity Ecosystem Framework – Baseline Functional Requirements

Announcement:
The IDEF Registry: an open invite to commit to trusted digital identity solutions

Resources:
Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG)
IDEF Registry
Identity Ecosystem Framework – Baseline Functional Requirements

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West 104th Street Block Association Talks IA

The April 15 issue of the West 104th Street Block Association Newsletter featured the efforts of my design team in an article about the Association’s pending website redesign. I also had the unexpected honor have my profile featured on their website.

As part of the project, my design team conducted interviews, surveys and user testing of current residents, neighbors and prospective residents. These were divided into four test groups including families with children, younger residents (couples and singles), those aged 55 and over and those considering a move to the neighborhood. The block association reported that “The respondents to the survey requested that the website be reorganized to find information more easily with an emphasis on portraying a ‘neighborhood feel.'” Indeed, my team found a great need among the test population for findable and accessible information.

My specific user test population included site users aged 55 and older. Among the requirements of this group, legibility and safety information was the most important need, and descriptive pictures of the block’s people and activities were especially appreciated.

The Information Architecture community also got a shout out:

“We are very lucky to have an information architect on our block to develop our ‘new and improved’ website that will be informative for all our residents.”

It is an honor to be recognized by the block for our contribution, and I thank my teammates for doing such a great job. We expect to launch the new site in June.

Read more about the West 104th Street Block Association Web Redesign.

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CITI Advanced Training

We will be scheduling a CITI training for CBs and CBOs in Brooklyn this spring. The date is dependent upon the number of participants. Training will include basic GIS principles, GIS desktop software and tips for making your own maps. Contact us at citi@mas.org if you would like to participiate.

Additional information about the CITI Youth program and how to find rezoning areas can be found in the March issue of the CITI Newsletter at http://www.myciti.org/newsletters/2005-03.html.