- What does usable in life mean?
- Usable in life refers to how effective an object or concept is/can be in the real world, in a real life situation. This means a user performing a task with added pressure and distraction as opposed to in a quiet room with no distraction.
- Usability-in-itself looks at how a user can perform pre-defined tasks in a lab with no distraction. Looking at many different features. Basically showing the ease of use for an object and if people can understand it. So the difference between usability-in-itself and usability-in-life is that one is in a lab testing different features of an object and how easy they are to use and the other looks at how users respond to an object in a real life setting. I think an important point to make is that usability-in-itself is basically the developers looking at whether or not users can find, acknowledge and use features that the developers have spent their time developing. Whereas usability-in-life looks at how the user responds to an object in a real life situation and how it fits their needs. With this approach a usability tester can show whether a feature is necessary or even if it causes confusion and hinders the users experience.
Think about bus notification systems that you find at bus-stops.
- What could you do to establish that this system is usable-in-itself? The test will be carried out in a lab setting with multiple users that will be presented with a list of information on a bus notification system.
- Could you tell me when the next bus to Birmingham is due?
- Can you tell me when the B13 bus to Walsall will arrive and what stand it will be arriving at.
- Now that you have identified what time your bus will arrive and where, can you tell me how to get to the required stand. Can you use the board or does this information need to be combined with other information e.g. signs dotted around the station giving directions to stands.
- I believe the most important objectives to usability-in-life are whether or not the user can perform a task in a real world setting and looking at their responses to using an object or system. So what I would simply do is give around five people (most likely friends or paid testers) bus fare at Coventry bus station and ask them to meet me at the Birmingham new street bus stop as soon as they can. I would have cameras placed at the bus notification board to record their use of it. Possibly put cameras and microphones on themselves, maybe split them into doubles and turn it into a game show where their sole objective is to get to their destination using the buses and bus notification board. This makes it possible to record their response to the system and because they are in teams of two they will be communicating with each other, which allows you to know what they are thinking. Finally of course you will be waiting at Birmingham new street waiting for them to see if they accomplished their task and what extra feedback they would like to give. Another point to make is that this would be a high pressure situation, which could replicate the amount of pressure of being late and in a hurry. If the task can be accomplished in a high pressure environment then there is no reason why it can not be completed in a more relaxed environment with more thinking time and longer reaction times.
