Stage 2 : Usability Goals & Competitive analysis

2.1 Selection of Design Principles

The dictionary defines Design Principles as widely applicable laws, guidelines, biases and
design considerations, all reflecting researchers’ and practitioners’ accumulated knowledge
and experience. Design Principles draw from many discipline which consists of behavioral
science, sociology, physics and ergonomics. Designers apply them with discretion.

In this project we will be looking on fundamental points of advice for making easy-to-use,
pleasurable designs as we select, create and organize elements and features in our work.
According to few researchers , Design Principles represent the accumulated wisdom of
researchers and practitioners in design and related fields and inform us of how users will likely
react to our creations. “KISS” (“Keep It Simple Stupid”) is an example of a principle for
minimizing confusion by designing for non-experts. Minimizing users’ cognitive loads and
decision-making time is vital in UX design. The authors of the definitive work Universal
Principles of Design state

Design Principles should help designers find ways to improve usability, influence perception,
increase appeal, teach users, and make sound design decisions in projects. Successful
application of Design Principles depends on designers’ grasps of problems, and eye for how
users will accept solutions. For instance, abiding by the principle of “good hierarchy” doesn’t
automatically mean using a 3:1 header-to-text weight ratio. The latter is a standard rule,
whereas a guideline for implementing good hierarchy could be “text should be easy to read”.
Designers anticipate users’ needs discretionally – e.g., judging how to guide the user’s eye
using symmetry or asymmetry. Using judgment in adapting Design Principles means we build
solid experience from addressing users’ needs over time.
 Figure 1: The four stages in Design Principle

In the process of determining what type of design principle to adhere to the project, the kingpin
of design Jacob Nielsen was used as our guideline. Jacob Nielsen identified ten
“commandments” for designing. Those are :

 Keep users informed of system status with constant feedback.

In this system, a real-time notification will be placed for the users to be aware of updates
of the app as well as notifications for special offers for ticketings. This will make users
are aware that they don’t have to be on the app to be notified but could be notified when
they aren’t on the app.
 Set information in a logical, natural order.
The arrangement of the menu will be in order, where the users will be able to view the
menu according to what they want to see first. Therefore, the news section and promo’s
will be the one where they would see first whereas the settings would be the last option
for the users to view on the menu bar.
 Ensure users can easily undo/redo actions.
Users would be able to undo their purchases or undo their settings, as in reset to their
original app settings via the settings menu.
 Maintain consistent standards so users know what to do next without having to
learn new toolsets.
The app will be very straightforward in usage, as the minimalist design approach was
taken and not much buttons or high-end features would be added. The simple design
helps users to self-learn and quickly adapt to the app.
  Prevent errors if possible; wherever not, warn users before they commit to actions
The validation process is also added, when they are prompt to create an account or when
they are purchasing ticket.
 Don’t make users remember information; keep options, etc. visible.
 Make systems flexible so novices and experts can choose to do more or less on
them.
 Design with aesthetics and minimalism in mind – don’t clutter with unnecessary
items.
 Provide plain-language error messages to pinpoint problems and likely solutions.
 Offer easy-to-search troubleshooting resources, if needed.

2.2 Selection of Usability Goals

One distinction is easy; the difference between useful and useable. Useful means that the
system does what it should. Usable means that it is easy to do it. But there is no usability
without usefulness and no usefulness without usability. Therefore, the distinction is not so
clear. This illustrates one difficulty with defining usability.

We are going to refer to Preece, Rogers and Sharp (Interaction Design) which proposes 5
usability goals for the pragmatic approach :

 Effective: Is the app developed effective to use ?

 Efficient: Will the app be efficient enough to be used ?
 Learnable: Is the app easy to learn ?
 Memorable: Is the app easy to remember ?
 Safe: Is the app safe to be used ? ( Involves ticketing purchases)

As the pragmatic approach is more to generalise the design of the app. The above usability
goals are pragmatic or operational goals. Preece, Rogers and Sharp (Interaction Design)
propose that designers evaluate how well a design achieves these usability goals by asking
questions directed at the design.

Effectiveness refer to usefulness. Effectiveness is an overall measure of how well the system
performs. Learnability has been a concern of UI designers. Designers have been plagued with
trying to design “familiar and natural interfaces” that can be learned without reading a manual.
Memorable is how easy is it to remember how to use an interface after the user has experience
with the system. Memorable is related to learnability and has generated GUIs with menus and
icons, but the menu names and icons images need to be appropriate for them to be memorable.
Safety is protecting the users from dangerous errors, for example losing all the user’s data or
protecting the user’s confidential information. Safety can also refer to how users recover from
errors.

As we are developing an app, a usability goals also should focus on subjective goals. User
experience goals is a new aspect of design driven by the video games and ubiquitous devices.
Preece, Rogers and Sharp propose that the user experience goals be used as adjectives to
describe the experiences of a user using the interface. User interfaces should not try to appeal
to all possible experience, but it should provide a positive experience or users will not continue
using it. Therefore, the goals that should be achieved are :

 Visibility – the user should see what the need to do.

 Feedback – the user should be aware of what they have done.
 Affordance – because screen resolution is low, buttons need to be clear. Because our
users will not have much time to learn the app, objects to act on should have good
affordance.
 Responsiveness
 Robustness – the user should always be able to recover for errors, especially when use
a new app.
 Constraints – mobile apps generally do not offer many ways to do a task.
 Consistency – This is a principle that help user learn the system and not to perform
errors.