CA Technologies’ Russell Wilson explains why usability testing keeps management software and its features relevant to IT buyers and end users.
IT buyers can’t tolerate technology for technology sake in 2010. That’s why experts like Russell Wilson, vice president of product design and user experience at CA Technologies, are put to work making certain products not only meet end-user expectations, but also provide ease of use.
“We cover a huge portfolio of products and we are working on the company’s user interface design strategy for CA Technologies going forward,” Wilson says. “We have been performing usability testing at shows, big and small. Our mission is that the product has to be easy to use and do the important things better than anyone else.”
For instance, Wilson and his team set up shop at the recent Cisco Live conference in Las Vegas and at mini-CA World events in Munich and London to perform usability testing with attendees at the shows. Wilson breaks down what’s involved and why usability testing is critical for a software company.
Explain what exactly usability testing is.
We have software that lets us record how someone interacts with another piece of software. I’ll give you a scenario. We would sit a participant down in front of the computer and tell them where we wanted them to go, for instance, to change their profile settings. Then the software would track, by recording video, audio and everything that happens on the screen, how the end user navigated the software application.
What do you do with the recorded information?
We get to see video of the user while they are interacting with it. That means we get every screen click and motion of the mouse and how long it takes for them to accomplish the task we asked them do to. That gives us granular data right down to every click. For instance, a task we requested could have taken 10 minutes and 30 clicks, when it should have taken two minutes or five clicks. Then we investigate what we are doing wrong with the interface that the user wasn’t able to be as efficient through the interface as the software is supposed to be. Usability testing helps us hone in on what the problems are and make the software that much more efficient for the end user.
Wouldn’t different users approach the software differently? How do you determine what is inefficient software and what is user error?
We test multiple people and look for patterns. On average, we are testing 20 customers. For instance, if every single one of the end users tried to change their security system by going to the administrator page and we designed a separate page for that purpose, then we know we have a problem.
Why test at user conferences? What’s the benefit in that?
It’s a tool we use to refine the product, to discover speed bumps and issues. We do it at user conferences because testing can get pretty expensive. If I want to test 20 customers, typically I would have to coordinate or find customers and travel to them. This way you can have hundreds if not thousands of potential customers or at least people that fit the user profile right there. We can couple the testing with research, using the data to make improvements in the product.
What kind of response do you get from conference goers who may or may not be CA Technologies customers?
Customers typically love doing it and they love that their feedback is being giving back to research and development and not to a sales person or a marketing executive. They definitely get very vocal. No matter how many years you have been working on it or no matter how good you think something is, when you go out and test it with real users, you are going to find things you didn’t anticipate the feedback you can get.
Have end users ever made a suggestion that led to a key feature change.
Every time we have done it we have come back with at least interesting insights for us. We basically ask the customers to show us how they use the product and what they typically do within the product. Those are key tasks. Then you get the opportunity to prune the product a little bit, which is really important. In the past, the way software companies competed with products was just to throw more features in. But now our mission is that the product has to be easy to use and do the important things better than anyone else.
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