Great Mentors and Mentees in Product Management

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Jeremy Horn

We recently just held the global Session 5 closing for The Product Mentor where everyone shared highlights of their experiences and what they learned. All the mentors and mentees did a great job over the past 6 months. Some exciting stats…

80% of all OKRs Completed (Mentee’s Goals for the Session)
4 Mentees Promoted
>60% of Mentees had career progressing conversations with their C-Suites

I would also like to take this moment to recognize those Mentors and Mentees that learned, engaged, and achieved above and beyond:

Awarded to Mentors for going above and beyond in experience, attention and accomplishment.

Jordan Bergtraum
Product Management Consultant
Talk(s): The Benefits of Being Responsible for Product Messaging, Users vs. Thought Leaders, Introducing Product to Your Organization
LinkedIn

Awarded to Mentees for achievements in learning and advancement within the field of Product Management.

Jessica Waite
Technical Product Manager, Townsquare Media
Article: So…Your Boss Changes Your Roadmap (coming soon)
LinkedIn

Peyvand Mohseni
Senior Product Manager, WANDA Inc.
Article: Know the World Your Product Lives In (coming soon)
LinkedIn

Receiving these awards is truly an outstanding achievement of which everyone recognized should be very proud. Please reach out and congratulate our latest Mentor and Mentee inductees. (hashtag: #tpm)

Thank you again to everyone who participated and looking forward to more great achievements with our new Mentors and Mentees in Session 6, kicking off this January!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

About The Product Mentor

The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…

Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.

Each Session of the program runs for 6 months with paired individuals…

Conducting regular 1-on-1 mentor-mentee chats
Sharing experiences with the larger Product community
Participating in live-streamed product management lessons and Q&A

Signup to be a Mentor Today!

Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.

Outstanding Awards in Product Management

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Jeremy Horn

This past weekend we just held the global Session 4 closing for The Product Mentor where everyone shared highlights of their experiences and what they learned. All the mentors and mentees did a great job over the past 6 months. Some exciting stats…

71% of all OKRs Completed (Mentee’s Goals for the Session)
3 Mentees Promoted
>50% of Mentees had career progressing conversations with their C-Suites

I would also like to take this moment to recognize those Mentors and Mentees that learned, engaged, and achieved above and beyond:

Awarded to Mentors for going above and beyond in experience, attention and accomplishment.

Nis Frome
Content and Product, Alpha UX
Talk(s): Rapid Prototyping
LinkedIn

Marc Abraham
Senior Product Manager, notonthehighstreet.com
Talk(s): Creating and Managing Product Roadmaps
LinkedIn

Felix Sargent
VP of Product, SeamlessDoc
Talk(s): Inheriting a Product, How to Interview a Product Manager
LinkedIn

Awarded to Mentees for achievements in learning and advancement within the field of Product Management.

Avinash Bajaj
Head of Product Management, Flixmedia
Article: How to transition a Product Manager to a Product Leader (coming soon)
LinkedIn

Lonnie Rosenbaum
Senior Product Manager, Booker Software
Article: How Communicating More can Help You Succeed as a Product Manager (coming soon)
LinkedIn

Liel Aharon
Appstore Product Manager, MediaMath
Article: Does your product management process actually solve your problems? (coming soon)
LinkedIn

Thank you again to everyone who participated and looking forward to more great achievements with our new Mentors and Mentees in Session 5, kicking off this coming weekend!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

About The Product Mentor

The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…

Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.

Each Session of the program runs for 6 months with paired individuals…

Conducting regular 1-on-1 mentor-mentee chats
Sharing experiences with the larger Product community
Participating in live-streamed product management lessons and Q&A

Signup to be a Mentor Today!

Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.

Mystical Presdo

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

Intra-product-type consistency, the Recognition and intuitiveness present within a product, is a key component in determining the overall Usability of a product. For an air travel website to be usable, it should have some basic, recognizable, consistency with other airline products. For example, on the top-left region of most every air travel website you will find a form to enter starting and destination locations, departure and return dates, as well as the number of passengers traveling on the given trip.

Quick-UX provides for the rapid, simple and quantifiable assessment of a product’s User Experience (UX). In answering the question of Usability, "Can I use it?" the sub-category of Recognition is one of frequent discussion, especially in the latest wave of online products and how they handle content presentation and interaction.

Today, we will look at 2 examples of Internet products with Poor Recognition, representing a Recognition value of 0.

Example 1: Poor Recognition (value = 0)

Presdo is a beautifully simple and unique event planner. Unlike all other event planners, there is neither a ‘create event’ nor ‘create’ button on the homepage. There is, however, a single text field prompting for an event description alongside a ‘do’ button.

It is not until the initial stage is grasped and acted upon, by the user, that any Recognizable elements, from ‘create event’ to ‘when’ and ‘where’ become evident.

Presdo is a wonderful example of product with Poor Recognition. A product does not have to be an ugly website or present a horrible idea to get a poor rating. Sometimes the most unique concepts are least easy to recognize. And, Presdo is just such a product.

Example 2: Poor Recognition (value = 0)

Perhaps the easiest example that exemplifies Poor Recognition is Ai Interactive Media’s website – with confusion all around.

While this product is clearly aiming to present a unique and fun experience, it should be obvious to all that the method of using and interacting with the product, as well as merely understanding what the product is trying to communicate, is difficult, and only achievable after spending a good deal of time with it. There are no recognizable elements, links, buttons, instructions, etc., that guide the user into making any decision.

Some recognizable clues become obvious after guessing to click on the moving, spiraling, zooming discs (perhaps CDs?). After clicking on one of these discs, another, uniquely distinct, interface is presented. On this screen, incomparable to any industry norms and unrecognizable to the average user, the user is presented with many more new concepts with very few being Recognizable actions (seemingly clickable), e.g. ‘Launch Work.’

To help everyone gain a deeper understanding of Quick-UX and how to benefit from performing quick, quantitative analyses of User Experience, I am, over the course of this series providing real-world examples of Recognition values…

Broad Recognition (value 1)

Fair Recognition (value 0.5)

Poor Recognition (value 0)

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the Usability and Recognition of Quick-UX, the quick and easy method of generating quantifiable and comparable metrics representing the understanding of the overall User Experience of a product, as well as other insightful posts from The Product Guy.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

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A Spot on myPunchbowl

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

Today, we will look at 2 examples of Internet products with Fair Recognition, representing a Recognition value of 0.5.

Example 1: Fair Recognition (value = 0.5)

Starting on the homepage, a feature commonly expected and observed on almost every event planning website, is the ‘create event’ button (or ability), and this is noticeably absent on this website.

myPunchbowl is a sound online event planner achieving Fair Recognition, a Recognition value of 0.5. The product presents minor changes in how it approaches the event creation process, from modified grouping of information to the sequence of steps that must be traversed.

The beginning of the event creation process provides no guidance as to what the subsequent steps will require or where / when the user will be prompted for the basic event information (the "when" and the "where").

In this first stage, when the user is just trying to orient him/herself, and accomplish the common task of defining an event, they are presented with four choices of how one may like to proceed, instead of just being taken to the next logical, expected, stage of the event process.

It isn’t until the user gets to the ‘Your Design’ stage that they are presented with a very recognizable interface for guiding them through the remainder of the event creation process.

There are basic elements that a user expects when creating an online event, from understanding the sequence of events to knowing how to enter the minimal information to get the event set up and completed. myPunchbowl forces the user to jump through the hoops of ‘event type’ and ‘initiation design’ before having the opportunity to enter information into the most expected features of online event planning, Title, Date, Time, Address, etc.

Altogether, it will not take the typical myPunchbowl user, or for that matter, an online event planner user, too long to orient themselves (through some poking, clicking, interacting), adapt and learn how to use the fairly Recognizable myPunchbowl event creation process.

Example 2: Fair Recognition (value = 0.5)

Sometimes the things that set you apart, those things that contribute to providing a unique experience can also lead to some unexpected results for the average user.

The typical travel website presents the user with a request for the basic information on the homepage, for example, start and end date, origin, destination, and number of passengers. Here too is where the Vayama, a travel website, begins the travel planning process.

After defining the basic parameters for a trip, a search is typically initiated. It is at this stage that Vayama‘s unique approach to simplifying the process results in a less Recognizable experience. On the generic travel website, the user, upon initiating the search, is brought to a specific webpage for browsing, and filtering the results.

Many websites also allow for the modification of the search parameters from the search page, while others require the user to return to the location from whence the search was initiated.

Vayama has combined all of these commonly separate pages into a single user interface that adapts as the user interacts with it. It isn’t until the user has to specify the travelers, select the seats, and pay for the tickets, that they even have to leave the homepage of the site.

The combining of commonly separate steps presents its own set of Recognition challenges for the product’s users.

The initial search form alongside the search results makes one think that they can change anything on the page and alter the results. However, this is not the case. Search results pages typically present all of the controls that will filter and impact those results. The unique presentation and process at Vayama, result in different behaviors and set of expectations, requiring some finesse, poking, and interaction to adjust to this paradigm shift in travel planning.

This page requires some clicking and then paying close attention to see if there has been either no discernible reaction or, in other instances, an actual change. Expanding on this example, modifying information within the filter section has immediate impact on the search results, while modifying information within the top half of the form, the basic parameters, has no observable impact on the results, until the ‘search’ button is re-clicked (and all settings with ‘search section’ are reset and results erased).

Another section of the website that results in achieving the Fairly Recognizable rating is the seat selection interface. The seat selection is very cool, but different. After a few seconds the user can orient to the 3D presentation — which is both unexpected and an unusual presentation within the travel industry. Most users won’t have an issue with the format, but the seat selection can be tricky and will require minor adaptation.

Nothing at Vayama is overwhelmingly unrecognizable (much of the overall experience is fun) and, being Fairly Recognizable, can, with some finesse, be figured out and used by the average user.

* * *

Broad Recognition (value 1)

Fair Recognition (value 0.5)

Poor Recognition (value 0)

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

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Familiar pingg

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

Today, we will look at an example of an Internet product with Broad Recognition, representing a Recognition value of 1.

Example: Broad Recognition (value = 1)

The typical event planner either presents all of the event options on one simple page, clearly allowing for the control of all facets of an event, or distributes the event creation into a directed, common sequence of steps (a,b,c,d..)

pingg provides a good example of an event planner with Broad Recognition, a Recognition value of 1. From the moment you arrive at pingg, there is no question as to what you can accomplish with the product, with clearly recognizable ‘Create’ buttons throughout the product. pingg‘s event creation process puts everything both expected and needed right in one place, on a single page.

The event creation page allows for easy, familiar review of the controls that have come to be standards within the online event planning market space. The event details allow for providing as much or as little information as may be required with respect to the date, time and location — each visual component interfacing through standard methods (e.g. the date selection is made via a calendar drop-down).

The guest list too, is right at the user’s fingertips, and ready to import a friend list or take manual entry of each guest.

All of the labels and sections on the pingg website use very familiar terminology and cater to the base inclinations inherent to defining and launching events through the help of online tools, extending throughout the product, and also evident on the user’s homepage / dashboard.

pingg‘s presentation of a broadly recognizable User Experience eliminates the need to hunt and poke and click to figure out where, and if, something being sought is available.

Broad Recognition (value 1)

Fair Recognition (value 0.5)

Poor Recognition (value 0)

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

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On the Recognition of Quick-UX

Posted on October 13, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

On the top-left of the front page of most air travel websites you will find a form to enter the starting and destination locations, and departure and return dates, as well as the number of passengers traveling on the given trip.

A common thread amongst blogs, regardless of the theme, is to have a top-level search box alongside an obvious RSS subscription link.

With online shopping websites, some of the most familiar and common characteristics are top-level, browsable categories, a search box in the page header, and, often, the presentation of special or new products.

Intra-product-type consistency, the Recognition and intuitiveness present within a product, is a key component in determining the overall Usability of a product. For example, for an air travel website to be usable, it should have some basic consistencies with other airline products (see aforementioned examples).

The Recognition variable’s rubric is:

The Recognition variable is assessed from the perspective of an average user and is assigned a value of…

1 if the interface and product, in general, feels familiar and is easy to use,

0.5 if some poking, finesse, and interaction are required before the user will be able to gather his or her bearings in the use of the product,

0 if the average user will have clear difficulty understanding (1) how to use the product and (2) what the product is trying to communicate.

Over the next several weeks I will be providing real-world examples of Recognition values…

Broad Recognition (value 1)

Fair Recognition (value 0.5)

Poor Recognition (value 0)

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

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Should I use it? Evaluating Usefulness through Quick-UX.

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

Usability and Usefulness are also two of the three (the third being Desirability) primary categories involved in Quick-UX and the rapid evaluation of User eXperience.

It takes more than good Usability to have a good product. Another of the key factors in evaluating the overall User eXperience, and, in this case, the Quick-UX rating of a product is Usefulness. The question that naturally follows the Usability question of “Can I use it?” is…

Should I use it?

Again, as in the quick assessment of the Usability variables, and still adhering to the goals of Quick-UX (quick assessment for summary, directional guidance, and quantitative comparison), the variables that constitute the minimal representative subset for Usefulness are…

Functional Expectations,
Error Management (how they are handled and prevented),
Product Differentiation (including the question, “is it Memorable?”),
Findability (aka search engine and bookmark “friendliness”), and
Credibility.

Functional Expectations

A product’s marketing, website content, branding, language and layout combine to set the consumer’s expectations of the what they should anticipate to ‘get out of’ the product. As in many broader areas of life, expectation is critical. For example, if the user is lead to believe that they will be receiving factual numbers with interactive analysis tools about a topic, but instead receive highly subjective opinions, then expectations are sorely mismatched.

To assess the value for Functional Expectations ask the question, “Is this what the target user for this site is going to expect?” The value assigned to the Functional Expectations variable is…

1 if all, major and minor, Functional Expectations are met.
0.5 if some of the core expectations are met. The core expectations consist of the primary implied or promised functionality of the product.
0 if the overall Functional Expectations are missed. The average user will find that the behavior and content of the product is 100% not aligned with any level of expectation set by the product.

Error Management

Ideally, the user can be provided with sufficient guidance to be prevented from making Errors or choosing mistaken, time consuming, paths. Error prevention can be, for example, helpful mouse-overs with timely assistance or real-time checking of the user’s inputs (an email address for example) and making sure it is correctly entered before allowing the user to submit and proceed with their information. However, in places where Error prevention does not suffice, a product should provide clear and simple messaging that allows the user to get back on the correct path, quickly and easily.

A product that does little to mitigate errors or one that frequently churns out thorny error messages, weakens its potential Usefulness.

In evaluating, the Error Management variable is assigned the value of…

1 if the chance of making a mistake is rare, resulting from broadly implemented Error prevention measures. And, should an error occur, the messaging is always easily understood, clear about how to avoid in the future, and will rapidly allow the average user to get back to their desired actions.
0.5 if a few to many Errors are encountered, but can be recovered from in a straightforward manner whereby the same user will also be able to learn to avoid the same Errors in the future.
0 if the same Errors are made frequently and the average user will most likely find them to be difficult to avoid.

Product Differentiation

Assessment of the Product Differentiation variable benefits from at least a minimal level of experience and knowledge of other products similar to the one being assessed. If the product undergoing Quick-UX has a unique solution it is important to understand the scope of this memorable distinction.

I recommend that when determining the value for Product Differentiation to clearly identify and state the universe of products within which this current product is being evaluated. This will allow for more consistent and repeatable results.

Computed a little bit differently than many of the other Quick-UX variables, Product Differentiation’s final value is represented by the sum of the identified differentiating elements. If there are found to be no memorable aspects to the product, the variable is assigned the value of 0, otherwise…

0.2 is added if one of the points of Product Differentiation can be found to be its user interface
0.2 is added if the product distinguishes itself through its product-user interactions
0.6 is added if the product provides a unique and innovative functionality / solution to the problem at hand.

Findability

Findability, within the scope of Quick-UX, values the extent to which a product can be indexed by search engines, as well as bookmarked by its users. Somewhat common with many “ajax-y” websites, the user can interact with the product, the content changes, details are loaded, but the URL stays the same as it was when the user first arrived at the site, or right after logging in. The content presented to the user, in this described scenario, is not only impossible to bookmark, but search engines are not going to be able to uncover the data if they cannot easily associate the found content with its own unique URL.

If a website provides an experience that simply cannot be bookmarked, where the URL stays constant throughout the experience, its Findability value is 0.
The Findability variable is assigned the value of 0.5 if at least part of the primary functionality of the product allows for bookmarking and search engine indexing.
The product achieves a value of 1 for the Findability variable if the ability to bookmark, and distinct URLs, are found to be pervasive.

Credibility

Credibility is critical within an online product. If there is no trust between the user and the product, then the Usefulness of that information becomes questionable. For example, if I am using a product that helps me choose the best bank for my money — the product must clearly communicate its veracity in the matter. In choosing the bank, I not only want to know the facts being provided to me are coming from a reputable source; I want to have confidence, through verification, that the advice is not coming from the very bank that is being recommended.

There are some very basic measures of Credibility that can be easily and quickly determined for Quick-UX, as well as in the broader and ever changing world of online products. The Credibility variable is assigned its value much like the Product Differentiation variable – via summation. The minimum value of Credibility is 0, or none. The Credibility variable adds…

0.15 if no obvious typos are found throughout the product,
0.175 if email contact information is provided,
0.175 if telephone contact information is provided,
0.25 if a physical address for the location of the business is provided,
0.125 if there is an “About Us” page that contains bios about the members of the team behind the product, and
0.125 if, on the “About Us” page, alongside the Bios, direct contact information to each of the individuals listed can be found.

Quick & Useful

Taken all together, these variables (Functional Expectations, Error Management, Product Differentiation, Findability, and Credibility) represent the Usefulness category of Quick-UX for the evaluated product. When looking at an entire product, the question “Should I use it?” represents only 1 of the 3 core components (Usability, Usefulness, Desirability) of a Quick-UX evaluation – a sure-fire, rapid way to obtain concrete and comparable means by which to assess a single product or compare its strengths and weaknesses to other products.

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Can I use it? Evaluating Usability through Quick-UX.

Posted on March 31, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

The first of the 3 primary components of Quick-UX, of which I will be discussing in greater depth, is the one of Usability. Put simply, Usability is a measure of how easy something is to use.

In sticking with the primary goals of Quick-UX (quick assessment for summary, directional guidance, and quantitative comparison) the variables constituting the minimal representative subset for Usability are…

Accessibility,
Consistency,
Recognition,
Navigation, and
Page Load Time.

Accessibility

Accessibility is the measure of how many differently skilled/abled types of people (including individuals with disabilities) in varying locations (e.g. mobile web) can make use of a given product. There exist many, very thorough, guidelines for determining the degree to which a product adheres to accepted accessibility standards. However, many can be very complex and time-consuming, also requiring the study of a good deal of the underlying code — much of which goes against the goals of the ‘quick’ part of Quick-UX.

I use a robust (and free) proxy for quickly assessing a product’s Accessibility through the use of the Functional Accessibility Evaluator (fae) link. The fae’s resultant scores are averages which, in turn, are normalized to a range from zero to one to represent the value for Quick-UX‘s Accessibility variable.

Consistency

Consistency is a fundamental component of Usability. The less learning a new user has to do to use a product the more usable is that product. Products should not have multiple interface elements, page layouts, or content that are used for the same purposes, but vary depending on how the user got their or where they are currently looking.

For example, if the product/site is in the travel industry and the site often references ‘travel search engines,’ a consistency that can grow confusing (inconsistent) is when the language that describes the same engines varies from instance to instance, from ‘engines’ to ‘tse’s,’ to ‘search travel engines,’ etc.

The determining of the value for the Consistency variable is done through the brief surveying of the product, and assigning a…

1 if there are no apparent inconsistencies,
0.5 if only minor, non-intrusive inconsistencies are found,
0 if there exist inconsistencies on major element(s) or a majority of minor elements. Inconsistencies on major elements lead to immediate confusion and second guessing information being conveyed.

Recognition

The measure of the Recognition and intuitiveness of a product conveys how easily an average user of a product can immediately grasp how to use it. When evaluating this Usability variable remember… YOU are NOT an AVERAGE user. The Recognition variable is assessed from the perspective of an average user and is assigned a value of…

1 if the interface and product, in general, feels familiar and is easy to use,
0.5 if some poking, finesse, and interaction are required before the user will be able to gather his or her bearings in the use of the product,
0 if the average user will have clear difficulty understanding (1) how to use the product and (2) what the product is trying to communicate.

Navigation

Evaluating the Navigation variable as it relates to Usability (and Quick-UX) also includes, in addition to site navigation, the review of the site’s flow, transitions, interactivity, and clear communication of progress. If a user can’t figure out how to get from point A to point B, or is not presented with clear information as to how he or she got to point C or that there remain points D through Z to still travel, the overall Usability of the product can be sorely damaged.

The Navigation variable is assigned the value of…

1 if the product presents a straightforward decision process, leveraging animated transitions when appropriate, providing clear feedback, and communicating progress within each multi-stage task,
0.5 if the two following conditions are met:

occasional, but easily correctable, mis-steps in accomplishing tasks and/or completing processes occur, and
there exists a visible current progress indicator for all multi-step tasks,

0 if any of the following scenarios occurs with frequency:
- resultant Interaction or other resultant event occurs contrary to the desired decision path,
- surprised by result of interaction, or
- no communication of progress, flow, or navigation.

Page Load Time

There are some products out there (Twitter comes to mind) that could not possibly have an easier to use interface coupled with a simpler purpose (to say what you are doing) that are frequently rendered barely, or completely, unusable due to entirely unacceptable product responsiveness.

A company can have the best product around, but if the pages are too sluggish, they can achieve a real pain-point in the overall user experience, rendering a product unusable.

Assessing the Page Load Time variable requires very little of your time. However, I do recommend you average at least a few data points over the course of a day, or days, to make sure you have an accurate sense of the normal product responsiveness.

If the product typically loads the information promptly (within acceptable expectations) then the Page Load Time variable is assigned the value of 1.
If the product exhibits the occasional, inconsistent delay, use 0.5.
And, if the product (like Twitter, at the current moment) has frequent and long delays (including outages) the value for Page Load Time variable is 0.

Usability. Quickly. Done.

The quantitative assessment of these variables are structured to provide a quick and painless method of evaluation to form a summary, directional guidance, and/or values that facilitate inter-product comparisons through the answering of the basic question…

Can I use it?

When answers to the above question of Usability is combined with…

Should I use it? (Usefulness)

Do I want it? (Desirability)

… the result is a product’s overall, repeatable, quantitative assessment of User eXperience.

Enjoy! (and discuss)

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Quick-UX. Quick Heuristics for User eXperience.

Posted on March 24, 2008 by Jeremy Horn

Introducing… Quick-UX

There are many procedures, rubrics, methods, analyses and theories with respect to assessing the overall User eXperience of a product. Most User eXperience assessment approaches require a heavy investment of time, analysis and effort.

Often, a quick assessment of User eXperience is more aptly called for. A quick assessment allows for rapid compilation of simple heuristics that can be very handy in providing…

a summarized view of a product’s overall User eXperience,
directional guidance for a product’s future development, and/or
metrics for comparison with other products.

More detailed and extensive heuristics (many with hundreds of variables to evaluate) exist that delve into the finer details that lead to more directly actionable steps, but they are neither cheap in time nor money.

Quick-UX is a method that I have developed and refined over time and frequently utilize when quick assessments are best suited to the task. The method that I describe below is a great way to build a summary description with quantifiable and comparable metrics, representing the understanding of the overall User eXperience of a product.

The Quick-UX evaluates the degree to which a product successfully addresses the following 3 questions:

Can I use it? (Usability)
Should I use it? (Usefulness)
Do I want to use it? (Desirability)

The elements evaluated in response to each question constitute a minimal representative subset that accurately addresses the question posed while adhering to the goals of Quick-UX.

Evaluating Usability

Whether or not something can actually be used is critical to a product. Quickly evaluating the ease with which the typical consumer can use a product consists of looking at the following variables:

Accessibility,
Consistency,
Recognition (also including Intuitiveness),
Navigation (also including site-flow, transitions, and interactions), and
Page Load Time.

Each variable here, as well as those making up the other 2 evaluation categories (‘questions’), possess specific rubrics to generate repeatable and quantifiable values (each normalized to be of the range from 0 through 1 or 2) that can consistency be understood and compared to like evaluations. For the Quick-UX, each category can, through the summing-up of each of its values, achieve a maximum category score of 5 (minimum being 0).

Evaluating Usefulness

What good is a product if it isn’t useful? Does the product solve a new problem, or an existing problem? Does it do so in an innovative and creative way? The quick evaluation of Usefulness is constituted by an assessment of these variables:

Functional Expectations (expectations are created via marketing, content, branding, etc.; put another way, ‘were the functional expectations of the product, from the perspective of the consumer, achieved?’),
Errors (including handling, recovery, and prevention),
Product Differentiation (including memorability),
Findability (i.e. search engine friendliness), and
Credibility.

Evaluating Desirability

The Desirability of the product, its appearance and the feelings it can stir in the user through the methods of presentation, can often be a good proxy for the organic word-of-mouth campaigns and buzz that spring up around it. Desirability taps into the emotions of the product’s users through:

Aesthetics (and Minimal Design),
Page Layout,
Color Scheme (including Contrast), and
Typography.

Desirability consists of only 4 variables. Aesthetics, unlike all of the other variables in the Quick-UX, is normalized to a range from 0 through 2, due to its greater impact on the overall desirability of a given product.

Try it. Use it. Tune it.

All of the values, when summed up (max. value of 15), form the UX (User eXperience) Rating for the evaluated product. The higher the rating, the better the product’s overall User eXperience. My favorite use for this evaluation is to quickly compare the User eXperience of multiple products with one another.

As the Internet and online products evolve I update and adapt my approach to quick evaluations. Let me know how the Quick-UX works for you. Tweak it, adjust it to suit your particular goals. Please share your findings.

What sort of quick User eXperience evaluation methods do you use?

More Information

You can read more about alternate User eXperience evaluation heuristics and theories at these websites…

Ten Usability Heuristics (link)
Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility (link)
The User Experience Wheel (link)
Metrics for Heuristics: Quantifying User Experience (part 1 part 2)
User Experience Design (link)
User Experience Strategy (link)
How To Quantify the User Experience (link)
Designing Interfaces (link)

Enjoy & Post experiences with Quick-UX and other methodologies.

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

The Product Guy

Everything product management.

Tag Archives: recognition

Great Mentors and Mentees in Product Management

Outstanding Awards in Product Management

Mystical Presdo

Example 1: Poor Recognition (value = 0)

Example 2: Poor Recognition (value = 0)

A Spot on myPunchbowl

Example 1: Fair Recognition (value = 0.5)

Example 2: Fair Recognition (value = 0.5)

Familiar pingg

Example: Broad Recognition (value = 1)

On the Recognition of Quick-UX

Should I use it? Evaluating Usefulness through Quick-UX.

Should I use it?

Functional Expectations

Error Management

Product Differentiation

Findability

Credibility

Quick & Useful

Can I use it? Evaluating Usability through Quick-UX.

Accessibility

Consistency

Recognition

Navigation

Page Load Time

Usability. Quickly. Done.

Quick-UX. Quick Heuristics for User eXperience.

Introducing… Quick-UX

Evaluating Usability

Evaluating Usefulness

Evaluating Desirability

Try it. Use it. Tune it.

More Information

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Example 1: Poor Recognition (value = 0)

Example 2: Poor Recognition (value = 0)

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Example 1: Fair Recognition (value = 0.5)

Example 2: Fair Recognition (value = 0.5)

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Example: Broad Recognition (value = 1)

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Should I use it?

Functional Expectations

Error Management

Product Differentiation

Findability

Credibility

Quick & Useful

Share this:

Like this:

Accessibility

Consistency

Recognition

Navigation

Page Load Time

Usability. Quickly. Done.

Share this:

Like this:

Introducing… Quick-UX

Evaluating Usability

Evaluating Usefulness

Evaluating Desirability

Try it. Use it. Tune it.

More Information

Share this:

Like this: