Usability Study - Essay Example

Usability Study Place here) (Place your or corporation's here) or department info goes here) 12 December 2005 Usability Study: Which types of instructions are easier to follow for assembling flatpack furniture-text, graphics, or a combination It seems as if the assembly of flat-pack furniture is so complicated and difficult that there are entire web pages, jokes, and nightmare stories regarding this topic. Guardian Newspapers states, "But people assembling the furniture often find the instructions confusing, so they end up putting parts together in the wrong order". Washingtonpost.com has an article which has the details of a contest from a comical class: Engineering 382, Setting Up Ikea Stuff: Students will learn to piece together a particle board coffee table using an Allen wrench (provided) and a diagram consisting of dotted lines and arrows but no words. Prerequisite: Lego II. This week's contest was inspired by Don Troop of the Chronicle of Higher Education, who told the Empress of a British college that was offering a class in "assembling flatpack furniture." Your challenge: Come up with a comical college class, along with a description for the course catalogue. (DO2) The task seems so confusing that there are entire companies that charge to put together the "easy-to-assemble" furniture for you! Flatpack-construction.co.uk offers tohelp you put together your new furniture with this advertisement, "Help Usability Study 2 is at hand with flatpack constructionIt's simple, you order your choice of flatpack furniture and we will come and assemble it for you. For a fixed price with no hidden extras. Just tell us what you want putting together. We have extensive experience of bedroom/office furniture and kitchen/bathroom units. We have the tools, you provide the flatpak." Obviously, the instructions, whether they are in text or graphics, are quite complicated. There is much debate out there about the usability of the instructions. Some people think the text instructions are easier than the graphics and vice versa. Most people simply think that both text and graphics are impossible to follow. In other to determine which set of instructions are easiest to follow, or perhaps a combination of graphics and text instructions, the "Think Aloud Method" was used. This method requires participants to "think aloud", or talk, while they are following the instructions. Participants are to say what they are thinking before they start performing an action, during the task, and provide feedback. The entire time of task performance, they will speak their thoughts. It is very important that someone prompts the participants to continue talking throughout the entire process as it is not natural for one to verbalize each thought. A digital recorder was used as handwriting each person's thoughts/words would be quite tedious. Three participants were chosen. One followed the instructions that were only in graphics. Another followed text instructions. The third person followed instructions that were displayed by illustrations and words, or in other words, a combination of text and graphics. Each participant was given the choice to choose a helper; someone who could assist him/her in the assembling of the flatpack project. One participant chose her teenager. Another Usability Study 3 participant chose a spouse. The third participant selected a family member. This seemed necessary because most people tend to have help when assembling such a project and usually, they (the participants) would be the ones to choose who would help them in a normal situation. As stated earlier, a prompter would ask questions to insure that the participants continued to verbalize their thoughts. Questions could not encourage or direct answers in any way. They had to be open-ended questions. This allowed for answers that were only of the participants and to not possibly taint, distort, or influence the participants' feedback. Finally, one person was selected to verbally record all that was going on into a second digital recorder as important details could be forgotten whilst all the various tasks were being performed. This person also recorded the amount it took each person to complete the project. It was decided not to set a time limit on the project for that would not be realistic. The flatpack furniture that the team selected was a "basic" pantry/cupboard. Only one participant had ever assembled a piece of flatpack furniture and it was a basic television stand; therefore, something more basic was selected. The pantry/cupboard furniture piece that the participants put together is an enclosed bookshelf with two doors in the front. The doors has two brass handles in which to open the pantry. It is called a pantry because you can store food, towels, shelves, and various items, as beautifully shown on the photo in the front of the box that contained the various parts and pieces. This cardboard box which held the pieces of the pantry project consisted Of manufactured boards made from chipboard. There are other forms of manufactured boards including plywood, blockboard, medium density fibreboard, hardboard, etc. Chipboard was selected because it is cheaper and we assumed Usability Study 4 that most people who have never attempted putting together flatpack furniture would opt for not spending too much money on their first few projects. We wanted the project to reflect a reality situation as closely as possible. The instructions were listed on one sheet of paper. Every piece and number of parts were listed and a diagram was given of each. There were parts such as cam locks, corner blocks or joint bloc-fittings, two block fitting (joint locks), standard fittings, shelf supports, particle wood pieces, various hinges and screws, etc. The participant and his/her helper who followed the graphics instructions only were given instructions with the text marked out by a permanent marker. The participants and his/her assistant who used text instructions were not allowed to view the illustrations. The participant and his/her helper who would follow both the text and graphics instructions were allowed to view the instruction sheet without any changes or markings on the sheet of paper. As all participants started their projects, timers were going, digital recorders were being dictated into, and prompters were prompting. Participants needed to continue verbalizing their thoughts throughout the entire project and questions could not lead or steer their answers in any way. It was difficult to find ad lib questions that would deem answers without tainting the results. The first step, as suggested in the instructions was to make sure all the parts were there and to separate them. This was very difficult for the participants with the text-only instructions for they could not picture which piece was what in their minds. The ones with the graphics-only instructions had a much easier time and even more so, participants with complete text and graphics instructions found this to be a breeze. There seemed to be no missing pieces. Usability Study 5 As stated earlier, prompters found it difficult to think quickly on their feet to find questions that would encourage thoughts to be spoken. "What are you thinking about doing What do you think will happen when you do that Is this the piece you need and why What are you thinking now What will be your next step" These were just a few of the questions that had to be repeated over and over because it was not normal to verbalize each and every thought while trying to concentrate on putting together something that was not so easy to assemble. The participant who had already assembled a flatpack furniture before knew that there were letters stamped on each piece of wood. Others followed him upon this realization. However, some of the letters were not easily viewable and it was difficult to tell if a letter was a "B" or a "D". The chipboard was difficult to work with, as it would, well, chip! The edges were raw and very rough to the touch. Participants had to worry about getting splinters and not to rip the vinyl paper that covered the chipboard. This would result in a very terrible look for the final project. Participants were kept separate from each group and although they could hear one another, it was rather difficult to listen in while the "chaos" was going on. If someone was caught "cheating" or watching, a prompter would remind them to stay on task and to keep the project from being tainted as accurate results and observations were necessary. Whilst all this was going on, I was reminded of some comments that I read on the BBC News online, "Anyone who has ever attempted to build a piece of flat- pack furniture will be pleased to hear scientists are working to make them fool- proof. The scientists found that there are 44 ways to build an Ikea wardrobe Usability Study 6 without the instructions. Only eight of these result in correct and safe construction". Tyrell from the same BBC News Online article states, "Why can't flat-pack manufacturers put a little thought into their designs Offset or keyed dowels could prevent parts from being attached incorrectly. There's only one way to put a jigsaw puzzle together. Why is flat-pack furniture so different" Finally, the pantries were assembled after much confusion, laughter, stress, and many promptings to continue thinking out loud. In fact, most of the participants were more frustrated with having to verbalize their thoughts as they wanted to focus and concentrate on the task at hand! The participants with the graphics-only instructions found the illustrations to be very primitive, not very detailed, and some were so faded that you could hardly tell what was what. The graphics were small which led to much confusion, particularly regarding the small screws and bolts. It was very difficult to tell if one screw was slightly longer than the other or if indeed, they were the same size. They found the arrows and numberings seemed to be randomly placed without much thought. It was hard to tell what the graphics were trying to diagram, which way a screw was to be turned, and which rod was to go where. The small parts were so close in size and shape in reality and even more so in the graphics. They stated that text would definitely help clarify the drawings. It is necessary to add that the participants that had assembled flatpack furniture before were the ones who had the graphics-only instruction for this special project. The text-only instructions were very confusing as all who were involved discovered. Merely reading the instructions without any illustrations or diagrams Usability Study 7 demanded much brainwork and imagination. The only "graphics" they had were the letters that were printed on the wood pieces and even those were hard to read. Once again, the letters were hard to figure out. The letter "B" would look very similar to the letter "A" as the chipwood was "chipping" off and the stamped letters were faded somewhat. This group was the big "cheaters" as they were very tempted to look over at any graphics or demonstration they could get in order to compensate the text-only instructions that they received. These participants also lost their patients with the prompters more often and had the hardest time verbalizing their thoughts as they were placing most of their concentration on the text instructions and project at hand. All seemed to agree that this was the toughest way of putting together the furniture. The participants who had both the text and graphics instructions were also the ones who had never heard of flatpac furniture. They seemed to be confused from the very beginning although they were well briefed on what would happen and the goals and details of the project. With the upper hand and the advantage of illustrations, words of instructions, and letter-stamped boards, these participants, although had a difficult time with everything, seemed to fare better than the other two groups. This makes sense because as humans we have eyes, brains, hand, ears, and many parts in which work together to accomplish many actions and tasks. Some of us learn by visual, others learn by following step-by-step instructions, and yet others learn by just jumping right in and attacking a project through trial and error. The result of this project and the observations and findings deem that a combination of graphics and text instructions are the best way for assemblers to put Usability Study 8 together the flatpack furniture. Recommendations from participants and those who organized and conducted the project include: --Writing the text in complete sentences. --Text instructions, like graphics, should be addressed to your normal layman and not a techie --Graphics should be more detailed and not so small --Graphics such as arrows should point exactly to the specific location and not just placed in randomly in order to make it easier for one to tell what is being demonstrated --Perhaps the small parts should be numbered or color coded --Jigsaw cuts or extra grooves and shapes should be added. Simple cuts and slots without special details make it too difficult to match and know whether or not the right parts are being placed together. By the time you have spent hours, then you realized that you have put the wrong piece in the wrong place! --Don't assume that the instructions are easy. They may be easy for those who work in the manu- facturing plants or assemble flatpac furniture for a living but they are like Greek to us! --Graphics and text instructions should be placed in Usability Study 9 a step-by-step fashion and displayed alongside one another. All agree that this type of furniture is ingenious and a great way to save money but all also agree that the time, effort, and frustration makes one tempted to pay the extra price of buying furniture that is already assembled. Text and graphics instructions are the easiest to follow. The combination of both types of instructions was the preferred method to assembling flatpac furniture. However, it was agreed upon that both graphics and text could be improved upon by the manufacturers of such furniture. There are course on cd's on how to assemble flatpacs, running jokes on the complexity of such projects, and entire blogs and websites on how to figure out these instructions. As stated earlier, companies worldwide make money by charging fees to come to homes and assemble the furniture which is advertised as being "easy to assemble". With improvement and the combination of text and graphics instructions, flatpacs will become easier and easier to assemble as they do make it possible to afford quality furniture. Usability Study 10 Works Cited "Flatpacks: Hate Just Don't Them You." Guardian Newspapers. 4 Sept. 2002. Guardian Newspapers Limited. 12 Dec. 2005. . "Help is at Hand with Flatpack Construction." www.flatpack-construction. "Smart Furniture to end DIY Headaches." BBC NEWS Word Edition. 5 Sept. 2002. BBC News. 13 Dec. 2005. . Stuart, Tyrell. "Help is at Hand with Flatpack Construction." www.flatpackconstruction. "Smart Furniture to end DIY Headaches." BBC NEWS Word Edition. 5 Sept. 2002. BBC News. 13 Dec. 2005. . "The Style Invitational." www.washingtonpost.com. 4 Sept. 2005. The Washington Post. 12 Dec. 2005. . Read More