Task force: HFES Website redesign

FINAL Report to HFES Executive Council

 

Source for this report: TF_WebsiteRedesign_Final.doc

 

Submitted by:           John F. (“Jeff”) Kelley

 

Date: 12/31/2012

 

Current Task Force Members:

 

Ex-Officio & Advisory:

 

Division Chairs (Advisory):

 

TASK FORCE RESULTS – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

The Website Redesign Task Force, instantiated by outgoing HFES President, Mica Endsley, was active during 2012 and was charged with improving usability and utility of the hfes.org website in serving the needs of its key constituencies (e.g., members, practitioners, faculty, students, chapter and committee members, press, congressional staffers, HFES staff, the general public, etc.) in keeping with HFES Strategic Goals.

We developed a two-pronged approach to achieve these ends. The near-term effort was to provide "quick hits" guidance to staff - things that could be corrected in the current website to improve usability in the short term. For the longer term, a plan was proposed to gather and rank user requirements in the form of User Stories (role, desired result, need or goal addressed). A modularized moving-forward process was also proposed to facilitate contributions by various volunteers and contractors after the Task Force is retired at the end of 2012.

To get the process started, three online pilot surveys were put in place at www.hfergo.com/hfesweb, followed up by a Birds of a Feather brainstorming session during the 2012 Annual Meeting. To date, there have been 36 "Quick Hits" proposed in the first survey with the most popular ideas getting on the order of 26 votes. Seven "competitor" websites have been identified for further analysis, and 17 strategic User Stories were proposed with the highest ranking stories garnering up to 23 votes.

The work of this Task Force will be taken over by a standing committee under the direction of incoming HFES President, Eduardo Salas in 2013.

The Task Force would like to thank the committee members and volunteers/contributors and, especially, co-chair Amanda Surprenant for helping to organize the brainstorming session.

 

DETAILED FINDINGS

The results of the 3 surveys are contained in a companion spreadsheet:

Surveys.xls  (Quick Hits, Competitive Websites, User Stories)

 

The Chair (and Amanda and Peter) are happy to keep these surveys live until such time as the new Standing Committee asks for them to be retired.  We also have access to User Zoom and have two volunteers to conduct a Card Sort to rationalize the current Information Architecture if that is desired.  Here is what volunteer Kristin Moore says about the Card Sort:

 

Once the content of the site is determined, a card sort will be performed to determine the most effective groupings for site content.  The sort will be done through an online card-sorting tool.  Participants will view page descriptions and labels for each individual page on the site.  They will be asked to group the labels into categories and label the categories in the way that makes the most sense to them.  Using clustering techniques, the card sort will help determine the number and types of categories site users prefer.  The data will be used to drive site organization and is a useful first step before developing site navigation strategies.

 

 

OTHER RESOURCES

long-range initiatives RECOMMENDED TO STANDING COMMITTEE:

 

Appendix: RECOMMENDED PROCESS

 

Here are some ideas about breaking up a "standard" methodology into smaller, collaborative pieces suitable either for assigning to a vendor or for volunteer contributions and remote participation. 

 

1.    Concept / Baseline

·         Evaluate current solution (probably heuristic assessment + surveys, but can consider benchmark testing if necessary to evaluate vendor performance)

·         Identify and evaluate competitive solutions (what to emulate, what to avoid)

 

2.    Analysis

·         Identify applicable, existing standards & guidelines

·         Define any business/branding requirements (the "push"), including overall scope

·         Define measurable usability requirements (including context of use)

·         Define user personas (behavioral) and/or roles (demographic)

·         Define user requirements (role + desired results + associated needs/goals, e.g., User Stories, i.e., the "pull")

·         Assess the intersections among: business/branding requirements, user requirements, available technology

·         Develop an Information Architecture by enumerating existing content and doing a Card Sort survey to rationalize navigation hierarchy

·         Model one or more high-level branding/navigational concepts and evaluate

 

3.    Iterative Design (or re-design)

·         Prototype new designs addressing selected clumps of user requirements

·         Add one or more example tasks (and click scenarios) to each selected user requirement

·         Iterative, task-based testing (e.g., cognitive walkthrough, possibly remote) against selected tasks/scenarios

·         Document new designs

·         Update UI/Style guides

 

4.    Develop & Test

·         Verify developed code against designs and any relevant guidelines/standards

 

5.    Deployment

·         Consider benchmark usability testing (if required, for instance, to evaluate vendor performance)

·         Establish ongoing feedback, metrics, analytics for continuing improvement

 

A few stray thoughts (probably all stolen from someone on EC):

·         A design contest for best re-branding concepts

·         Make student projects out of the assessment pieces (current solution, competition, iterative design), but institute some project management and quality control.

·         Re: business requirements and scope: what about mobile?  What about social web?  Vendor RFP might include a “Responsive Design” component (design the content with appropriate modularity and tagging to allow appropriate implementation on any platform).

 

APPENDIX: Chair’s rant:

For my own part, whether I am tweaking an existing design, doing a major re-design, or building a new solution from scratch, I like to have a sense of requirements in order to assure a "consumable" design (which I define as: useful, usable and engaging).

 

For me, requirements tend to fall into these broad categories:

·         User/Role definitions (who/where are the users?)

·         Business Requirements (the "push")

·         User Requirements (the "pull")

·         Context of use (e.g., platform, hw/sw environment, timezones, etc.)

 

I like to think of User Requirements in these terms (specified in the user's own language): For each role, what are the desired results (think: tasks) and the goals or needs addressed by each (setting the task into the context of the broader use of the application).  For this, I find it handy to follow the conventions of an Agile Software Development "User Story". 

 

I find that having a sorted list of User Stories is handy in a number of ways: 

·         Since they are framed in the user's own language, they are amenable to collaborative sorting and prioritizing (weighted against frequency, cost, and business requirements)

·         For existing systems, it can provide something to measure against to assess strength/weakness of the current system.  (Opinions not tied to actual tasks are nice and all, but are kind of like armpits: everyone has at least two of them.)

·         Even if we're just tweaking, it's kind of nice to have a picture of what the system, ideally, SHOULD do.  Helps to make future decisions about new releases or re-design.

 

If we're doing something more major, it helps to have a sorted list of User Stories to develop to; especially if they are scaled properly.  This is critical in Agile SW processes, and very useful in more waterfall processes.

 

APPENDIX: RELATED STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

Since the HFES website potentially touches on and supports so many of our activities, it seemed more reasonable to strike out the few Strategic Objectives that are NOT directly related than to collect those that are related…

 

HFES Strategic Plan

Strategic Goals and Objectives

 

A. Science and Practice Goal:       Advance both the science and practice of HF/E to maintain HFES as the premier scientific body in the field.

 

Strategic Objectives:

 

1.    Increase the impact factor of the journal.

2.    Advance the transfer and translation of our science.

3.    Identify research gaps and provide direction to the research within the field

4.    Develop mechanisms for taking positions on topics (Outreach Advisory). Mechanisms: TAG, blue-ribbon panels, organized information on the Web site; e.g., CDC, sports medicine.

5.    Develop a long-range plan for collaboration with the Federation.

6.    Increase the impact of EID.

7.    Explore partnerships and cosponsorships within HFES (TGs, chapters) and with other organizations to support science and education initiatives.

8.    Identify key remaining HF/E issues and support research and forums for discussion.

 

B.  Education and Training Goal: Promote the teaching of HF/E science, philosophy, and practice.

 

Strategic Objectives:

  1. Anticipate and prepare members for the future requirements and issues of human-centered design.
  2. Identify and help fill important gaps in available teaching and self-study materials.
  3. Provide forums for continuing education of HF/E professionals.
  4. Provide forums in which non-HF/E professionals can get specialized HF/E training.
  5. Provide forums in which students can get specialized HF/E training.

 

C.  Peer Networking Goal: Promote the evaluation and exchange of information among HF/E researchers, educators, and practitioners.

 

Strategic Objectives:

1.    Produce materials in which HF/E researchers, educators, and practitioners can present their work, knowledge, and ideas to the HF/E community.

2.    Provide forums through which HF/E researchers, educators, and practitioners can interact.

 

D.  Outreach Goal: Promote the exchange of information between HF/E professionals and those who need our services.

 

Strategic Objectives:

1.    Advance the level of knowledge about HF/E among nonmembers.

2.    Promote the sharing of information and interaction with nonmembers.

3.   Advance and promote the understanding and appreciation of user-centered design among the general population.

4.    Ensure that human-centered design principles are incorporated into industry standards and government regulations that significantly affect human performance and quality of life.

5.    Ensure that human factors and ergonomics professionals are included in committees, boards, commissions, panels, or other bodies that provide advice and guidance to government agencies and industries on issues affecting human performance and quality of human life.

6.    Translate and promote the use of HF/E principles from data into forms (such as tools and guidelines) usable for analyses, design, and evaluation.

7.    To actively solicit information from outside of profession that can benefit or enhance the discipline and membership.

 

E.  Organizational Excellence Goal:  Serve and represent the members as the premier scientific, engineering, and practice society.

 

Strategic Objectives:

1.    Enhance HFES decision-making, resource management, and member services to support strategic objectives.

2.    Pursue ongoing improvement and understanding of the unique attributes of HF/E.

3.    Develop leadership and member involvement at all levels of the Society.

4.    Providing leadership within the discipline at the international level.

5.    Ensure high-quality services and outreach to attract, maintain, and enable membership.