usability in the contact center

1 © User Centric, Inc., October 2012 We Believe Experiences Matter™ Webinar Series

Usability In The Contact Center

GfK User Centric November, 2012

Robert Schumacher, Ph.D. Executive Vice President

PRESENTERS:

#uxlunch

@UserCentricInc

2 © User Centric, Inc., October 2012


I’d like the number for Mail Boxes Etc in

Elgin, Illinois


Results

600ms Faster

$2.94 M Annual Savings

Old Design New Design


Another Example…

6 © User Centric, Inc., October 2012 6

The circle is above the star The circle is not above the star Yes or No?

A Positive statement, with Yes (affirmative)

response

A Negative statement, with No (negative) response


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The circle is above the star

The circle is not above the star

Positive statement, with Yes (affirmative)

response

Negative statement, with No (negative)

response

• Positive statements evoke faster responses than negative statements

• Yes responses are much faster than No responses (~ 500 msec)


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Different phrasings are used when you want different responses - Large variability in cognitive processing times - Significant impact on error

Affirmative Response

Negative Response

Negative

Positive Place all service orders? Cancel all service orders?

Do not cancel all service orders? Do not place all service orders?


Illustrates two key things…

Importance of measurement

Impact of design

(even small changes have BIG effects)


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Behavior Usability is about

Measuring & Changing

Behavior


Highest cost in the call center is human capital


When to Measure


When does the center performance return to where it used to be? The performance lag time is the

time to restore performance to previous levels.

Measuring the Contact Center UI M

easu

re (

Tim

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rror

s, e

tc.)

High

Low

Phase of Deployment Early Later

Current Performance Level (baseline)

Learning Curve of New Application

So the question often asked is…How much of a hit is there when we deploy this application? This is the initial performance decrement

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What benefit do I get long term? The long-term benefit of the new interface is the amount of eventual improvement.



easu

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Tim

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rror

s, e

tc.)

High

Low


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Initial performance decrement Lag time lag to restore performance Long-term benefit

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An even better design A poorly executed design

3


Measuring & Design Process For Contact Center


Incorporating Measurement into the Design Process

17 © November 15, 2012 – Proprietary and Confidential

Discovery

Design Evaluate

Performance Repeatedly

Benchmark Performance




Observe Use of System

Conduct Expert

Evaluation

Make UI Changes

Conduct Design

Workshops

Evaluate Performance Repeatedly


Model Performance

Approve Design?

Yes

No



• Improvement = Performance after design – Baseline performance

• Often existing measures can be used.

• Any outcome measured after the redesign should be measured before the redesign.

• Don’t rely on only indirect measures (e.g., customer satisfaction) – worth the time and money to collect a baseline measure of time, errors and other measures before the redesign is launched.

• You can’t collect baseline measures after the redesign is deployed!




• Detailed, controlled measurement of user behavior (summative, quantitative)

• In actual use

• In simulated use

• What to measure?

• Time to complete

• Errors – many kinds!

• Screens visited (efficiency)

• Satisfaction/preference






Conduct Expert

Evaluation

Make UI Changes

Conduct Design

Workshops



Model Performance

Approve Design?

Yes

No


Observe Use of System and Direct User Feedback

• Side by side or remote observations need to be based on understanding what representatives do



SAY ≠

DO


Observe Use of System and Direct User Feedback

• Side by side or remote observations help understand what representatives do

• Need to see how screen flow matches conversation flow (customer) and business flow

• If observation not possible, focus groups or interviews with representatives or managers might be an option

• Are incentives aligned?



Conduct Expert Evaluation

Uncover things user will never notice or say (e.g., UPPERCASE font);

With the context of observation, need to identify weaknesses of design

Inefficient screen-flow

Poor screen layout issues

Missing functionality






Conduct Expert

Evaluation

Make UI Changes

Conduct Design

Workshops



Model Performance

Approve Design?

Yes

No


Conduct Design Workshop

• Design workshops combine the wisdom of the domain with experience and expertise of UI team

• Efficient way to understand technical, regulatory, and business constraints that are not evident from observations

• Makes buy-in and acceptance easier



Make UI Changes

Changes documented by information design/architecture then sketches then wireframes and often prototypes

Each company has their own software development process into which the design phase is integrated.



Model UI Performance

• If some of the measures concern speed or efficiency, it may be worth modeling how fast the redesign will be.

• Can use a cognitive model (GOMS) that estimates how long specific tasks will take on different interfaces



Model Human Processor & GOMS

• Allows estimation of performance on certain tasks without taking field measurements

• Purpose is to ensure evaluate performance at the end of the learning curve




easu

re (

Tim

e, E

rror

s, e

tc.)

High

Low


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Modeling can help understand

performance here during design


Model Human Processor & GOMS

• Allows estimation of performance on certain tasks without taking field measurements

• Purpose is to ensure evaluate performance at the end of the learning curve

• Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection Rules (GOMS) models interface actions

• Based on empirically validated results from cognitive psychology



Model UI Performance

GOMS modeling involves – Breaking down common tasks into

components of mouse movements, widget use, and keyboard entries

– Assigning average values to each step based on prior research

– Sum of steps = time for task.

Multiple systems exist for doing GOMS. – Cogtool (Bonnie John) – Composite KLM (Jeff Sauro)



Review Design Changes

• When design is complete, the business needs to approve

• Strongly recommend field reviews

• Requirements are completed – often before code is written






Conduct Expert

Evaluation

Make UI Changes

Conduct Design

Workshops



Model Performance

Approve Design?

Yes

No


Measure Performance Repeatedly

Once the design is complete, and the system is deployed, performance is measured

The same measures are used after design as were used before design

Measuring performance once is never enough – because the benefits of the design change are masked by challenges of learning a new system (see next section)




easu

re (

Tim

e, E

rror

s, e

tc.)

High

Low


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Usability in The Contact Center

Questions? Robert Schumacher, PhD. Executive Vice President GfK User Centric [email protected] +1.630.320.3900

usability in the contact center

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