USER FEEDBACK

Thank you for your participation in the usability lessons. I have received criticism, kudos, and suggestions, both during the lessons and after they were over. I have responded individually to each idea; now I would like to briefly summarize these comments for the group.

The Good News (you said)

• The information was interesting and valuable.
• The introductory text was helpful.
• It was simple to read only those articles of interest.
• For most, the Web-based material was easy to access.
• "I like how one of the first articles was from an Apple engineer, and later, Apple's QuickTime was featured in the Software Hall of Shame."

Your Comments and Suggestions

• "The formatting was inconsistent throughout the lessons." (I struggled with a switch from Microsoft Outlook to Outlook Exchange during the mailing of these lessons. Some lessons were mailed as text-only, and others had their fonts and spacing changed.)
• "Please accommodate text-only mail readers. I have to copy the links to my browser, and the formatting codes that appear in my mail reader are a pain." (However, someone also said "The bold typeface headlines made it easy to follow.")
• "Can you eliminate the links and just copy the material?" (There are copyright concerns if we do that.)
• "Don't use underlined text in the email, it looks like a link."
• "Here's a good site you might include in the lessons: the Software Hall of Fame / Hall of Shame." (Thank you!)
• "Put the lessons on an intranet page so employees can reference them when they are doing design work, and the lessons won't fill everyone's email folders." (This is being planned.)
• "I only read them that day if I had the time." (Thanks for your time.)
• "Add exercises to reinforce the training. Different modes of learning reinforce new material." (Good idea. Time was a limiting factor.)
• "Some of the lessons took longer than '10 to 15 minutes.'"
• "Could you design smaller lessons - maybe one for the morning, and one for the afternoon?"
• "Lesson 'X' was the best yet." vs. "(The same lesson) was a waste of time."

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Eighty-five management and non-management employees have now completed the usability lessons. You can expect that Modular Mining's products, whether for internal use or for our customers, will now be viewed by someone with an eye toward usability.

At least one small project has already undergone usability testing. We should all benefit as this becomes a normal part of our development process.

Again, thanks for your involvement.

Fred Sapio
OnlineSapio@yahoo.com