Visualization tools

I recently took a course on Big Data and found out a new software for visualisations. I found out about this software in a guest lecture where 24 hour hackathon in kaiser permanente was discussed and how they used this software for all the visualisations and won the hackathon.

Tableau Software is based on a technology used in Stanford to drag and drop to visualize data. The software helps data scientists to visualize data in several formats and has supporting tools. It is the easiest visualization tool that I have used so far and the visualizations come out amazing. The data just needs to be copy pasted to the bin, and the software automatically assigns measures and dimensions values. We just need to drag drop column and row names to convert the data in charts, graphs and maps.

It is so easy to use that any person who knows to use Excel to make charts will immediately start loving this software. There are other visualization tools like Many Eyes, Google Analytics, but by far, Tableau software public is the software that I loved the most. A sample visualization is shown below.

There are other tools like Many Eyes, StatPlanet. While ManyEyes is public, we need to upload the datasets to public to visualize. StatPlanet helps to create interactive maps which is a great tool for visualizing weather data, geographical data. StatPlanet has lot of tools like StatTrends, StatWorld where each tool is used for different visualizations.

Visualization of data is something that I enjoyed the most past few months and these tools definitely are a reason to it.

References:
http://www.tableausoftware.com/products/desktop#visualize-data-like-never-before
http://www.statsilk.com/software/statplanet

What should you remember while doing Beta Testing?

Why should we do a good beta test? Users get the first feel of the product and you get an initial real review. A first impression of the product goes a long way and might even make the product viral. Beta testing is like the first feedback. Hence, there would be a great number of points that you might have overlooked which might come up in beta testing. It is definitely a good practice to do Beta Testing before the final release of any app. Important tips that everyone should keep in their mind while doing beta testing is as follows.

1. You already would have known the target users. Finalize the target audience and screen the testers for beta testing. It might help sometimes to have people who don't know about the product (it product is a mobile app) test the product to get a very wide view of the product.
2. Never go into beta testing blindly. Have a well defined plan. Beta testing should be done for atleast a considerable amount of time before the product is released to give enough time for analysis and response.
3. Never do an open beta test. It will never work. Release the product to picked amount of people, or to people who have signed up.
4. Never add an extra feature in between beta testing. It might extend your testing period or might ruin the feedback response flow.
5. Only one out five people give proper feedback after properly testing the product. Its a nice idea to give some incentives to people who test the product. Will get them more interested.
6. Beta testing is usually done to do final touches. But, nowadays a lot of beta testing is done as a part of marketing strategy. A product is released to specific group of people from business to get an idea of the whole product. We usually might know the initial review of the product during beta testing and hence will have an effect on the overall business of the product.
7. Wait till you get a good amount of response for a feature before you change it.

Keep these simple tips in mind before you jump into beta testing. A successful beta testing should help the product and should go smooth. The more changes you make in beta testing, the more you have problems with your underlying design. Have fun beta testing your product!

References:
[1] http://blog.startapp.com/4-tips-beta-testing-success/
[2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BetaTest.html
[3] http://blog.appstark.com/post/26209583662/7-tips-to-beta-test-your-mobile-app

Why Facebook keeps changing its UI design?

I have always wondered why facebook keeps changing all the time. It is evident that they are trying to find a balance between keeping the audience attracted to the site and to monetize from the former. But when I looked it up, it seems that facebook has been doing a lot of research on how to target the audience.  One of the methods they use is 'Usability Testing'. They have been interviewing users to understand the first time users' experience, navigational efficiency and other general preferences of users. They have been listening to the users and redesigning the website to make it more easier for people to use the website and also to find hotspots to monetize from advertising.

One of the striking differences that I noticed in the newer mobile version of facebook is that, the left side slide-in navigation bar has been removed and changed to the right side. It seems that research showed that people were finding it challenging to use the left side navigation with all the links. It was difficult to scroll up and down in the left side. If you think about it, any right handed person will find it easier to scroll on the right side and not the left hand side.

Also, there had been a lot of changes in the right side of the website which is the hotspot for advertisers. It turns out that the chat online availability has better response now that it has been placed on the right side. A few years back, it was on the left side and I remember that I never used to pay attention to it. Also, the news feed has been changed to make it broader and brighter visually.

Old News Feed

New News Feed

So how do we do website usability testing? There are several different ways but the most common way is to set up several tasks like 'Sign up, Add a friend, Post in friend's wall, Add an album etc.,.' for first time users. The tasks are timed and video recorded while users try to finish the tasks. Also, users are asked to fill in questionnaires regarding how they did the tasks. Later, user's reactions, responses are analysed and improvements are made.

Facebook also does lot of usability testing. They conduct video interviews, do questionnaires, conduct tasks for first time users and also they track mouse movements, eye ball movements. They measure mouse movements, eye ball movements for finding hotspots and use information from video interviews, task related interviews to change the design of the website to make it simpler for people to use.

But still, the only part where they will score less in usability according to me is the task that involves user set their privacy settings. Studies show that people of age 20 to 40 find it very frustrating to change privacy settings because it is confusing and also because it keeps changing every few months. It is said that, the most annoying feature in facebook is to set privacy settings for individual albums and photos. Also, first time users get confused with 'Sign in' and 'Sign up' in the first page. It doesn't make sense to keep the sign in button small and sign up button enlarged.

From all I have seen and the efforts that facebook puts into usability testing, they still do need to improve to continue being the #1 in social networking.

References:
[1] https://www.facebook.com/business/news/An-Updated-News-Feed
[2] http://usabilitygeek.com/an-introduction-to-website-usability-testing/
[3] http://usabilitynews.org/usability-evaluation-of-three-social-networking-sites/
[4] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/facebook-is-rolling-out-a-more-simplified-news-feed-with-helveticaarial-fonts-new-cards-bolder-photos/
[5] http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2011/08/05/7-facebook-usability-mistakes/