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Home > Meetings > January 2001
Usability at Fidelity
Thomas S. Tullis, Ph.D. (tom.tullis@fidelity.com)
Fidelity Investments Systems
January 24, 2001 — Fidelity, Salt Lake City
Meeting Summary
The Utah CHI community thanks Robert Schloss and Fidelity (Salt Lake City) for hosting an educational evening exploring Human Factors and Usability. Our esteemed guest was Dr. Tom Tullis, Fidelity Vice President (Boston). Tom runs the Human Interface Design department. As expected, Tom entertained and educated more than 30 of us - with a PowerPoint presentation and video detailing usability lab case studies and recommended rules-of-thumb . . . for effective web-based interface and interaction design.
As part of his presentation Tom shared the "Top Ten" Lessons Learned from Usability Tests. His presentation was much richer than this list, including video clips, screen shots, etc. but this list gives a feel for the information covered at the meeting:
10. Lack of Consistency
- Users get confused when they can't apply what they learn about using one page in a site to the others.
- User expect consistency in:
- Navigation mechanisms
- Use of frames
- Titles and headings
- Headers and footers
- Fonts, colors and type of graphics
9. Not providing enough "Finding" Tools
- When users can't find what they're looking for on a site, they look for a "search" mechanism or a site index.
- If they can't find them, they'll usually give up on the site.
8. Not Providing Sufficient Navigation Mechanisms
- Users get frustrated by "dead-end" pages (that don't provide mechanisms for getting to other pages of the site).
- Instead of using the "Back" button to back out of a page, they often want to jump directly to another section or related page.
7. Overloaded Pages
- Users get very frustrated with pages that they perceive as taking too long to load.
- Primary causes:
- Too many graphics or graphics that are too large.
- Auto-loading unnecessary material, such as WAV files.
- The most dreaded message: "Loading Java."
6. Bad Links
- Several different flavors of problems:
- Links that don't look like links, especially graphics.
- Links that look like links but aren't, especially underlined text.
- Not distinguishing between visited and non-visited links.
- Links that promise one thing but deliver something else.
- The "Click here" problem.
5. Too Many Levels of Pages
- Users get lost in a "deep" site (one with relatively few selections per page and many levels of pages).
- "Broad" hierarchies are easier to navigate than "deep" ones.
- Rule of thumb: Most site content should be no more than 2-3 clicks from the home.
- You can probably put more information and links on the home page than you think.
4. Using Color Combinations that are Hard to Read
- Users have a hard time reading text displayed using certain combinations of text and background colors.
- The main determinant of legibility is the difference in the "gray values" of the text and background.
3. Not Accommodating Your User's Screen Resolution
- The problems that frustrate users:
- Forcing the user to scroll horizontally to see everything.
- Making poor use of the space available, causing more vertical scrolling
2. Making Text Too Small
- When text is to small, users either skip it, read it incorrectly, or get frustrated trying to read it.
1. Not Designing from Your User's Perspective
- Probably the most common problem we see in the lab.
- Covers a variety of issues with a common theme:
- What seems logical to you (the developer of the site) may not always make sense to your users!
- Don't use the organization of your department, division, company, etc. to organize the content of your site.
- Don't use jargon or other terminology that may be well-know to you but that's unfamiliar to your users.
To understand more about Fidelity's commitment to usability, take a look at these articles:
- A
High-Tech Vision Lifts Fidelity
New York Times, Sept 17, 2000 (free registration required) - Putting
it to the Test @ Fidelity's Usability Lab
IBM/Ease of Us - Fidelity
Wins Usability Race
ZDNet AnchorDesk, July 17, 2000.