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Designing for the Knowledge Gap
In an interesting article, Jared Spool recently wrote "Riding the Magic Escalator of Acquired Knowledge" about designing for users with a range of current knowledge levels. He describes this range as an escalator. At the bottom is no knowledge of the design. Moving up the escalator, Spool places the point of current knowledge, then the point of target knowledge, and finally he puts full knowledge at the top. The knowledge gap is the space between the user's current knowledge and target knowledge. Target knowledge is what many designers tend to assume the user posseses while designing the system.
This assumption is where designers run into trouble. I've written twice before about the curse of knowledge. For anyone designing a system or a website, it is extremely hard to unknow what you already know about your business, your services, your value proposition, and even the check-out process, login flow, or registration steps on your website.
To overcome the gap, designers can choose between training users or simplyfying the design. Training moves the user's current knowledge point further up the escalator. Simplyfying moves the target knowledge point down. Which is the right approach? User testing is a great way to understand if you have a knowledge gap and exactly how big it is. In addition, it's important to understand that the current knowledge points of all of your users aren't going to fall on the same spot on the escalator. So, if you identify a gap, you'll want to test many more users until you define a reasonable range for your universe of users. Then, you can start designing with an informed notion of where your users are on the escalator.
So, consider user testing for Christmas, as a gift to you and your users! It will improve your website. Merry Christmas!
curse of knowledge
Is it easy for the beginner?
An interesting experience with my two-year-old last week reminded me of one of the many reasons usability testing is so important: It’s hard to think like a beginner.
My daughter loves to “color on Mommy’s phone,” which means she wants to use a particular Sesame Street app that contains an iPhone version of a coloring book. I love it, as it has provided me with many consecutive moments of needed concentration. When she wants to start over on a new page, she would hand it over to me for help. One day, I decided to give her verbal instructions so she could learn to do it herself (a very popular concept with her age group).
Daughter: “Mommy, I want to color Zoe now.”
Me: “Ok, Sloane. What you need to do is touch the star.”
She touches the star which causes the following message to appear: “Are you sure you want to choose a new coloring page? Your coloring will not be saved.”
Me: “Ok. Now say ‘Yes.’”
Sloane: “Yes.”
The message remains on the screen. I get a puzzled look.
If I were instructing a person with a few more years under her belt, the phrase “say ‘Yes’” when presented with “Yes” or “No” buttons would not have elicited a verbal response. But, my sweet daughter is still rather new at all this and takes things a bit literally.
The obvious usability takeaway here is that something that is obvious to you may not be obvious to your user. I’ve written before about the curse of knowledge. The insider information you have about your company, the business environment, your website, and all the decisions it took to get where you are makes you unable to see the world, and your website, as if you were a beginner.
With usability testing, you have the opportunity to see things through sets of eyes that don’t connect to your brain. You’ll observe users doing and saying things that shock you. You’ll have those moments when you say to yourself, "I can't believe they...
- "can’t find that button.”
- "don’t understand what our company does.”
- “don't feel like we're giving them enough information to act."
- "can’t find the directions to our office, our return policy, our testimonials, etc."
Just like the exchange I had with my daughter; to me, it was obvious what I meant. To her, it was not and she was lost. Are you losing potential customers because you're not being as clear as you think you are?
curse of knowledge
The Curse of Knowledge: Another reason to usability test
In the book, they illustrate the curse with a memorable 1990 psychology study at Stanford of “listeners” and “tappers.” The tappers tapped out the rhythm to a well-known song such as “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “Happy Birthday” on a table while the listeners had to guess the song based solely on the tapped rhythm. Ahead of time, the tappers guessed the listeners could name the song 50% of the time. What really happened? The listeners guessed the song just 2.5% of the time. That means that out of the 120 songs tapped out during the entire experiment, just three were correctly named. That was quite a gap between what the tappers thought was obvious and what the listeners were actually picking up on.
Why were the tappers off by so much? Because they couldn't put themselves in the listeners' state of mind. While the listeners could hear only tapping, the tappers could hear the entire song in their heads.
In the case of websites and mobile apps, the curse of knowledge is a number of things. It’s knowing what you mean by the content on your site. It's knowing what items you sell go with other items. It’s knowing exactly what sets your business apart from the competition. It’s knowing all that is available and how to log in, check out, subscribe, find out more, etc. You know all the ins and outs of the decisions made, which is exactly what makes it difficult for you to look at it like your customers do. Are you sure your customers know where to click? Are you sure they understand the error messages? Do you know what content on your site they actually read and what it means to them?
Usability testing is a powerful tool that bridges the gap between you and your customer, the tapper and the listener. Contact us for more information and start your first usability test!
