Today’s hot topic on the internet is “What’s this new Facebook Lite application?”
It looks like FaceBook jumped the gun on asking users to evaluate their new FaceBook Lite version. It wasn’t quite ready for prime time, it seems. But that’s only given people an opportunity to speculate about the purpose of the application.
The beta announcement that went to some users looked for very open-ended feedback:
We are building a faster, simpler version of Facebook that we call Facebook Lite. It’s not finished yet and we have plenty of kinks to work out, but we would love to get your feedback on what we have built so far.
I'm sure Facebook got to recapitulate every tester's nightmare about a release that escapes too soon. But there's another interesting thought here. This message has a succinct, one sentence statement of intention here. It would be interesting to know whether this is enough direction for users to give useful feedback. Would it be more useful to ask “Do you find this interface simpler to understand?” or “Do you get faster response time?”
Classically in usability studies, we go to great lengths to observe what people do with the software without prompting – with as few clues from the observer as possible. But the skilled observer is crucial here. In a usability study, that person is in a good position to interpret any difficulties with respect to the expected behavior of the user and the system together.
Untrained users are bad at accurately self-reporting their own behavior. That's why we have to train junior testers to express their observations in terms of expected versus actual behavior. I don’t expect most users to express themselves in those terms. I’d expect the vast majority of feedback to boil down to “like/don’t like” which is of limited helpfulness. User feedback with a "like/don't like" indication and some reason why they feel that way can be quite useful though, especially when aggregated over a large set of users. The folks at Facebook will have the opportunity to collect the data about the expectations of the users and how Facebook Lite matches to their actual requirements.
It's been documented that 80% of usability comes from the user's "mental model." I'd argue that requirements are inextricably linked (or should be) to this mental model, and the Facebook Lite beta is a way of getting at that. If the developers are smart, they'll pore over the like/dislike comments to find out where users are experiencing a cognitive disconnect, and then push the design more towards the model their commenters are building for them.
ReplyDeleteIs it deliberate on their part? If it is, very smart. If not, they still have an opportunity to use it as a way of uncovering REAl requirements, as you say.
I see your point. Sure, users could flag bugs-from-hell, but if they're asking "Should we produce this thing? Will people like it?" they have to give more information about what niche they think it serves.
ReplyDeleteThe Bugatti Veyron gets excellent reviews (once the test drivers regain consciousness), but at $1,500,000, it's not very practical for my morning Rt 128 commute. But my Accord wouldn't get to third gear before the Veyron could be in the next county. I might pick it for a bank heist (yes it has a trunk), but not to go to work.
Part of the secret of the success for Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc is metadata (that my line of work), both automagically collected or derived, and user-entered. Without it all that content might as well be in print.
However, all those options and data can confuse some people. I would say they should go to MySpace, but maybe they're not looking for sex or fans of their band. So maybe Facebook is looking to capture the less sophisticated audience. Personally, I think that would be a mistake.
If, however, the idea is a lighter-weight look and feel for low-bandwith/small screen users as that techcrunch article suggests, that could be done a whole lot easier with using different style sheets based on the client.
DISCLAIMER: Obviously I haven't seen this Facebook Lite thing.