Speed matters
If there is anything worse than being on the wrong side of the digital divide, it is being on it. A considerable part of India now has access to Internet, but so abysmal are the connection speeds in sub-urban towns and college networks that all efforts to increase user productivity in a web-app through intelligent UI can come to a naught.
We put PG Apply, our web-app for the larger mass of India seeking MBA admissions, to a small usability test at a Pune-based engineering college this weekend. Seven fresh graduates from a few private engineering colleges of Pune were put to a card sorting test and then a screen capture analytics test using Morae.
The pathetic Internet speed (download speeds of 5 kbps) on the college wi-fi was a welcome addition to our initial test environment of Internet Explorer 6 + Windows XP, making it all the more real.
- Contrary to beliefs, a user from a non-urban background (example: Marathi medium upbringing in Gondia, Eastern Maharashtra) does not have difficulty figuring out the function of complex UI patterns. As long as the flow has sufficient cues, a user very quickly figures out how a process funnel on a lightbox will work, or how to interact with a multi-select dropdown with checkboxes.
- What plays foul is a bad and unresponsive connection. It is not sufficient to just test the software on Internet Explorer 6. It is equally important to test it on realistic connection speeds. If your page load includes a CSS file, a few images and a JavaScript file, then on a slow and unresponsive connection they will all load asynchronously, causing the dreaded ‘Done, but with errors’ yellow icon to show up. Optimization of page loads, serving image sprites – they aren’t just cool developer fads of the day that can be done without. They are probably the deal clincher in deciding whether someone in a small town manages to see the face of your site or clicks the X button in frustration.
- In web forms, assisting cues or examples are required at the unlikeliest of places. When we asked why some users spent a few seconds hesitating to fill the ‘First Name’ and ‘Last Name’ boxes, they replied that they were not sure whether they ought to enter the name in capitals or smallcase!
- For all the advertising of ‘Free Laptops’ by private management colleges, MBA aspirants don’t hold it as an important parameter while joining a college. They also don’t deem the presence of hostel facility in an MBA institute as important. Reasons being – the vast landscape of private education in the country is based on optimized infrastructure. Hundreds of private engineering colleges across the country function without hostels; students stay in paying-guest accommodation. After having spent four years in such a system, hostels for post-graduate education are irrelevant to them.
The usability testing project has increased our curiosity to similarly look up user behaviour in different parts of the country. How do users in different cultures and markets of India interact with web artifacts? How do they differ in their need of information?
One of the things we are looking at is to build a comprehensive Design/UI Pattern Library for the Indian context, rigorously tested in real Indian conditions over a period of time. Do you know of such a project already existing? We’d love to know. But if you are a Graphic Designer / Interface Designer / Frontend Developer interested in such a challenge, do apply to us at jobs@pagalguy.com
Card sorting
More card sorting
Screen capturing on Morae
Gratification!
