CUA of the Month – May, 2007

Winning the "mental models" match

by June Oliver

Eric Edge is a product manager for the Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN). The network offers tools for building Web sites, driving traffic to them, and strategically targeting Yahoo!'s ads to increase site revenues.

"I credit certification with helping me land this position," says Eric, who joined Yahoo! in 2005, three months after earning his CUA credential. "I had a lot of experience and always kept abreast of user-centered design through my own research. But HFI has done an amazing job of concentrating the experience of leaders in the field into an accessible program. The certification carried weight with Yahoo!'s customer-centric decision makers."

Eric's attraction to usability work has evolved throughout his career. Interestingly, he first worked as an architect.

"It's obvious in architecture that you would not create a blueprint without talking to your client," he explains. "But often Web interface design is done without direct user involvement.

"Going out and talking with end-users is the most satisfying and informative part of product development for me. Inputs for requirements can come from multiple internal sources, but it's crucial to talk directly with the end-user. I want to put a face on the user, understand their pain points and find out what they really need."

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Depending on the project, this might involve dozens or even hundreds of conversations. Eric has honed his interview skills through a wide variety of Internet business experiences. His user-interface design skills led him into several consultancies where his clients included Hewlett Packard, Texaco Aviation, Shell Chemical, and Unisys. He gathered and analyzed business requirements for these Fortune 1000 and other middle-market companies and contributed to business applications, creative media, enterprise integration, and Web services. With such a range of clientele, Eric says, "I learned how to put people at ease and ask the right questions."

From the right questions come insightful answers to client problems.

One such problem Eric recently addressed was the critical dilemma of Publishers who fall out of compliance with Yahoo!'s Terms of Service (TOS) that ensure the safety, legality, and full functionality of the YPN. The high quality of the network is part of what makes it so attractive to clients, but TOS violations can result in account suspensions.

Eric's answer to this problem was the YPN Compliance Manager, a tool which helps publishers pinpoint problems with the implementation of their Yahoo! ads, or problems with content on the same page as their Yahoo! ads. The Compliance Manager describes the nature of the problem and the exact URL where the problem occurred. It also provides a fast, efficient route for submitting corrections and resolving the problem. The tool, which was launched at the end of 2006, won praise from the publisher community and recognition from reviewers for Yahoo!'s leadership role in providing more controls and transparency in the publisher program.

Eric believes that a successful project like this is the best argument for usability. Over the years he's done his share of lobbying for end-user input. A writing class he took recently brought home the importance of testing assumptions with feedback.

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"After people shared a scene they had written out loud, our professor asked the author and the rest of class to list the protagonist, the protagonist's goal, and which character opposed them. The professor then polled the group for their responses. It came as a shock to many that as readers we could not answer simple questions which were crystal clear in the author's mind.

"The same type of mismatch of mental models often happen during system design. You can't impose an interface on users and expect them to understand or adjust to it. You must find out how they would optimally perform a function and design a system that matches this model. It's a simple principle but difficult in practice. It's crucial to interview end-users throughout the process and validate designs with tests to ensure products are user-centric."

Fortunately for Eric, he does not have to evangelize user-centered design at Yahoo! When customers talk, Yahoo! listens.

"We definitely read the message boards and blogs to see what people are saying about us. We also rely on our customer service representatives' feedback and listen to our marketing department's focus groups. We have a system of multiple inputs. The commitment to the user experience is totally ingrained."

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