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Donna Colarossi
Manager, Usability & Design
Scotiabank |
The usability dance – moving forward without stepping on toes
by Jean Greco and Jesse Berkowitz
CUA Donna Colarossi provides Usability and Design services for applications, sites, and tools implemented to Scotiabank's Canadian branches.
Scotiabank's usability department began ten years ago when the team consisted of two people. Now the department has four team members, and although Donna is the only CUA to date, the other three are in various stages of the CUA program. "Usability certification has helped us attain a level of respect among our peers," Donna says.
| Donna's usability credo: Know your users and help create applications that allow them to do their job more efficiently and effectively. |
For instance, Scotiabank has a Wealth Management tool that associates use to help clients plan for retirement. One of the key data elements within the tool is "How many years do you expected to need these funds?" After much debate, the business analysts decided the most subtle field label for this would be "Retirement End Age." However, during the Usability Evaluation, associates were reluctant to ask their clients this question. In the words of one associate: "You actually want me to ask my client when he expects to die?" After seeing the strong reaction to this field/question, the business analysts decided to use a 30-year default time horizon so that associates could avoid asking this question to the client (the tool still allows the user to modify the Retirement End Age should the customer request it).
Of course, conducting usability tests and generating ideas for improvement are only part of the story. Enter usability's "soft side" – the issue of how best to present the test results and findings internally without stepping on too many toes.* Donna and her colleagues use HFI's report templates, as taught in the CUA training program. They also prioritize their recommendations so that the solutions with the biggest impact will be executed, even if there isn't time to follow every idea. "This forces us to determine which changes we can and cannot live without, based on the impact to the end user," she says.
As a result, everyone has begun to see the direct link between usability and its return on investment.
"The minute you show dollar signs, people pay attention," Donna says. "We all recognize that if we save a click, we increase productivity, which in turns saves the bank money."
Donna and her team take their usability show on the road, pitching usability's virtues to different corporate offices and presenting their vision for integrating usability into all of Scotiabank's development projects. Donna's department has also created design standards and style guides.
"Usability has to be routine, and considered right up front in the early stages of a project," Donna says. "We're finding the earlier in the process we are, the more likely our recommendations will be implemented, as the impacting cost is significantly less than later on in the project life cycle.
*For more on the "soft skill" of presenting usability test results, read about HFI Executive Director Mona Patel's recent presentation to the New York Chapter of the Usability Professionals Association. |
