Abstract
Designing for User Engagement on the Web: 10 Basic Principles, edited by Cheryl Geisler, covers its topic in two main parts: the first part containing 10 brief chapters describing and illustrating each of the principles and the second part containing five longer chapters focusing on case studies of the projects from which the principles were derived. Each case study deals with a different Web technology, covering photo galleries, wikis, cultural Web sites, distance education technologies, and interactive graphics. The book makes a strong contribution to technical communication research on usability and sets the stage for more research on user engagement. It provides scholars and professionals with concepts and practical tools for navigating the designing and testing of Web sites and technologies.
The case studies that the book describes were created as part of a larger research initiative undertaken by faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute under the auspices of a grant from the Society of Technical Communication. Each group of contributors provides a detailed account of how the three rounds of user testing and the iterative design process worked together. Because of the variety in the case studies and the examination of the basic principles, this book should appeal to a wide range of readers—from those with an interest in designing and testing a specific Web technology related to one of the case studies to those with a broader interest in user engagement and usability. One of the primary contributions these case studies make is to illustrate the struggles that teams experience when designing and testing in tandem. There are no clear routes to success for creating a social Web technology, but these chapters demonstrate the ways that iterative design centered on user testing leads to continual improvement.
In the Introduction, Geisler and Roger Grice examine the ways that designing social Web sites requires a shift in perspective from conventional usability to user engagement. Whereas a usability perspective focuses on designing interfaces with which users can easily and efficiently accomplish their tasks, a user-engagement perspective focuses on designing “user experiences rich in communication and interaction” (p. 3). Each of the case studies in the book illustrates this move toward a focus on user engagement. Additionally, Geisler and Grice explain the research process overall, including how faculty and graduate students collaborated in each case-study group, how the entire group worked together to develop 10 basic principles of user engagement, and how each team went through three separate usability-testing phases, including heuristic, comparative-user, and formal testing. Protocols for each phase of testing appear in the appendices.
This book begins with short chapters illustrating each of the 10 principles: design for diverse users, design for usability, test the backbone, extend a welcome, set the context, make a connection, share control, support interactions among users, create a sense of place, and plan to continue the engagement. Because each principle is later described in the context of a case study, I will address these principles in my discussion of their respective case studies.
The first case study, conducted by James P. Zappen and his team, describes the challenges of designing a photo gallery site intended for children but that teens and adults would also use. Through testing, Zappen et al. determined that they should create separate sites for children and adults so that all users would find the site intuitive and engaging (a decision, they suggest, that may be necessary for others designing for diverse audiences). In Chapter 1, “Principle 1: Design for Diverse Users,” and Chapter 7, “Principle 7: Share Control,” Zappen situates the design work that they conducted for the galleries and the principle that this work illustrates within the existing research on active users and user control, respectively. In this case, teen users’ existing experiences with photo-sharing Web sites led to a conflict between their expectations for engaging with the site and the site owners’ desire to maintain control over site content.
Janice W. Fernheimer and her team led the second case study, an attempt to encourage students to use a wiki Web site to facilitate collaborative writing. Fernheimer et al. frame their project more broadly as an example of the challenges inherent in encouraging users to engage in new and unfamiliar tasks or ways of working. Early tests of their wiki site led to significant usability improvements, but ultimately students were not persuaded that wiki tools offered many benefits beyond the tools and practices with which they were already familiar (e.g., Google Docs). This case study illustrates Principle 2 (design for usability) and Principle 5 (set the context). It shows that ease of use can facilitate peoples’ efforts to adopt new tools (Principle 2) but also that it is often not enough to motivate them to do so. The new tool or practice must also be appropriately contextualized (Principle 5) for users in order to motivate them. In this case, Fernheimer et al. closely tied students’ use of the wiki to a specific group assignment in two separate classes by linking assessment of group collaboration to wiki participation.
The third case study, conducted by Patricia Search and her team, examined two Web sites focused on cultural groups. These sites sought to engage audiences from varying cultural backgrounds in learning about and experiencing the cultural traditions of particular groups. For readers particularly interested in these types of sites, Search et al. offer 13 characteristics for evaluating them (although I am not sure how these characteristics relate to the 10 guiding principles of the book). In Chapter 4 (“Principle 4: Extend a Welcome”) and Chapter 6 (“Principle 6: Make a Connection”), Search shows that multisensory experiences can serve to welcome users and connect them with the cultural traditions of others. Further, she suggests that traditional usability testing may have limited value for such sites because users may need additional time and freedom to explore them in their own ways, so open-ended interviews and surveys may yield more useful data.
In the fourth case study, Robert Krull and his team offer a detailed analysis of the trade-offs and affordances of a variety of technologies that they have used for distance education (e.g., physical media sent through the mail, satellite connections, videoconferencing, and Internet technologies). In exploring the complexities involved in piecing together usable and effective systems and practices, this case study demonstrates the ways that general principles (as offered in this book) are ultimately more useful than are specific guidelines and advice, which quickly become obsolete as contexts, infrastructures, and user expectations change. Readers interested in distance education specifically will find in this case study (as well as in Chapter 3, “Principle 3: Test the Backbone,” and Chapter 8, “Principle 8: Support Interactions Among Users”) useful accounts of user testing and methods of supporting interaction during live distance classes.
The final case study, conducted by a team led by Audrey G. Bennett, describes the development of a poster into an interactive graphic designed to promote AIDS awareness. This project involved redesigning a print poster created for a specific group and location into an interactive Web page that allowed users to insert their own elements (relevant images and text) to create a graphic that could be printed and posted throughout their community. In Chapter 9, “Principle 9: Create a Sense of Place,” and Chapter 10, “Principle 10: Plan to Continue the Engagement,” Bennett shows how the design of the interactive graphic was motivated by users’ questions about what to do about the message regarding AIDS that they had read on a poster. With the interactive graphic, users were able to customize the message for their community (create a sense of place) and then distribute it online or in person (plan to continue the engagement).
Rachel Spilka provides the Foreword for the collection and Bill Hart-Davidson provides the Afterword. Spilka furnishes some context for this project, which began as a grant from the Society for Technical Communication when she was serving on its Research Grants Committee, and suggests that these 10 basic principles of engagement will pick up “where document design guidelines left off” (p. xvi) in guiding designers through the challenges of social communication technologies. Hart-Davidson extends the book’s discussion of engagement by considering how engagement can lead to strong relationships. He demonstrates how these principles align with specific relationship values, such as trust, accountability, and enjoyment.
While the 10 principles described in the book broadly apply to contemporary design projects, the structure of the book sacrifices some breadth for depth by linking each principle chapter so completely to a particular case study. For example, in the case study linked to Principle 1 (design for diverse users), the photo galleries were designed for different age groups. Other types of diverse users are not discussed, leading to some questions about the need to design separate interfaces or sites for, say, users of different classes, genders, or ethnicities. In the case study chapters themselves, only brief mention is given to the ways the project demonstrates the other eight principles, typically in a short bulleted list at the end of the chapter. Even then, some chapters omit some principles from their lists, leading me to wonder whether and why those principles were not relevant to the project. For example, the fourth case study, on distance education, omits Principle 6 (make a connection) from its list, yet this principle seems to apply to instructors’ efforts to connect with students, as well as to students’ efforts to connect with one another.
Ultimately, this book will interest academics and industry professionals alike. I can see graduate and undergraduate courses in professional communication and interaction design using this book as a guide, either in analyzing existing Web sites or in designing their own (e.g., in a service-learning context). Furthermore, the level of detail provided about specific projects and user-testing protocols makes the book useful for Web developers or user-experience designers looking for guidance on designing and testing products.