Last week we were conducting some research for a client. The research included testing of a registration form for their product/service. During registration, participants filled out their contact info (e.g. name/email) then were directed to a security screen, where they were prompted to answer three security questions—pretty standard for financial systems these days (this was not a financial system, but was for backing up all your stuff on your computer through their service— so equally important to individuals).
What surprised us was that the corresponding drop down menu for each security item had 20 questions in each—a very long list. We had some initial concerns that participants would find this overwhelming, a bit tedious, and my be put off by the whole thing. What we found was quite the opposite, actually. Every participant 11/11 felt reassured with the long list of questions. Responses included: "This makes me feel more safe." "These questions are harder to break. Everyone can guess my eye color, but not my favorite flavor of ice cream." "This is good. Lots of questions are harder to break." And then there were the "Well, I wouldn't pick favorite color or ice cream. Those things change too often depending on my mood." Incidentally, this was heard from 4 women, but none of the men. Just an observation folks, don't shoot the messenger. The point is that technically, this form wasn't more usable—it was in fact less usable, took more effort, and time to complete than if there were only say 5 questions in each menu. 11/11 participants rated this as being a 1=very easy and high satisfaction, which goes to show you that the most usable solution isn't always the best solution. Cheers! Todd Zaki Warfel President, Design Researcher Messagefirst | Designing Information. Beautifully. ---------------------------------- Contact Info Voice: (215) 825-7423 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] AIM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://toddwarfel.com ---------------------------------- In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
