Paratext and Usability

Introduction

For those who don't know me, I am a Paratext supporter and I work with the developers. My aim is to make Paratext easier to use and more efficient, for both novices and experienced users.

Good "Usability" or "User Experience" (UX) deals with trying to make a tool operate in a way which the people doing the task would expect, or in a way which is easy to learn and recall. If you can remember roughly how things work, where things are, or how to find useful help if you're stuck, that's a good sign.

Software can become complicated or difficult for a number of reasons and we face some special challenges with Paratext, it deals with some technical tasks which demand a high level of quality. We also have a varied user community to cater to. Sometimes this means that it isn't the case that "one size fits all" or that there is a "best" solution or even a simple solution.

Currently there are weekly meetings of 2 SIL and 2 UBS representatives, discussing the User Interface (UI) in Paratext. This UI committee has been created to try and achieve balanced representation of UBS and SIL needs. Most of the developers working on Paratext are now from SIL, with Nathan Miles steering the team, so it's very valuable for us to have UBS input from the field.

What can you do?

No one gives better feedback than real users. We need your feedback and that of the users you support. To this end, I urge you all to think about the UI in Paratext. Both your user experience and that of your colleagues. But, how?

Firstly, try and catch yourself thinking or saying anything like:

• "Yes, it's a bit strange but that's how it is."
• "I wouldn't do it like this if I were doing it by hand." 
• "I don't do this very often and I've always forgotten how it works when I come back to it after a few weeks."
• "This is very much like (some other tool in Paratext), but the way you do this is different to how you do the other thing."
• "I used this feature for a long time until I found the (blah) button/menu, which makes it so much more useful. If only I had known it was there..."
• "This thing is great but the instructions are confusing/unclear/missing."
• "This thing is great but you have to re-do (something) every time you use it."
• "I always need to write down (some information) when I use this."
• "I always send someone an email when I've done this."
• "This thing is brilliant, time-saving, wonderful..."

The questions above should help you recognise when things need attention. The questions below will help you think about what the problem might be. Ask yourself, "If I was a bible society Paratext user, seeing this thing for the first time...

• Would I know what it is for? (affordance)
• Would I be able to begin using it without help/training? (simplicity)
• Does it look like similar tools in other parts of Paratext? (consistency)
• Is it in the right place in the UI? (context)
• Are the buttons/words/menus in the right place? (UI often flows left->right, top->bottom or top left->bottom right)

Also:

• Are there other programs that do this thing well? Do they do it differently or the same? (familiarity, convention, "re-inventing the wheel")
• Does the design encourage success at completing the task? Or is there significant risk that the user will get the process wrong? (feedback from the program, guidance) 
• Does the program limit the user's input in helpful ways (like auto-completing email addresses to prevent errors).
• Is it just too complicated?
• Could the computer do part of this automatically? (repetitive tasks, calculations, retrieving recently input information...)
• Does it require you to use some other program to finish the task, to communicate something, or make a record of something? (fragmentation, incompleteness)

If you think something isn't quite right, but you're not sure why, it may be worth saying so. Sometimes, it just isn't possible to make something more simple, but we're keen to get your feedback.

How to Give Feedback

We aim to also have some online discussions opening up soon for this sort of thing, I'll post details of that here when it becomes available. For now, there are two buttons for this in Paratext.

1. Help > Report a Problem (for bugs - when something has broken)
2. Help > Make a Suggestion (for suggestions and requests)

For suggestions and requests (especially if you think they're an improvement to Usability), please feel free to email me "ihewerdine [this is here to prevent spam] AT biblesocieties.org". I might not be able to promise you that a thing will change at all, or quickly. But your feedback is very important so that we can adequately represent our users in the ongoing development of Paratext. You don't need to send a long message or know how to improve a thing, just a sentence or two can be enough. If we hear roughly the same message from several people, its often enough to help direct our efforts.

(Thumbnail image is taken from the book of the same name, by an author called Steve Krug)