Characteristics Of A Good User Manual
Good Acceptance Criteria will help get your Agile project from “It Works as Coded” to “It Works as Intended.” Read on and see how.
Oct 07, 2010 What Makes a Good Instructional User Manual? October 7, 2010 Tags: Environmental compliance, FPGA design, Mechanical design, Mechanical engineering, PCB design We’ve all seen examples of bad instruction manual design – usually, it’s unreadable, and therefore useless (in some cases, even dangerous.). Oct 07, 2010 What Makes a Good Instructional User Manual? October 7, 2010 Tags: Environmental compliance, FPGA design, Mechanical design, Mechanical engineering, PCB design We’ve all seen examples of bad instruction manual design – usually, it’s unreadable, and therefore useless (in some cases, even dangerous.). Jun 13, 2015 Characteristics of a Quality Policy and Procedure Manual for Adult Day Services. Posted On June 13, 2015. Pat Long, BS, ADM, RN. CARF Surveyor and Retired ADHC Administrator. A quality, updated and current policy and procedure manual is crucial to the success of an adult day center (both health and social model). Mar 06, 2014 What makes a good instruction manual? The manual is for a children’s toy and as such should be very simple in design and should be user friendly for this age group. In contrast to this, I find it very hard to follow. The total lack of text is the downfall in this manual which relies on a set of arrows to show the user what to do next. Think of these characteristics as a series of filters. A good requirement will pass through all eight filters. A user requirement is good if it is: 1. Verifiable 2. Aug 15, 2019 The primary goal of all instruction manual design is to bring the user the information they need to understand and use the product you have sold them. This is best done by hiring a writer during the development process that can work with the team to understand completely the information they will be sharing with the user.
A User Story is a description of an objective a person should be able to achieve, or a feature that a person should be able to utilize, when using a software application.
User Stories have been classically written in the following form:
As an I want so that
For example:
As an Administrator, I want to be able to create User Accounts so that I can grant users access to the system.
A User Story cannot stand alone, however. It must be accompanied by “good” Acceptance Criteria to provide a way to clearly demonstrate if the Project Team has indeed made the User Story come true.
What Are These Acceptance Criteria and What Makes a “Good” One?
Microsoft Press defines Acceptance Criteria as “Conditions that a software product must satisfy to be accepted by a user, customer or other stakeholder.” Google defines them as “Pre-established standards or requirements a product or project must meet.”
Acceptance Criteria are a set of statements, each with a clear pass/fail result, that specify both functional (e.g., minimal marketable functionality) and non-functional (e.g., minimal quality) requirements applicable at the current stage of project integration. These requirements represent “conditions of satisfaction.” There is no partial acceptance: either a criterion is met or it is not.
These criteria define the boundaries and parameters of a User Story/feature and determine when a story is completed and working as expected. They add certainty to what the team is building.
Characteristics Of A Good User Manual 2016
Acceptance Criteria must be expressed clearly, in simple language the customer would use, just like the User Story, without ambiguity as to what the expected outcome is: what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. They must be testable: easily translated into one or more manual/automated test cases.
Acceptance Criteria may reference what is in the project’s other User Stories or design documents to provide details, but should not be a re-hash of them. They should be relatively high-level while still providing enough detail to be useful. They should include:
- Functional Criteria: Identify specific user tasks, functions or business processes that must be in place. A functional criterion might be “A user is able to access a list of available reports.” A non-functional criterion might be “Edit buttons and Workflow buttons comply with the Site Button Design.”
- Non-functional Criteria: Identify specific non-functional conditions the implementation must meet, such as design elements. A non-functional criterion might be “Edit buttons and Workflow buttons comply with the Site Button Design.”
- Performance Criteria: If specific performance is critical to the acceptance of a user story, it should be included. This is often measured as a response time, and should be spelled out as a threshold such as “1-2 seconds for a query response.”
Acceptance Criteria should state intent, but not a solution (e.g., “A manager can approve or disapprove an audit form” rather than “A manager can click an ‘Approve/Disapprove’ radio button to approve an audit form”). The criteria should be independent of the implementation: ideally the phrasing should be the same regardless of target platform.
An Example
Acceptance Criteria for the User Story at the beginning of this article might look like the following:
- If I am an Administrator, I can create User Accounts.
- I can create a User Account by entering the following information about the User: a. Name, b. Email address, c. Phone Number d. License Number (Power/Basic/None), e. Account Status (Active/Inactive), f. Reports to (from a list of “Active” Users)
- I cannot assign a new User to report to an “Inactive” User
- I cannot assign a new User to report to a User if it creates a cyclical relationship (e.g., User 1 reports to User 2 who reports to User 1
- The system notifies me that it sent an email to the new User’s email address, containing a system-generated initial password and instructions for the person to log in and change their password.
- I am able to verify with the intended recipient of the email that it was received.
Apply these ideas to your Agile project and you will quickly transform it from “It Works as Coded” to “It Works as Intended.”
There is a lot of information out there about various interface design techniques and patterns you can use when crafting your user interfaces and websites, solutions to common problems and general usability recommendations. Following guidelines from experts will likely lead you towards creating a good user interface — but what exactly is a good interface? What are the characteristics of an effective user interface?
Here are 8 things I consider a good user interface needs to be:
- Clear
- Concise
- Familiar
- Responsive
- Consistent
- Attractive
- Efficient
- Forgiving
Lets take a closer look at each.
1. Clear
Clarity is the most important element of user interface design. Indeed, the whole purpose of user interface design is to enable people to interact with your system by communicating meaning and function. If people can’t figure out how your application works or where to go on your website they’ll get confused and frustrated.
2. Concise
Clarity in a user interface is great, however, you should be careful not to fall into the trap of over-clarifying. It is easy to add definitions and explanations, but every time you do that you add mass. Your interface grows. Add too many explanations and your users will have to spend too much time reading through them.
Keep things clear but also keep things concise. When you can explain a feature in one sentence instead of three, do it. When you can label an item with one word instead of two, do it. Save the valuable time of your users by keeping things concise. Keeping things clear and concise at the same time isn’t easy and takes time and effort to achieve, but the rewards are great.
3. Familiar
Many designers strive to make their interfaces ‘intuitive’. But what does intuitive really mean? It means something that can be naturally and instinctively understood and comprehended. But how can you make something intuitive? You do it by making it ‘familiar’.
Familiar is just that: something which appears like something else you’ve encountered before. When you’re familiar with something, you know how it behaves — you know what to expect. Identify things that are familiar to your users and integrate them into your user interface. For example, tabs are familiar because they mimic tabs on folders. You figure out that clicking on a tab will navigate you to that section and that the rest of the tabs will remain there for further navigation.
4. Responsive
Responsive means a couple of things. First of all, responsive means fast. The interface, if not the software behind it, should work fast. Waiting for things to load and using laggy and slow interfaces is frustrating. Seeing things load quickly, or at the very least, an interface that loads quickly (even if the content is yet to catch up) improves the user experience.
Responsive also means the interface provides some form of feedback. The interface should talk back to the user to inform them about what’s happening. Have you pressed that button successfully? How would you know? The button should display a ‘pressed’ state to give that feedback. Perhaps the button text could change to “Loading…” and it’s state disabled. Is the software stuck or is the content loading? Play a spinning wheel or show a progress bar to keep the user in the loop.
5. Consistent
I think that adapting to any given context is smart, however, there is still a level of consistency that an interface should maintain throughout.
Consistent interfaces allow users to develop usage patterns — they’ll learn what the different buttons, tabs, icons and other interface elements look like and will recognize them and realize what they do in different contexts. They’ll also learn how certain things work, and will be able to work out how to operate new features quicker, extrapolating from those previous experiences.
Galaxy note 9 user manual verizon. Get access to helpful solutions, how-to guides, owners' manuals, and product specifications for your Galaxy Note9 (Verizon) from Samsung US Support. Old Device New Galaxy. Note: The USB option must be set to Media device (MTP) on the other device. Transferring content with a USB cable may increase battery consumption. Make sure your battery is fully charged. To use Smart Switch: 1. From Settings, tap Accounts Smart Switch. Follow the prompts and select the content to transfer.
6. Attractive
This one may be a little controversial but I believe a good interface should be attractive. Attractive in a sense that it makes the use of that interface enjoyable. Yes, you can make your UI simple, easy to use, efficient and responsive, and it will do its job well — but if you can go that extra step further and make it attractive, then you will make the experience of using that interface truly satisfying. When your software is pleasant to use, your customers or staff will not simply be using it — they’ll look forward to using it.
There are of course many different types of software and websites, all produced for different markets and audiences. What looks ‘good’ for any one particular audience will vary. This means that you should fashion the look and feel of your interface for your audience. Also, aesthetics should be used in moderation and to reinforce function. Adding a level of polish to the interface is different to loading it with superfluous eye-candy.
7. Efficient
A user interface is the vehicle that takes you places. Those places are the different functions of the software application or website. A good interface should allow you to perform those functions faster and with less effort. Now, ‘efficient’ sounds like a fairly vague attribute — if you combine all of the other things on this list, surely the interface will end up being efficient? Almost, but not quite.
What you really really need to do to make an interface efficient is to figure out what exactly the user is trying to achieve, and then let them do exactly that without any fuss. You have to identify how your application should ‘work’ — what functions does it need to have, what are the goals you’re trying to achieve? Implement an interface that lets people easily accomplish what they want instead of simply implementing access to a list of features.
8. Forgiving
Nobody is perfect, and people are bound to make mistakes when using your software or website. How well you can handle those mistakes will be an important indicator of your software’s quality. Don’t punish the user — build a forgiving interface to remedy issues that come up.
Protection classes up to IP65 can be obtained for every type of application. Just a few part numbers for 120 enclosure sizes. Mistakes-free simple movements to fix internal equipment. Pro e manual download. New busbar systems using the same components.Velocity is PowerSimple, effective lean methodology for switchboards' assembling to save the time. Designed to easily fulfill all electrical installation requirements in terms of protection degree, segregation form and electrical characteristics, according to the latest international standards and in perfect synergy with all ABB’s low voltage equipment.Flexibility is PowerThe structure can be assembled according to different logic sequences.
A forgiving interface is one that can save your users from costly mistakes. For example, if someone deletes an important piece of information, can they easily retrieve it or undo this action? When someone navigates to a broken or nonexistent page on your website, what do they see? Are they greeted with a cryptic error or do they get a helpful list of alternative destinations?
To conclude..
Qualities Of A Good User Manual
Working on achieving some of these characteristics may actually clash with working on others. For example, by trying make an interface clear, you may be adding too many descriptions and explanations, that end up making the whole thing big and bulky. Cutting stuff out in an effort to make things concise may have the opposite effect of making things ambiguous. Achieving a perfect balance takes skill and time, and each solution will depend on a case by case basis.