Method 17 of 100: The User Interface Race

100 User Experience (UX) Design and Evaluation Methods for Your Toolkit

by Chauncey Wilson

This is the 17th in a series of 100 short articles about UX design and evaluation methods. Since I am about to go on a 6-week sabbatical, I thought that it might be fun to look at a method Ben Shneiderman called “the user interface race”. This is an entertaining method for examining how experts solve problems under substantial time pressure and public scrutiny.

Method 17 of 100:

In the old, but classic book, The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design (edited by Brenda Laurel, 1990), Ben Shneiderman wrote a short chapter on user interface races. In the user interface race, participants (generally experts whose egos are secure) compete against the clock and other criteria to accomplish a specific goal. The results of the race are then used to improve the quality of products and promote usability and good design.

When to Use:

You can use user interface races to:

• Reveal how users work under pressure.
• Evaluate competitive products.
• Promote good usability in a public and entertaining way.
• Provide insights into shortcuts and tasks strategy employed by power users (a group often neglected in traditional usability evaluations).

Procedure:

Planning for the Race

1. Choose participants who are open to public competition.
2. Choose a task for your race that is challenging for participants and engaging for viewers.
3. Develop the criteria for judging task performance. For most tasks, you might just use time, but you might also include a panel of judges to rate the quality of the solution (like the Olympic panels that judge divers and skaters).
4. Choose the judges for the competition and train them in the race method and ground rules.
5. Develop the tasks for the race. Keep the tasks challenging, but make sure they fit in a reasonable amount of time.
6. Develop the ground rules for local and remote viewers of the race.
7. If you are testing products that are new to the participants, give them equal amounts of time to “train for the race”.

Conducting the Race

1. Welcome viewers and participants to the race. Review the procedures and explain the task and scoring systems.
2. Have the participants read and sign consent and non-disclosure documents if they are from outside your company.
3. Provide time for the participants to warm up with the system if they are not using their own hardware and software.
4. Give the race participants the task and ask them to read and ask any questions. Avoid giving away any key tips.
5. When the participants are ready, give the signal to begin (Ready! Set! GO!)
6. When time is up or the participants have finished the task, Signal the end of the competition based on your rule for stopping.
7. Declare a winner and (optionally) award prizes (which could be gift certificates, plaques, or branded merchandise).

Strengths and Weaknesses:

+ Seeing people work under time pressure without much structure (e.g., the series of tasks in a usability test) can yield useful insights.

+ User interface races can be fun and be used to promote usability.

- There aren’t many cases in the literature about the user interface race method so some practice might be required before you stage a real event. Consider doing a trial run with friendly colleagues.

- I’ve run across people in workgroups who didn’t like the competitive aspect of the race method. You are likely to have a few colleagues who don’t like the concept of a race. You do have to choose participants who have relatively strong egos and who can accept winning or losing.

References:

Berkun, S. (2003). INTERACTIONARY - Sports for design training and team building. Retrieved on April 28 from http://www.uiweb.com/dsports/default.htm.

Keith S. Karn, Thomas J. Perry, Marc J. Krolczyk (1997). Testing for Power Usability: A CHI 97 Workshop. SIGCHI Bulletin Vol.29 No.4, October 1997. Retrieved on April 28, 2005 from http://bulletin2.sigchi.org/archive/1997.4/karn.html

Shneiderman, B. (1990). User interface races: Sporting competition for power users. In B. Laurel (Ed.). The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Pp. 221-224.

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What’s Next in the Series?

I will be on sabbatical for the next 6 weeks. I may pen a post while I am away, but if not, I’ll continue with number 18 in October.