subject: Tips For Designing And Testing Forms, Letters, Bills, And Statements [print this page] 1. Scoping and research1. Scoping and research
This initial phase is all about getting to fully understand the client, the nature of their documents, their business needs, all the stakeholders involved, and the scope and nature of their projects. It also provides the opportunity to understand any regulatory and implementation/IT requirements and constraints.
2. Engage stakeholders
This process is crucial to the success of a project, and has the following benefits:
encourages broad involvement.
builds relationships.
ensures that you are comprehensive.
creates an environment where different opinions are welcome.
discloses any agendas, assumptions, goals and boundaries.
focuses on key issues.
shares knowledge.
focuses on what can be done as opposed to what is currently done.
ensures that results are acted upon.
shows stakeholders how results will be used .
3. Obtain reliable business information up front to enable measurement later on
The following points often provide good measures that can be improved through well-designed forms and statements:
form completion errors and response rates.
inbound call volumes.
processing time taken by customers to complete and return.
form/statement length.
print or implementation cost or speed.
4. Design and Development
All information gleaned from the earlier testing stages is used as a basis for the design phase. Design includes the development of a range of potential concepts/prototypes, and then writing and laying out concept samples, which may then be researched with typical users.
5. Research and testing
User testing is a valuable process when developing forms, as it ensures that the users needs are met. More specifically, user testing is important for the following reasons:
Development often focuses heavily on technical aspects of forms and products, which can often result in the user being forgotten. Research and testing focuses on the end user, allowing their performance and behaviours to be taken into account.
Users change over time.
Users are unpredictable.
Testing helps to integrate teams: testing specialists provide their feedback to both designers and technical developers, thus encouraging an integrated approach to problem solving and development.
Testing can be carried out at the following key design stages:
Early testing of broad structure (exploratory)
Conduct this kind of test early in the design cycle so that preliminary design concepts can be tested. It is useful for gauging whether users are happy with main features, major section divisions and key navigational decision points in forms.
Mid-stage testing of detail (assessment)
This is the most common form of user-experience testing, and tests the main structure of an interface, form or suite of documents. The concepts are made into functioning, designed prototypes, and users are asked to perform typical tasks and provide feedback on their experiences.
End-stage validation and comparative testing
At this stage, testing is designed to demonstrate that a document does and what it sets out to do. Testing can compare a concept with a competitor or an established standard, in order to gauge whether it is perceived or actually performs as an improvement. Speed of completion of a form would be a key objective.
End-stage tests can also provide users with incorrect or 'bad' data, in an attempt to 'break' a form, thus highlighting problem areas that might not otherwise be identified. This stage of testing can also be useful for evaluating how a complete form finally comes together in all its elements, and how it integrates with the rest of a clients' forms, letters and other
