This graph shows the evolution of George W. Bush’s approval rating over time. His approval rating rose to 68% in March 2003, at the beginning of the Iraq war, and declined steadily after that. It is now at 26%. Not only did the war not proceed the way he had told people but there is a growing number of Americans questioning the idea of going to Iraq in the first place.

How to lead?
First: be right
No matter how good you are at executing and communicating, and how much charisma and resolution you have, if you are wrong, you will fail. Churchill was resolved but he was right. In the hiking story above, the leader was sure of himself but wrong. He overestimated how lost we were.
To be right, you need facts.
In real life, we do not know with certainty the actual situation. In the context of uncertainty (most real life situations), the more certain you are the more likely you will be wrong. Facts are even more important in uncertain situations. Why? What you know and what don’t know are facts. ”I am lost in the forest” is a fact. If the leader in the hiking story would have admitted the true level of uncertainty about how lost we were, he could have proposed a series of tests. For example, he could have propose a short walk in a different direction to gather more facts about the current location. A negative result would then have been seen as new information on where not to go instead.
Second: Communicate facts (reason for change)
It is very difficult to convince people to change something if they are not convinced about what the problems are and their urgency, see John Kotter. Two economists might disagree even if they use the same economic model. By separating fact from opinion, we might understand the input or assumption and understand why those economists disagree. Whenever you make a decision where people must follow your lead, facts are the essence of getting people agreeing on the current situation and the course of action.
In business transformation (change Management), facts are more than data “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Albert Einstein’s office at Princeton), facts are like an observable situation that can be described and shared.

Once facts are gathered and separated from opinion, they can be shared during working sessions. Those sessions permit the group to agree on problems. Consequently, it will be much easier to get the group to agree on a course of action once they have agreed on the problems. During those working sessions, the focus is first on the current situation, not the course of action. Ensure everybody that they are respected and never discard people expressing bad news (don’t shoot the messenger). Often they might be your best source of facts. To ensure the free flow of information, remove red tape, formal presentation and favor a more informal organization with a high degree of respect, see ‘‘The Death to Bureaucracy” from Jack Welch.
Third: gather more facts
Often, you need to collect more facts. Creativity and imagination are required to gather facts. For example, in the above story, a series of short walks in different directions is an approach to gather more facts on the current location. Gathering facts is boiled down to: observation, experiment, calculation and simulation. Fact gathering is not a consensus driven process. You are collecting evidence. Never rely on opinion. Humans are biased and opinions rarely correlate with facts.
In business transformation initiative, the best sources of fact are field studies. The field is rich and wild; people develop very sophisticated tactics in real work environment. Knowledge lies in the field, not in meeting rooms. The worst source of facts is the traditional hierarchy : line manager, director and executive. Facts gathered through this path will surely be altered, trimmed down or hidden.
Fourth: prevent bias
Facts may be distorted. When relying on human sources, multiple independent sources are required. Be careful with surveys or focus groups, they do not gather facts but opinions. They provide the tip of an iceberg. Avoid group meetings. Groups are only good to solve problems, to brainstorm or share information.
Objectivity does not exist; you have to cope with that.
No matter how good the information is, if you are biased, or already convinced of the answer, you are in danger. A bias could, for example, lead one to accept or deny the truth of a claim, discard evidence or look for evidence that confirms a preconceived idea (confirmation bias). In the hiking story, the guy seemed so sure of himself that we trusted him even if the direction he gave did not ring a bell to us.
To reduce bias, observe yourself to see if you feel emotional. You need to detach yourself. It is well known that a lawyer should never defend himself or a medical doctor should never diagnose himself. Ask different persons in a one on one session to interpret facts. Don’t give them your thoughts. Observe the difference in their interpretation. Try to think as fresh as you can. Gather all facts prior to a decision. In order to avoid bias, good investigators will collect evidence and then conclude. After all this work, let the decision emerge naturally. If you still do not feel not comfortable, your instinct will tells you there is something wrong, listen to it. It means there are still uncertainties that you have to work with, or simply wait.
The four steps described here relate to making the right decision and communicating that decision (vision) to a group of people. Once you have the right direction and a group of people agreeing with you on the course of action, executing change is a piece of cake.
Leading people in the right direction requires hard work, time, experience and wisdom. You can get there faster by practicing the right thing. For more on the subject, I suggest reading John Kotter on this subject and “Engineering psychology” by Christopher Wickens.

Say a lot with less!

On this Montreal picture, you can barely see the streets signs.

Montreal street names are poorly located and the font size is way too small.
How many car accidents happened as a result of this?
I wonder why city planners do not seem to known the law of font size.
n Montreal, this rule is violated everywhere: billboard signs, parking signs, print documents, etc.
How the heck can someone read the Montreal street signs?
What should be the font size for normal readability?

The answer is: 2 X Tan (0.3 degrees/2) X reading distance

The angle that provides good readability for 95% of the people is 0.3 degrees. For a reader at a distance of 60 cm it results in a font size of 3 mm. For a reader at 50 meters, it is 25 cm or one foot. A good approximation is roughly 1/200 of the distance. Montreal city road planners should learn from SanFrancisco.

On this picture, you can see there is a much bigger Mason street sign on a green background.
Note that this sign has been added over the small one.
The legibility rules are respected: Mix and San Serif fonts on green background and a size above one foot enough for 50 meters distance readability.

Cognition is distributed. Because our memory is optimized, our knowledge is ingrained within our environment. We retain only what is necessary and use the environment to retrieve sequences.

Recalling the direction to drive home is no problem when you are driving home. On the other hand, trying to recall an experience out of context is prone to error. Consequently, trying to gather information about a process and human work or evaluate a solution out of real context of use is wrong.

That’s why we have to be very careful about laboratory studies. In one of our recent usability studies for an online bill payment application, we initially found users were able to accomplish their tasks efficiently and they expressed their appreciation. At a later phase, during testing in real work setting, we discovered users still had to reconcile check numbers with bank statements. In this context, online payment created more trouble than benefit. Initial laboratory studies didn’t provide the right insight into these problems.

Evaluating usefulness (real practical advantage) out of context is as difficult as giving driving directions out of context.

Since users cannot really recall or imagine how they will use a product in real work setting as demonstrated above, it is only by observing usage in real work setting we can understand how a product will be used.

Many disciplines and authors such as Dan Diaper (by the way, he is currently looking for a job?) stress how important it is to study work and behavior in real work setting. Our practice has demonstrated over and over how essential it is. You may also read about the Cognitive Approach.

While usability can be evaluated in a laboratory, usefulness has to be evaluated in real work setting.

UFOV 

It is the single most important concept in effective screen and web page design. It is at the essence of human attention, a central issue in Cognitive Engineering.

What is it?There is a small area in the retina that provides the clearest vision of all. This vision is also called the central vision or foveal vision. It corresponds to a spot making an angle of 3 degrees.   So for someone sitting in front of a computer screen, the size of the spot of visual attention is about 4 cm.  For someone standing behind the shoulder of somebody else in front of a computer screen, the size of the spot is about 8 cm. The spot is about 24 cm when watching television at a normal distance. So somebody standing just behind you will have a broader spot than you and will be more likely to find the information your are looking for on the screen. 

Increasing Sales

In the example above, if information is outside the UFOV, it will not be recognise or perceive. Consequently, if you place adds anywhere, they will not be effective because they are likely to be outside the UFOV. Knowing what users are looking is a fantastic insight when combined with the UFOV notion. A designer can suggest new cross-related option (or add) and present them inside the UFOV.  

Google

This concept is simple and effective and it explains why Google’s Add is so successful.Why not do the same?     

As an example, imagine that a customer has bought a cell phone, based on the promise of a broad spectrum of functionality; what makes the user happy is the fact that his cell phone is easy to use and indeed helps him to keep in contact with others. 

Usability concentrates on understanding the way the consumer uses the product, such as the thinking process involved in achieving a task, subtle operation, points of attention, and the internal and external factors that influence the interaction with the device in question.  

The document ISO 9241-11 (1998) Guidance on Usability, issued by the International Organization for Standardization, defines usability as: “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” A usable object will be: 

• Effective: was the task fully completed? Were the user’s goals met?
• Efficient: was the user able to complete the task quickly?-   
•  Prevent errors: did the user interface help users avoid making errors? Were errors minor rather than major? if the user made an error, did the interface assist them in making a successful recovery?-   
• Be Easy to learn
• Satisfying to use 

How a usability study worksA usability study involves a working session where the individual user interacts with the product or its prototype. Usability studies aim at assessing the points at which the user faces difficulties or hesitations while performing a task, and analyses the navigation and thinking process of the consumer whilst using a product.  Usability studies focus on the potential errors that might occur while using a particular product, and assesses how easy is to recover from these errors. 

The main activities that distinguish a usability study are: Performing tasks with the user.  In a user study, each user is asked to complete one or more tasks related to the product or service studied. Each step is carefully recorded and analysed. The precision in recording and analysing these steps makes the results of a user study much more specific and actionable than a simple satisfaction rating.  Improving products and services. The main purpose of a usability study is usually to help to improve a product (or service), and make it work more efficiently.  Usability has a broad knowledge of best practice.  Combined with user research, the insight that usability conveys helps increase customer satisfaction of the product. Subsequently, satisfied customers buy more of your products and services, and enthusiastically recommend them to others.  A company that includes usability as part of their development cycle allows the product to be better specified from its inception.  The process will be rewarding in terms of accurate product development schedules and the final product will require fewer product support enquiries and incur fewer returns.   Various companies have experience the benefits of this approach.  For instance, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), approached the Cognitive group to determine how best convert the cumbersome and manual process of opening a second account, to an easy, self-service online model.  RBC now saves more than $1.5 million a year through an online process and enhances customer loyalty every day.  

About Cognitive Cognitive helps clients reduce development time and increase product satisfaction by tightly targeting their product development efforts to meet core needs of their users. Cognitive group offers customer research, usability testing, and user interface design for products in the hardware, software, and Internet arenas. Customers include: Nortel, Ericsson, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Amazon, Telus, Alis Technologies, Global Medic, Emploi Quebec (government), Bell, Hydro Quebec, Banque Nationale, RBC Financial Group, Desjardins, among many others. To contact Cognitive in Montreal call (514) 861-1212, or visit the Cognitive Group Web site at www.cognitivegroup.com