The importance of teachable interactions
Inadequate consideration of how products are taught to users can result in sub-optimal product designs.
When working with clients on a new product design effort, I typically start by conducting a visioning exercise or workshop with the client’s product development team. The goal of such workshops is to understand the client’s perception of the users’ needs, their goals for the project, their vision for the product’s design, and their criteria for its success.
More often than not, at least one member of my client’s team will make a statement along the lines of: “If users need instructions to use our product, our design has failed”, insinuating that their product must be intuitive enough to eliminate the need for any user training or support.
The rationale behind such statements is understandable. Intuitive designs tend to make products more appealing, easier, and safer to use. Intuitiveness is one of the main goals of an effective user-centered design process. And for good reason. But emphasizing intuitiveness and undervaluing the importance of training can lead to lacking user experiences.
Products should be intuitive to use, but also easy to teach. While those might seem like overlapping goals, they are distinct from one another.
Over the course of my career, I’ve encountered multiple products that had intuitive user interfaces (i.e., people were able to use the products correctly without training), but were difficult to teach (i.e., people struggled to use the products correctly after being trained to use them).
One example of this seeming paradox was a home dialysis machine — a medical device that enables individuals with kidney disease to set up and deliver a blood filtering treatment at home without assistance from a clinician. Given the inherent complexity and risks of at-home dialysis, patients who obtain such a device are required to receive formal training from a nurse educator before they can use it independently. But, given my team’s goal of designing an intuitive product that could be used by a wide range of people (including those with cognitive and physical impairments caused by severe kidney disease), we decided to evaluate how well the product’s design facilitated intuitive use by untrained users. So, once the first prototypes of the machines were available, we conducted a usability test that included some sessions with participants who received formal 2-day training on the device and some sessions with participants who received a brief 5-minute introduction to the system but no training on its use. All participants were prospective users (i.e., individuals with advanced kidney disease) representing a diverse demographic mix.
To the product development team’s surprise, the untrained participants tended to use the dialysis machine more safely (i.e., committed fewer use errors), effectively (i.e., successfully completed more tasks), and efficiently (i.e., performed tasks more quickly) than those who received formal training.
Fortunately, the data from the usability test revealed the root causes of this surprising discrepancy. Characteristics of the training approach, instructional materials, and the device’s user interface led the trained participants to misunderstand certain aspects of the device’s operation. I’ll provide specific examples of such shortcomings and describe potential fixes later in the article, but for now let’s compare different types of and approaches to training.
Required training
The home dialysis machine is an example of a device for which training is mandatory — users cannot receive the device from their healthcare provider without first completing a formal training program. This is why the device’s manufacturer had an imperative to ensure that trained users could operate the device safely and effectively.
Required training is common in the medical industry, where manufacturer representatives or nurse educators routinely provide clinicians and patients with “in-services” — training delivered to an individual or group on the use of a particular medical device. Similar training approaches exist in other fields, such as the aerospace industry and the military, where product misuse has significant safety consequences.
In such cases, trainers base their training on standardized training materials, but typically adjust their training approach to match their teaching preferences or users’ learning needs. As such, the quality, accuracy, and thoroughness of the training might vary among trainers or even between training sessions. Some trainers might provide great detail about the product itself, while others will dwell on the theory behind the product’s operation. As a result, some users might receive more information than they can process during the training and end up with a confused understanding of the product’s intended operations. In other cases, the trainer might give an overly abridged demonstration of the product, leaving users with an inaccurate understanding of the product’s operations. And in rare cases, trainers might make mistakes and give false information about the product’s use, thereby giving users a misunderstanding of its operations.
A teachable user interface design can facilitate training and help prevent such issues. A user interface that clearly conveys its organization scheme, indicates its current status, and provides clear feedback to user actions can help trainers match their training approach to the product’s design and optimize the quality of their training.
On-demand training
Unlike the dialysis machine I mentioned, most products don’t require formal training before use, which is one reason product developers tend to undervalue the teachability of their products. But, it’s a mistake to dismiss teachability when training is not required. With most products, at least some users will need some form of training at some point. Of course, the more intuitive a user interface is, the fewer and less often that users will require support, but some still will.
Even capable users operating relatively intuitive products occasionally run into challenges. Think of an expert nurse who suddenly encounters a previously unseen alarm on an infusion pump and is unsure how to resolve it. Or an MRI machine operator needing to perform an MRI scan of a body part they hadn’t scanned previously. In such cases, users might try to obtain on-demand training in the form of customer support or instructional materials.
You can think of customer support as ad-hoc training delivered to the user while they are operating the product. Whether customer support is delivered via voice over the telephone or via text through a chat window, these interactions typically require the support person to assess the user’s current use scenario and provide guidance on the correct way to use the product. Usually, a lot of back-and-forth conversation occurs as the user informs the customer support specialist about their progress in resolving the issue at hand. A teachable user interface will make it easier for the user and customer support specialist to have such conversations and will facilitate their ability to troubleshoot the issue at hand.
Physical and digital instructional materials, which include online help, user manuals, quick reference cards, or posters, also provide a form of ad-hoc training, albeit with the document in the role of the trainer.
Unfortunately, many product developers assume that users don’t utilize instructional materials. In many cases, this is true — most users tend to try and use a product based on their intuition, at least at first. But, when faced with a novel issue, or when they’re trying to learn about a product’s more advanced features, users tend to refer to their instructional materials.
Because of product developers’ assumption that most users don’t care for instructional materials, they tend to underinvest in the development of instructional materials. This leads to a negative cycle whereby poor instructional materials create negative user experiences, causing users to exclaim that they don’t want instructional materials, in turn leading product developers to underinvest in instructional materials.
Teachable user interfaces can help break this cycle, making it easier to design clear and informative instructional materials, which users can then follow more effectively.
Informal training
Not all forms of training are under the control of product developers. Some products are taught via word of mouth — cases in which one user receives informal guidance from a fellow user. In many cases, such training is used to teach more advanced interactions or tricks that a more expert user might share with a more novice user. One user might demonstrate how to perform a particular task or use a specific feature, but sometimes they might just describe a particular interaction when they’re not actually in front of the product.
I’ve observed such interactions many times when performing observational research in healthcare settings. For example, when researching the use of electronic health record (EHR) systems, I often observed critical care nurses asking fellow nurses at the opposite end of the nurses’ station how to enter certain treatment codes or details. In cases where the nurses used a relatively teachable EHR, they were able to readily instruct one another about the correct way to complete the task at hand. But, in cases where the EHR had a less teachable design, the verbal guidance resulted in nurses making use errors while attempting to complete their tasks.
The point is that users often share knowledge and learn from one another in ways that the product designers cannot directly control. This is especially true with more sophisticated tools and complex software, where certain advanced features have to be hidden within the user interface. A teachable user interface design can still make these features distinct from one another and easier to find with a little help from one’s friend.
All users are learners at some point
Training isn’t just for new users. Product designers occasionally assume that users learn to operate a product upon first use it and then continue using it without additional training. Many users continue to learn about the products they use over the course of the products’ life. Some might use only a small portion of a product’s features upon initial use and advance to more sophisticated features as needed. In such situations, they will need to learn that the new features exist, why they exist, and how to use them.
Tips for making products more teachable
Now that we’ve covered some ways in which people tend to learn to use products, I’ll describe some ways for designers to make products more teachable. All of the suggestions provided below are consistent with general best practices for user interface design and will usually make a user interface more intuitive and usable. But, they are especially helpful when it comes time to make a user interface more teachable.
Implement a clear conceptual model
A key tenet of user-centered design is to organize a user interface’s functions, features, and elements (i.e., its conceptual model) in a way that matches users’ expectations (i.e., users’ mental model of the product’s operations).
The better organized the user interface is, the easier it will be for trainers to explain the product’s operating principles. Similarly, the easier it is to distinguish between key parts of the user interface, the easier time that the trainer will have guiding the user through the different “areas” of the product and help explain how they each function.
Utilize consistent and conspicuous labels
If you can’t name something, you can’t easily talk about it. By extension, if a user interface doesn’t feature effective labels, it will be difficult for trainers to refer to elements in the user interface. Both the terms we use to label parts of the user interface and the way in which we present the labels affect users’ ability to recognize and correctly interpret parts of the user interface.
A teachable user interface makes good use of labels that are consistent in their syntax (e.g., verb noun vs noun verb, use of active versus passive voice, etc.) and their presentation (i.e., where labels are located relative to their associated user interface elements, font size, color, etc.).
As a general principle, any part of the user interface that teachers will likely refer to (e.g., screens, menus, controls, modals, etc.) should feature a label.
Use plain and unambiguous language
It’s important to use labels, but it’s equally, if not even more important, to use the correct terms to describe your product and its user interface.
One of my most memorable usability-related anecdotes was shared by a customer support specialist I interviewed while working on a use-related risk analysis for an insulin delivery device commonly known as an insulin pen. The customer support specialist recalled a telephone conversation she was having with an elderly patient who was struggling to deliver the insulin dose his doctor prescribed. As the customer support specialist guided the patient over the phone, the patient became increasingly frustrated that he was unable to set the insulin dose as the specialist was instructing him to do. It was only after a few minutes of increasingly irritable conversation that the customer support specialist realized the problem: the patient interpreted the term insulin pen as referring to a regular ballpoint pen and was attempting to use one to prepare an insulin dose. Such mistakes are common and illustrate the importance of using terms that are appropriate for their use context.
To make products more teachable, use terms that are familiar, but distinct terms that users might associate with other products.
A related problem lies with the use of inconsistent terms. Another medical device I worked on recently features a cartridge that’s used to prime and filter fluid that runs through the device. While reviewing the device’s user interface and documentation, I noticed that they use three different terms (i.e., patient interface, cartridge, cassette) to refer to the same component. Such inconsistencies increase the likelihood that trainers will use inconsistent terms when teaching the device and that users will mistakenly assume that these terms refer to different components, rather than one component.
Utilize easily distinguishable and representative icons
Icons are often a good complement to labels and there are many factors that affect the usability, usefulness, and appeal of icons. But, certain aspects are more relevant to making a user interface teachable.
Again, one key factor is distinguishability: users should be able to easily identify and distinguish icons from one another. Icons with subtle differences from one another will be more difficult to find and to distinguish from one another, thereby increasing the likelihood that users identify an incorrect icon when following training.
Another general practice that tends to improve teachability is the use of representative, rather than abstract icons. Representative icons, which depict real-world items rather than purely geometric shapes, are more teachable because trainers can refer to them more easily. In cases where an abstract icon is more appropriate for the overall usability of the product, then it is best to use distinct shapes that are easily describable or referable by name.
Provide feedback to user actions
When a user is following instructions they need to determine if they are following them correctly. Feedback provided by the user interface, in the form of notifications, pop-up messages, and confirmations, is one way to give users confidence that they are moving in the right direction.
For example, in cases where a user is following guidance from customer support, a notification that the user completed a step enables them to inform the customer support specialist that they are ready for the next step. Equally important as positive feedback is feedback that indicates when something has gone wrong (i.e., when the user has performed an error of omission or commission).
Indicate how to obtain help
The first step toward getting help is asking for help. A teachable user interface makes it clear to the user how they can get assistance to learn to use the product. Regardless of the medium used to deliver support (e.g., interactive onboard, online help, customer support hotline), a teachable user interface will make it clear to the user that such support is available and will make it easily accessible.
Matching the training to the product
Training materials should facilitate training. As obvious as that statement sounds, it’s not always followed by people who design teaching materials and training for products.
With the home dialysis machine I mentioned near the start of this article, one of the root causes of the usability issues we identified was the mismatch between the training provided and the users’ needs for learning to use the device.
There are different ways in which training materials might not match the product they’re intended to teach or with their intended audience:
Scope and complexity
Perhaps the most common misstep I’ve observed in training materials and approaches is the delivery of too much or too little information to the trainee.
In the case of the home dialysis machine I worked on several years ago, the draft training protocols delivered to usability test participants simply overwhelmed them with details that did not facilitate or enhance their operation of the device. Rather, the bulk of the training focused on medical details that would have been relevant to a trained nurse learning to understand the foundations of dialysis treatments, but not to a patient learning to operate the device. As a result, participants struggled to remember the parts of the training that actually focused on the operation of the device.
This is not to say that training should only focus on practical details and omit theoretical or contextual underpinnings. Rather, the training should be tailored to match the needs of the user and the context, and should include the amount of theory or context needed to optimize users’ understanding of the product’s use. In some contexts, omitting theoretical or foundational details about the operation of a product can also result in ineffective training. A two-page quick reference leaflet probably wouldn’t suffice as a training tool for a nuclear power plant, for example.
Organization
It’s important to ensure that training programs include the correct content, but it must also be well-organized to be understood by its audience. Just as a clear conceptual model helps users intuit a product’s user interface, a training approach based on a sound conceptual model will help users understand the product more effectively.
One good rule of thumb is to organize the training to reflect the organization of the product’s user interface. Think of the training as providing a guided tour through the user interface. Rather than jumping around from one “room” (i.e., screen or user interface feature) to another, you should walk the user through a logical path that explains the relationship between the different parts of the user interface. Such an approach can help reinforce the conceptual model that exists within the user interface and will help users remember the user interface’s operating principle and structure.
Form factor
Whether training is delivered by a trainer, a document, or as part of the product itself, its form should match the users’ needs, the use environment, and the use context. For example, a nurse wouldn’t expect to receive a 4-hour in-service on a new blood pressure cuff, while a 4-hour in-service might not suffice for providing sufficient training on a robotic surgical kit. Similarly, a 50-page instructional manual would be overkill for an over-the-counter thermometer, but might be appropriate for an insulin pump.
Training is part of a product’s user interface (and vice versa)
Ultimately, product designers are best served to think of training materials and training programs as part of their product’s user interface — elements with which users interact to learn more about the product. Conversely, the product’s primary user interface, whether it consists of hardware or software elements, can guide and facilitate training on the product.
The more thoroughly that training programs and materials are incorporated into the user-centered design process, the more teachable the final product will be.
