A Pragmatic Framework for Selecting Empirical or Inspection Methods to Evaluate Usability  

Within the literature of human-computer interaction there is a vigorous debate on the relative merits of two classes of evaluation methods; those that carry out an empirical study of users' task performance and those that employ experts to inspect a design. The central themes in this debate are effectiveness and cost-efficiency. While these concerns are important in commercial usability work, an analysis of project goals and constraints may be more useful in selecting and justifying methods.

Englefield, Paul. IBM (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods

Learn From Your Customers for Usable Web Applications

Usability consultant Paul Englefield takes you on a journey to demonstrate that listening to your customers is the only way to provide the ultimate usability when designing an e-commerce site or Web-based applications. Through examples, the article weaves user-centered design techniques into the steps of designing an effective business site, focusing on gathering data about your customers' (and their customers') usage behaviors, offers two design models, and demonstrates how to integrate customers' input into the testing and evaluation process.

Englefield, Paul. IBM (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce