Designers' Roles in Communicating with Users

Defining 'the user experience' is difficult since it can extend to nearly everything in someone's interaction with a product, from the text on a search button, to the color scheme, to the associations it evokes, to the tone of the language used to describe it, to the customer support. Understanding the relationship between these elements requires a different kind of research than merely timing how quickly a task is accomplished or testing to see how memorable the logo is.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Design>User Centered Design>Communication>User Experience

Half Web Searchers Enter One Query, Look at One Page of Results

Over 66% of searchers examine fewer than five results with more than one in three Web searchers viewing only on one document in a given session. Users' search strategies are not those believed traditionally effective, but a close analysis reveals they work well on the Web.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Articles>Usability>Search

List Provides Way for Developers to Reach Testers with Visual Impairment

A mailing list now connects users with visual impairments willing to act as testers and website developers concerned with accessibility.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Articles>Usability>Accessibility

Narrative vs Control in the Online Story World

How much control should users be able to take over the system they are using? Within Human-Computer Interaction, the challenge is usually to give control of technology to users; be it through accessible design, or, more generally, by making paths clear and choices apparent.

Light, Ann. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction

The Return on Investment (ROI) for Personas

For a variety of reasons, persona efforts tend to peter out rather than end in a managed, measured, and organized manner. Consultants are usually not paid to stick around long enough to manage the personas at the end of a project and in-house teams are usually more concerned with ramping up for the next project than they are with tidying up loose ends from the previous one. Being first-in/last-out on projects means that you will probably end up with responsibilities that straddle two projects. You will be completing your work on project A even after you have begun your work on project B. That is no simple task. It is certainly easier to simply move on to project B. However, we argue that an organized approach to measuring and managing the end of a project can yield significant benefits.

Light, Ann. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods>Personas

Stop, or Dr Nielsen gets it! - the Backlash in Usability?

Some of the criticism Jakob Nielsen is now drawing comes from the very community he represents. A few years ago, Jakob was King and we were delighted that someone had managed to raise awareness of usability and the benefit to design that involving the user might yield. That has now given way to a frustration with the authority he commands.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2002). Articles>Usability

Weaving Usability and Cultures: Tools of Inspiration

Accessibility tools are not the most glamorous of playthings. More often than not, you make do with a toolbar across your browser; a set of guidelines, or, at best, heuristics; and, if you are lucky, a screen-reader. To the uninitiated, they appear highly technical and unwelcoming. Someone said to me recently it took working alongside a person with very little sight for a couple of hours to transform the meaning of the great wad of guidance she’d been handed about making websites accessible. Suddenly it seemed like an important venture, rather than a test of patience.

Light, Ann. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability

编织可用性与文化: 激发灵感的工具

用于提高亲和性（accessibility）的工具并不是好玩儿的玩具。常见的亲和工具（或叫辅助工具），一般来说，是你在设计时的一条足以横跨你的浏览器的工具栏，或是一整套设计指南，或是读屏软件。这些东西对于没有从事过亲和性工作的设计人员来说，显得非常的专业却不受欢迎。最近有个人告诉我，她和一个严重弱视者一起花了几个小时的时间，将她所拿到手的一大堆有关如何提高网站亲和性水平的指导原则转化成实际的设计。突然一下子我感觉亲和性的设计不只是一个对耐心的考验，而更像是一个重要的冒险。

Light, Ann. uiGarden (2005). (Chinese) Articles>Web Design>Usability

Colons at the End of Labels?

You are writing captions or labels for fields in forms, for example 'Name' or 'Date of birth'. Should they be finished with a colon, or not?

Light, Ann. Usability News (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms

UPA UK Salary Survey shows £38,000 Mean

The first UPA UK salary survey results show a range of £18,500 to £90,000 paid to British usability specialists, with a mean of £37,801 and a median of £35,000.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Careers>Salaries>Usability>United Kingdom

Usability wins over Personalisation in Cost Effectiveness

Jupiter Research reports that only 14% of consumers say personalised offers or recommendations on shopping Web sites lead them to buy more often from online stores, and just 8% say that personalisation increases their repeat visits to content, news or entertainment websites. By contrast, the majority of consumers said that basic site improvements would make them buy or visit websites more often - 54% cited faster-loading pages and 52% cited better navigation as greater incentives.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Personalization