#30873
Few usability professionals are as well-rounded as Avi Parush. Avi has worked in industry and academia, testing and design, the Old World and the New, with web applications and airplane cockpits, in operating rooms and on the bridges of ships.
Anderson, Clifford. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Interviews>Web Design>Usability
#31631
Do usability engineers make good managers? It depends. It's a profession that highly values its practitioners, is famous for its consultants and gurus, and also attracts its share of introverts.
Anderson, Clifford. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Interviews>Usability
#31203
The usability of voting systems is something almost all usability practitioners can get excited about. It's interesting, it's important, it's in the news, it's challenging. Sharon Laskowski has been lucky to be in on this effort from the very beginning. Her team at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) was tasked with doing major research and coming up with standards for these systems through the Help America Vote Act, passed by the US Congress in 2002.
Anderson, Clifford. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Interviews>Usability
#29326
Susan Dray was one of the first women in the field of usability. Since then, she's started her own company, published and spoken extensively, done important work with a number of professional organizations, and carved a niche for herself in field work and international usability. Through it all, though, her philosophy has remained the same: 'If the user can't use it, it doesn't work.'
Anderson, Clifford. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Interviews>Usability>History
#28785
Whitney Quesenbery on the Five E's of Usability
Quesenbery is one of the authors of Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication. Quesenbery explains the five E's -- a simple way to talk about product usability. The five E's are efficient, effective, engaging, error-tolerant, and easy to learn. She elaborates on what it means for a product to be engaging/satisfying. Quesenbery also explains the importance of personas, which she has written about in the Personas Lifecycle by Tamara Adline and John Pruit. She says stories are essential to personas.
Quesenbery, Whitney and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Interviews>Usability>Podcasts
#33427
Guiding Users with Persuasive Design: An Interview with Andrew Chak
An easy way to define persuasive web design is to contrast it with usable design. Usability focuses on giving users the ability to complete a transaction if they so desire. A usable site makes it easy for users to complete transactions, from buying products to convincing users to read featured articles. Unfortunately, having a usable web site is not always enough to convince users to transact. Even if a user can complete a transaction on your site, doesn't mean that they will transact. To be successful, sites must go beyond Usability by focusing on Persuasive Design.
Perfetti, Christine and Andrew Chak. User Interface Engineering (2003). Articles>Interviews>Usability>Persuasive Design
