The $300 Million Button

It's hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, to the tune of $300,000,000 a year. What was even worse: the designers of the site had no clue there was even a problem.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms

About Us Information on Websites

We found a 9% improvement in the usability of About Us information on websites over the past 5 years. But companies and organizations still can't explain what they do in one paragraph.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Writing

"About Us" -- Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website

Study participants searched websites for background information ranging from company history to management biographies and contact details. Their success rate was 70%, leaving much room for usability improvements in the 'About Us' designs.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Writing

Accentuate the Negative: Obtaining Effective Reviews Through Focused Questions    

How you ask a question strongly determines the type of answer that you will obtain. For effective documentation reviews, whether they are conducted internally or externally as part of usability testing, it's important to use precise questions that will provide concrete information on which to base revisions. This paper proposes an approach to obtaining useful feedback that emphasizes negative, 'what did we do wrong?' questions. This approach focuses limited resources on areas that need improvement rather than areas that already work well and that don't require immediate improvement.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Technical Communication Online (1997). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing

Access to Current and Next-Generation Information Systems by People with Disabilities

The purpose of this document is to provide information and resources for those interested in learning more about accessibility issues and current and next-generation information systems. The current focus of this document is on the National Information Infrastructure (NII), sometimes known as the 'information superhighway.' This document contains both information presented at a very introductory level and information which is more technical in nature. Wherever possible, all of the technical discussions are broken out and presented separately, so that readers may course through the material at a level which is comfortable to them, and which meets their information needs. This is a living document which will be continually revised and added to as more information is collected and as the efforts in the area of research, development, and public policy continue to evolve. The most recent form of this document can be found on the Internet via our ftp, gopher, or WWW servers. All of these are located at: trace.wisc.edu The document can be viewed on-line or downloaded in one of several forms to facilitate accessibility.

University of Wisconsin. Articles>Editing>Accessibility>Usability

Accessibility Allies Against A11y

The idea of accessibility is to make websites (or other things) more easily usable by people, most frequently specifically “people who are disabled”. This is emphatically not just about using alt tags (note: always call them tags, it annoys the purists). Accessibility is not just about the blind.

ThePickards (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Diction>Usability

Accessibility and Usability for All

An article discussing how the needs of all users must be addressed, including the varying level of computer literacy and competence. It is conjectured that building sites which address the specific needs of these audiences will benefit the general public as a whole.

Nevett, Fraser. Mercurytide (2006). Articles>Accessibility>Usability

Accessibility Meets Usability: A Plea for a Paramount and Concurrent User-Centered Design Approach to Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility for All  

This paper identifies challenges for a user–centered design process with respect to infusing accessible design practices into electronic and information technology product development. Initially, it emphasizes that when user–centered design is paramount and concurrent with accessible design, electronic and information technology can be accessible for all. Next, it provides an overview of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Section 508. Last, it provides basic accessible design heuristics that can be integrated into the design process. It concludes with recommendations for a paramount and concurrent user–centered design approach to product development.

Reece, Gloria A. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Accessibility>Usability

Accessibility Meets Usability: Designing for Multimedia Using Digital Storytelling  

Initially, this article provides an overview of digital storytelling that describes its uses, technology, a methodology for creating a digital story, tips for creating a digital story, assessment strategies for digital stories, and links to current examples of digital stories. Next, this article recounts the third author's first experience with digital story-telling, in the context of helping children with hearing loss adopt a more positive frame of reference toward their disability. It describes the storyboarding process, explains how writing is still a primary concern, and gives some valuable advice concerning the pros and cons of dabbling in high- technology. Last it discusses accessibility and usability requirements for digital stories.

Reece, Gloria A. and Judy A. Vinegar. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Accessibility>Multimedia>Usability

Accessible Forms

This document is concerned with what the user of a Website form "sees" and interacts with. It outlines how you can create forms for the Web that are more accessible and describes the appropriate use of.

Hudson, William. Webusability (2004). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms

Accessing Information through Natural Language Interface  

The natural language interface (NLI) is a module that allows the user to access the information stored in the underlying database by typing requests expressed in a natural language.

Kovacs, Laszlo and Sieber, Tanja. tekom (2005). Articles>Usability

Accommodating Mobility Impaired Users on the Web

Worldwide, there are more than 750 million people with disabilities and this number is increasing. It is critical that the Web be usable by anyone, regardless of individual capabilities and disabilities since the World Wide Web is supposed to be a place where everyone has the ability to find information or shop. Website designers should be sure that the web pages can be accessible by everyone no matter who or where. Accessibility, a category of usability, is a software product's ability to be used by people with disabilities, such as motion impairment.

Deng, Yu. Universal Usability (2001). Articles>Usability>Accessibility

Achieving and Balancing Consistency in User Interface Design

The Principle of Least Astonishment, in shorthand, encompasses what we, as designers, must achieve to ensure consistency in our designs. Consistency is a fundamental design principle for usable user interfaces. But the thing that astonishes me is that it’s actually necessary to explain this principle. Surprise implies the unexpected. Of course, users want the response to a given action to be what they expect; otherwise, they would have done something else. In user interactions, the unexpected is pretty much the same as the unwanted. Surprise usually implies something bad rather than something positive—unless users already have such dismally low expectations of their software that they might think, Wow! It worked. I’m so astonished.

Zuschlag, Michael. UXmatters (2010). Articles>User Interface>Usability

Acting on User Research

User research offers a learning opportunity that can help you build an understanding of user behavior, but you must resolve discrepancies between research findings and your own beliefs.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>Research

Active Table-of-Contents Control for Content Navigation and Customization  

This report illustrates the design of a novel user interface feature to provide simple and rapid navigation and user customization of the contents of a complex, multipart document. Within a performancesupport application for classroom teachers, the objective was to provide an efficient and instantly learnable scheme for direct user control over the parts to be included in the document as well as quick access to any part of the document. The design relies on the techniques of instructive interaction, an innovative approach for making user interfaces self-teaching even when they incorporate novel or non-standard features.

Constantine, Larry L. and Lucy A.D. Lockwood. Foruse.com (2001). Articles>Usability>User Interface

Add New Tricks to Your Performance

One of the things I noticed about circus performers was that they are always practicing and always learning. Why? Because audiences demand acts that delight them. Therefore, to keep their routines fresh and interesting to themselves as well as to the audience, performers are always learning something new, something more difficult, or something fresh. You, as a technical communicator, need to have the same passion for adding new tricks to your performance. A great place to start is with usability: design, testing, and analysis. Why? If you make sure that your documents are well written, doesn’t that automatically make them usable? Of course not. Well-written documents are simply that—well written. Your prose may be technically accurate, clear, and succinct, but if people can’t find it, or don’t know about it, or if it documents a hard-to-use product, then no one will use it. As Judy Glick-Smith says: 'It’s communication, not literature.'

Wise, Mary. Usability Interface (2000). Articles>Usability

Adobe's Robert McDaniels Responds (Again) to Nielsen Criticisms of PDF

Many of the 'PDF Usability Crimes' Nielsen cites have nothing to do with Acrobat or PDF but are the result of poor design choices. Most of same arguments about poor navigation, large file sizes, and excessive text blocks can be used to describe poorly designed HTML as well. There are some very valid reasons for using PDF's online as opposed to HTML.

McDaniels, Robert. PlanetPDF (2003). Articles>Usability>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Adopting Documentation Usability Techniques to Alleviate Cognitive Friction

Cognitive friction results in a digital divide between the software development community and software users. The digital divide, in turn, has a direct correlation with the usability of the application: how well can the software users learn and use the application or the product to perform their tasks and accomplish their goals. Today's Technical Communicators can help bridge this divide and reduce cognitive friction by applying industry-acclaimed usability techniques to the documentation they produce toward accelerating user acceptance of the product. Less cognitive friction means better user adoption that results in fewer calls to tech support, higher customer satisfaction, and in the long run, better brand loyalty.

Biswas, Debarshi Gupta and Suranjana Dasgupta. Indus (2009). Articles>Documentation>Usability>Methods

Adopting Documentation Usability Techniques to Alleviate Cognitive Friction

Usability is the combination of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which the users accomplish defined goals in a given environment. User-centered documentation matches the users' mental model, thereby helping the users find information they want quickly and easily in their hour of need. The list of documentation usability criteria is fairly subjective at this time, and various opinionated discussion groups have contributed to this. Usable documentation is based on a deep understanding of the users' tasks, and this understanding can only be gained through interviewing representative users. Applying information architecture techniques, the content within documentation should be properly chunked so that the users can assimilate the information properly. Procedural guides should have a well-defined and searchable index that enables users to connect key application terms to their correct context. User-friendly documentation is always succinct, but never at the expense of omitting critical/useful information. It should be developed using a structured process so that it starts with the big picture and gradually adds lower level of details, addressing the needs of every unique group of users. Finally, the documentation must be tested among a representative group of users, and their feedback should be incorporated to make sure that it has met all of the major usability criteria.

Biswas, Debarshi Gupta and Suranjana Dasgupta. STC Usability SIG (2009). Articles>Usability>User Experience>Documentation

Adopting the Universal Design Approach Instead of the Stigma That Creates Poorly Accessible Enviroments

Universal Design can be thought of as a contemporary philosophical movement that addresses trends in the growth of the aging population and diversification of user abilities around the world. Stakeholders rely on designers, planners and managers as decision makers leading the drive to create non-segregated environments that help users and eliminate the stigma of disability. However, it seems necessary that everyone involved in the design process becomes aware and willing to bring about change. Therefore, the preparation of design students as well as users to understand the scope of Universal Design must be based on strategies that counteract the continuation of the stigma of disability in the mindset of designers and others who can bring about the changes required to create a more inclusive world.

Guimaraes, Marcelo. uiGarden (2008). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Advanced Usability Topics  

An increasing number of STC members now have usability programs as part of their job responsibilities, although they’re not always full-time usability specialists. Many STC members have been performing usability activities for several years.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L. and Lori K. Anschuetz. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Usability

Affordances

The concept of an affordance was coined by the perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson in his seminal book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. The concept was introduced to the HCI community by Donald Norman in his book The Psychology of Everyday Things from 1988. There has however been ambiguity in Norman's use of the concept, and the concept thus requires a more elaborate explanation.

Soegaard, Mads. Interaction-Design.org (2006). Articles>User Interface>Usability