Corporate Usability Maturity: Stages 1-4

As their usability approach matures, organizations typically progress through the same sequence of stages, from initial hostility to widespread reliance on user research.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Workplace

Corporate Usability Maturity: Stages 5-8

An organization that reaches the managed usability stage still has far to go to reach usability nirvana. Attaining these higher maturity levels requires many years of effort.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Workplace

Corporate Websites Get a 'D' in PR

Few corporations would discount the value of positive press. You would never know this given the results of our recent usability study. In our study, 20 journalists attempted to use the press areas of 10 corporate websites to gather information for story assignments. Among other tasks, the journalists tried to find basic information about each company's financials, management, and commitment to social responsibility, along with a PR telephone number. On average, journalists found the answer to each of these simple questions only 60% of the time. If these sites were being graded in a U.S. school, the average grade would be no higher than a D.

Nielsen, Jakob and Kara Pernice Coyne. Alertbox (2001). Articles>Usability>Public Relations

Correlating Web-User Data

Everything served to a visitor -- from the first page through marketing, sales, and product fulfillment -- generates data about the customer. Web marketers can tap into this 'free' source of profile data for just the cost of converting existing data into a format that can be used by a data-analysis program.

Allen, Cliff. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Log Analysis

Crafting a User Research Plan

Every piece of user research is part of an ongoing research program, even if that program is informal. However, making a program formal provides a number of advantages: It gives you a set of goals, a schedule that stretches limited user-research resources, and results when they’re needed most. It also helps you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research.

Kuniavsky, Mike. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Usability>Methods

Crafting a User Research Plan

Every piece of user research is part of an ongoing research program, even if that program is informal. However, making a program formal provides a number of advantages: It gives you a set of goals, a schedule that stretches limited user-research resources, and results when they're needed most. It also helps you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>Project Management>Usability

Crafting a User Research Plan, Part II

The most difficult part of setting up a schedule for your user research plan is integrating it into the existing development system.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>Usability>Research

Creating a Universal Usability Agenda

How do you keep usability, accessibility, and user experience requirements on track while developing standards? It is part of the very nature of standards to focus on details--and in the process, to sometimes lose sight of the real goals. This is especially true when a standards-making process goes on for a long time, a situation is highly political, or most people are focused on technology issues.

Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Creating Easy-To-Use Documentation for Paper, Online and Multimedia  

The term 'easy to use' is typically used in connection with the user interface of software applications. However, the term can also be used to describe documentation, referring to techniques of organization, layout, or design that make information both easy to understand and easy to find. As the technology associated with documentation moves toward online and multimedia documentation, the concept of ease of use becomes even more important and relevant. In this paper, we address some of the differences between paper and online documentation that impact the development of easy-to-use online documentation, and outline some of the high-level, emerging issues to be aware of in the development of multimedia documentation.

Baldasare, John, Marie T, Dumbra and Barbara C. Trevaskis. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Usability

Creating Standards and Strategies

I have been asked to document the standards and strategies of usability. Given my company's interest to achieve ISO 9000 certification, I thought of the benefits to have a standard and strategy that conform to an ISO standard. My research led to two standards, ISO 13407 and ISO 9241, which have become invaluable to me.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (1998). Articles>Usability>Standards>ISO 9000

Creating Usable, Search Engine Friendly URLs

There are many reasons to use mod_rewrite to create informative, useful URLs for your website. Most dynamic websites use some form of PHP or ASP to pull the data from the database and often times use that data in the URL as a string. This is not only a potential security flaw, it also gives the user and search engine alike a very uninformative destination for your website.

Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>Usability

Creative Low-Budget Usability Testing Methods  

Usability testing doesn't come cheap. You can however, follow test models that will help you improve the quality of your products, including websites. Usability professionals agree that some testing is better than none, and traditional formal usability testing can be adapted to fit your needs and your budget. This paper discusses how all four of these methods: low-cost usability testing, heuristic evaluations, expert reviews, and checkpoints in the development process were used to analyze subsites and applications at a federally funded public health website.

Reilly, Maggie T. and Cathy N. Hogan. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods

Crisis in the Profession

There are fewer projects in development and that means less work for us. That issue will resolve itself as the recession eases and will reduce some of the pain. I do not believe, as some have suggested, that our work has become irrelevant because programmers have learned how to design usable interfaces. That just isnâ*™t the case. True there are more models to imitate, but every day I see miserably-designed products fielded. And user frustration is hardly a thing of the past. At the core of the problem, I believe, is a truth we must face: we have failed to establish our value to the business community. And if we want to survive and prosper, we must correct that. I doubt that there is a member of this profession who does not believe passionately that the work we do is a major facilitator of success in technology development projects.

Kreitzberg, Charles B. Usability Interface (2002). Articles>Usability

Criteria for Focused Data Collection  

The objective of this task is to propose and validate a mechanism whereby projects can identify their needs for software measurement data and focus their data collection activities using a minimum standardized set of software measures. The purpose of this strategy is to evolve a process that will enable NASA projects to tailor with their data collection activities to their unique needs for effective management control indicators, but also encourages consistent data collection that will facilitate statistical analysis across NASA domains.

Wilson, William M. NASA (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods>Assessment

Critic to Creator: Recognizing Good Design

All too often, people in our field focus so much on pointing out the egregious interaction design mistakes that make it to market, we forget to pay attention to the good design that exists. Not only does it make our profession look bad if we are always complaining, but it also makes us less effective.

Calde, Steve. Cooper Interaction Design (2003). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Interaction Design

Criticizing Our Colleagues: Tough, But Kind  

I’m not used to writing editorials, but lately I’ve heard complaints from more than a few usability professionals about reviews of their work that were snide, hostile, and lacking in reasonable suggestions and this has moved me to speak out. These complaints deal with a primary activity of our profession: constructive criticism. We are often asked to uncover potential problems with products and processes and recommend design changes that could improve usability – using a tone that is firm and constructive. We are also asked to provide feedback to our usability colleagues in book, proposal, and presentation reviews. I have become concerned that feedback among usability professionals is not always as constructive as the feedback we routinely present to our clients. With the recent introduction of the UPA Code of Conduct, hostile reviews of the work of colleagues could be considered an ethical violation. More about that later.

Wilson, Chauncey E. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>Professionalism

Cultural Considerations and Applicability of Western Usability Guidelines in the Design of Chinese E-commerce Websites

The key to the success of e-businesses is to understand what entices people to buy things online and to provide them with the means to carry out these shopping transactions. E-business Web page designers must also have a sound understanding of the consumer behaviors in the targeted markets. Research to understand the psychology and expectations of online shoppers will not only help consumers and e-businesses but also the makers of the equipment and telecommunication infrastructure which supports these businesses. This paper discusses some of the issues in our research to i) understand what motivates Chinese consumers to buy online and ii) whether the Web usability guidelines derived in the West are appropriate for Chinese consumers.

Tham, Ming-Po, Guomei Zhou and Xiaolan Fu. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Usability>Localization>E Commerce

A Cultural Theory of Everyday Usability: Listening to the Ghosts of Consumption  

Posits that although some usability scholars in technical communication have forged fruitful connections between usability and user-centered design and human-centered interaction (HCI), these alliances have not improved usability studies writ large to the extent that it is able to account for culturally-specific complex information systems and how 'users' should, can, and do shape culturally-relevant information before delivery, from the invention to the arrangement, style, and memory of knowledge systems, structures, performances, and products.

Haas, Angela. Michigan State University (2006). Articles>Usability>Cultural Theory

Culture and Usability Evaluation: The Effects of Culture in Structured Interviews  

A major impediment in global user interface development is that there is inadequate empirical evidence for the effects of culture in the usability engineering methods used for developing these global user interfaces. This paper presents a controlled study investigating the effects of culture on the effectiveness of structured interviews in international usability evaluation. The experiment consisted of a usability evaluation of a website with two independent groups of Indian participants. Each group had a different interviewer; one belonging to the Indian culture and the other to the Anglo-American culture. The results show that participants found more usability problems and made more suggestions to an interviewer who was a member of the same (Indian) culture than to the foreign (Anglo-American) interviewer. The results of the study empirically establish that culture significantly affects the efficacy of structured interviews during international user testing. The implications of this work for usability engineering are discussed.

Vatrapu, Ravi and Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Interviewing>Cultural Theory

Culture in the Further Development of Universal Design

By now most readers of Design for All India have a healthy grasp of Universal Design. Many, perhaps most, have become highly competent in its application as is evident from the articles appearing in past volumes and today. Beyond technical mastery of the Seven Principles, knowledge of best-of-breed solutions, and familiarity with allied concepts such as Visitability, Adaptive Technology, or anthropometrics there is a cultural component to this design approach that is unquantifiably – but undeniably – transforming Universal Design. By systematically and thoroughly examining this cultural component in the coming decade we will discover the true nature of Universal Design to be social sustainability.

Rains, Scott. uiGarden (2008). Articles>Usability>Cultural Theory>Universal Usability

Culture: Wanted? Alive or Dead?    

Is culture dead as a topic of interest to usability and user-interface usability and design professionals? One European anthropologist/ethnographer wrote recently that 'culture is dead' and only of interest to people in the USA (who seemingly have little or no understanding of other cultures around the world). On the other hand, another (USA) usability/design professional recently stated that she thought cross-cultural issues were one of the most important and potent trends in product/service development. Who is right?

Marcus, Aaron. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Cultural Theory

Customer Partnering: Another Way to Gather User Data  

Information developers have been using user-centered design principles for some time now. Many of the techniques available, however, do not provide the depth of knowledge needed to design more complex information products. Customer partnering sessions take place ofer a period of three or four months, allowing information developers to learn more about customer needs and how information products are used. Customer partnering relationships benefit both the company that funds the sessions and the customers who attend them.

Elser, Arthur G. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Customers as Designers

The change to customer-designed products is based on the ability to connect the user interface to the manufacturing backend through a computer. As the product is manufactured, the computer knows what customer it is intended for, what that customer specified, and how to track the product through the manufacturing process so that it can be shipped directly to the desired destination. No inventory (one of the business benefits of custom manufacturing).

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Wireless Web

Data Collection in the Palm of your Hand: A Case Study

Mobile computing devices, which are commonly known as either personal digital assistants (PDA) or personal information managers (PIM), are an emerging technology that has the potential to be very useful in specific areas of computing.  One area in which mobile computing devices are gaining favor is in data collection, especially in places where larger computers are impractical.  While the use of these devices as a data collection tool is not a new idea (see Drury, 1987), it has been a bit slow to take off.  However, recent advances in this area of technology have allowed the gap in functionality between mobile computing devices and personal computers to be closed to such an extent that these devices may be considered to be as functional in many ways as a laptop or palmtop computer for collecting data.  In fact, the conversion of paper and pencil forms such as surveys, questionnaires, and assessments to these devices may be considered a next logical step in the use of mobile computing devices.

Spain, Kelly and Chad Phipps. Usability News (2000). Articles>Usability>Workflow>PDA

Deaf and Hearing-Impaired

It is hard to make a hat that fits all heads. If one were made, most people would find it uncomfortable. This fact could be the realistic of the web sites design. Web developers face the same issue creating web pages for more general usage. For those deaf and hearing-impaired people, some special technologies should be applied to ease their web browsing and searching. This report will focus on such disabled characteristics.

Universal Usability. Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Audio