E-Books: Are We Going Paperless?

Will electronic books (e-books) change the experience of reading? Will students soon carry a mobile device in their backpacks instead of a ton of textbooks? Some major university projects at the University of Michigan and at Columbia have already created and distributed electronic versions of textbooks (Epstein, 1999). In addition, Microsoft joined publishing firms and electronic manufacturers to set open technical standards for the electronic book format (Wired News, 1999). So what advantages do e-books offer? Some advantages include convenience and reduced storage space. Anywhere from 10 to 250 textbooks or novels can be held on the device, depending on the e-book model, so you can have a portion of your library with you. In addition, users can annotate, highlight, bookmark, and publish their own content on the e-book. By removing the need for paper, the cost of books should decrease and also decrease environmental damage. Another advantage of the e-book is accessibility. Those with visual impairments can increase the font size to improve readability.

Selvidge, Paula and C. Phillips. Usability News (2000). Articles>Usability>Publishing>eBooks

E-Commerce, the Consumer Decision Process, and the Theory of Reasoned Action

More and more companies are relying on e-commerce as a principal method of revenue. However, little is known about the behaviors of online shoppers. The focus of this research was to assess users’ attitudes regarding online consumer behaviors. This research considers nine Internet behaviors across five consumer behavior processes: (a) Motivation and Need Recognition, (b) Information Search, (c) Alternatives Evaluation, (d) Purchase Decision and Purchase, and (e) Purchase Outcomes. The behaviors studied include: clicking on banner ads, reading e-mail advertisements, searching for product information in online stores and using search engines, using comparison engines and online reviews to evaluate alternatives, purchase products, and accessing online customer support via e-mail and websites.

Volk, Fred. Usability News (2001). Articles>Usability>Education

E-Mail Notifications: Making Unsubscription Easy

Unsubscribing email newsletters and other email notification services can be an unpleasant and time-consuming experience. Most unsubscribe problems can be avoided by making the subscribers email visible and linking to an unsubscribe page in all emails.

Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2001). Articles>Usability>Email

e-Tailer or e-Failure

I am personally calling this the year of the e-Tailer. I have seen more hype in e-commerce this year than in any other holiday season in the past including the year the almighty Amazon.com launched its e-commerce site. I consider myself an avid web user and I know what it takes to develop a full-fledged e-commerce site because I have been there in the trenches developing some of those sites in time for the holiday season. I have seen battles won and lost in as few as a week's time. Nothing turns me off more than a poorly constructed e-commerce site and this year, the numbers seem to be taking a turn for the worse.

Finck, Nick. Digital Web Magazine (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Education: More Needles in the Haystack

One of the great challenges -- and joys -- of teaching takes place outside the classroom. Whether on Saturday or Sunday, in the heat of August or chill of early January, class preparation plays a major role in developing the best possible learning environment for students. Access to current resources is paramount. For HCI educators, the World Wide Web is becoming an essential link to such information.

Gasen, Jean B. SIGCHI Bulletin (1996). Articles>Education>Usability

Education: Some Progress and Some New Questions

For each of the last five years, there has been a workshop on HCI Education at the annual CHI conference. What makes these workshops so interesting isn't just the variety of people it brings together or issues discussed, it's the way the workshops have changed over the years. Just as HCI has evolved as a discipline, the topics of these and other workshops have also evolved. These changes are one indication of how much we have learned and what we have left to understand.

Sears, Andrew. SIGCHI Bulletin (1996). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Effects of Documentation Errors on User Perception of Interactive Programs: The Experimental Design  

It would be useful to determine how much effect errors in product documentation have on users, if the errors do not seriously interfere with product use. In an effort to start collecting information on this issue, we designed an experiment to explore the reactions of users to a simple interactive program with flawed documentation. We hypothesized that product quality would be judged in part by the quality of the documentation, if the errors in the documentation interfered with task performance. We also hypothesized that some but not all users would be sensitive to documentation errors and would downgrade their rating of the program and the documentation based on these errors. Our experimental design is described in this paper.

Ridgway, Lenore S. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Usability

The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News

This study examined the effects of line length on reading speed, comprehension, and user satisfaction of online news articles. Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed. No effects of line length were found for comprehension or satisfaction, however, users indicated a strong preference for either the short or long line lengths.

Shaikh, A. Dawn. Usability News (2005). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Usability

Electronic Voting: Usability, Communication, Trust

Beyond just the undeniable importance of a usable form and voting mechanism, is the need to consider the comfort and satisfaction of voters dealing with sometimes radically changed voting systems, especially when the move is from paper-based voting systems to electronic systems.

Bachmann, Karen L. Usability Interface (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Civic

Elementos de Navegación y Orientación del Usuario

Los elementos de navegación y orientación tienen como función básica informar constantemente al usuario acerca de dónde se encuentra, que relación tiene el nodo web que está visualizando respecto al resto de la arquitectura del website, dónde ha estado y hacia dónde puede ir. El objetivo: no perder al usuario.

Hassan Montero, Yusef and Francisco Jesus Martin Fernandez. Nosolousabilidad.com (2002). (Spanish) Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Elevating Expressions

There is a direct line between the abstraction embodied in our code and the reality of the people who will come into contact with that code. Methodologies and managers are beside the point—a distraction from the real issue.

Read, Daniel. developer.star (2001). Articles>Usability>Programming

Eleven Usability Principles for CMS Products

The functionality of the content management system (CMS) is obviously a key deciding factor when purchasing a new product. Equally important is the usability of the CMS.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2007). Articles>Content Management>Usability

Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion

Newsletter usability has increased since our last study, but the competition for users' attention has also grown with the ever-increasing glut of information.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Marketing>Email

Empirical Evaluation of a Popular Cellular Phone's Menu System: Theory Meets Practice    

A usability assessment entailing a paper prototype was conducted to examine menu selection theories on a small screen device by determining the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a popular cellular phone's menu system. Outcomes of this study suggest that users prefer a less extensive menu structure on a small screen device. The investigation also covered factors of category classification and item labeling influencing user performance in menu selection. Research findings suggest that proper modifications in these areas could significantly enhance the system's usability and demonstrate the validity of paper-prototyping which is capable of detecting significant differences in usability measures among various model designs.

Huang, Sheng-Cheng, I-Fan Chou and Randolph G. Bias. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>User Interface>Usability>User Centered Design

The End of the Hit Parade

Once upon a time, if it was on the web, it was good. If it did tricks, so much the better. And how did a company know if its website was really good? Of course, by measuring traffic. The more traffic, the better, right?

Jaleshgari, Ramin. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Log Analysis

The End of Web Design

Websites must tone down their individual appearance and distinct design in all ways: visual design; terminology and labeling; interaction design and workflow; and information architecture. These changes are driven by four different trends that all lead to the same conclusion.

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

Enemies of Usability

I know lots of usability advocates who speak the language of business quite fluently. Could we get better? Sure. But on the whole, we are the solution, not the problem. Let's not weaken our ranks with friendly fire. We have plenty of real enemies to keep us busy.

Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (2002). Articles>Usability>Professionalism

Entering Text Into Hand-Held Devices: Comparing Two Soft Keyboards

With the increasing demand for smaller more mobile devices (e.g., PDAs, pen tablets, etc.), manufacturers have been forced to consider alternative methods of input (other than a standard keyboard) such as pen-based input via handwriting recognition or on-screen, soft keyboards.  However, meeting the need for high-efficiency input in these physically constrained environments has proven to be a challenge for designers and researchers, particularly given the fact that they are designing for a “walk-up” market where consumers want to be able to begin using it without extensive practice.

Bohan, Michael. Usability News (2000). Articles>Usability>Design

Entering the New Millennium

OK, it's trite, arbitrary, western-centric and perhaps even politically incorrect.  But the flipping of the calendar from the year 1999 to Y2K is compelling.  Y2K:  For how many of the past 1000 years would such a term have been meaningful?  That it is, shows how central information technology has become in our thinking.

Kreitzberg, Charles B. Usability Professionals Association (2000). Articles>Usability

Enterprise Usability

Usability goes beyond the level of individual users interacting with screens. It's also a question of how easy or cumbersome it is for the entire organization to use a system.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Workplace

Ergonomic Mice: Comparison of Performance and Perceived Exertion

This study reports a psychophysical comparison of four ergonomic mouse-type devices to the standard mouse. It was hypothesized that muscle activity transferred from the distal to proximal limbs for some of the ergonomic mice may result in increased load on the shoulders and declines in target acquisition performance. Results revealed a potential tradeoff between performance and safety with the devices as participants performed the best with the standard mouse but reported more wrist exertion with this device.

Scarlett, Deborah. Usability News (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Usability

The Ergonomics of Hypertext Narative: Usability Testing as a Tool for Evaluation and Redesign    

While usability research concentrates on evaluating informational documents and Web sites, significant insights can be gained from performing usability testing on texts designed for pleasure reading, such as hypertext narratives. This article describes the results of such a test. The results demonstrate that the navigation systems required for such texts can significantly interfere with readers ability to derive value or pleasure from the fiction. The results emphasize the importance of hypertext authors providing more linear paths through texts and of simplifying the navigational apparatus required to read them.

Gee, Kim. Journal of Computer Documentation (2001). Articles>Usability>Hypertext

Essential Use Cases for Multiplatform Service Design  

This paper addresses the problem of designing service interaction for multiplatform operations and is based on a qualitative study of the services offered by a large retail Portuguese bank in four channels: bank branches, telephone, ATM, and Internet. The functionality of bank services across such channels was captured with essential use cases, which are technology free. When customers are free to decide in which channel they are going to get the service they need, customer experience (non-functional) requirements becoming ever more important. Essential use cases were extended to take account of such customer experience requirements. This additional information in essential use cases is very helpful, as it provides concrete and objective guidelines regarding the most suitable channel for implementing and offering each particular service. Doing essential use case modeling for multiplatform service interaction helps service providers allocate resources to the most likely channels that customers will use. It also allows them to identify areas of interaction experience that need to be improved if services offered are likely to be effectively used in the platform.

Patrício, Lia, J. Falcão e Cunha, Raymond P. Fisk and Nuno J. Nunes. Constantine and Lockwood (2003). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>Case Studies

The Essentials of a Database Quality Process    

Many steps are involved in the process of turning an initial concept for a database into a finished product that meets the needs of its user community. In this paper, we describe those steps in the context of a four-phase process with particular emphasis on the quality-related issues that need to be addressed in each phase to ensure that the final product is a high quality database. The basic requirements for a successful database quality process are presented with specific examples drawn from experience gained in the Standard Reference Data Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Blakeslee, Dorothy M. and John Rumble, Jr. Data Science Journal (2003). Articles>Information Design>Databases>Usability