Forms vs. Applications

Once an online form goes beyond two screenfulls, it's often a sign that the underlying functionality is better supported by an application, which offers a more interactive user experience.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Forms>Usability

Forskellen på Usability og Brugervenlighed

Hvad er forskellen på 'usability' og 'brugervenlighed'? Som ordet jo fortæller, er usability, studiet i brugbarhed. Hvorimod brugervenlighed er studiet i at etablere et interface, som er venligt mod brugeren.

Orgaard Larsen, Thomas. Quark, The (2002). (Danish) Articles>Usability

Forums for Improving HCI Education

As HCI continues to mature as a discipline, educators face a challenging task. HCI educators need to keep up with the changing definition of HCI, understand what industry is experiencing, and where research is heading. To do this, HCI educators must continue to discuss the discipline and how they teach it.

Sears, Andrew. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Articles>Education>Usability

The Freedom of Fast Iterations: How Netflix Designs a Winning Web Site

The designers of Netflix.com have a smashing success on their hands, but we didn't find them resting on their laurels. They want to get even better, and for them that means iterate, iterate, iterate. Netflix isn't the only company using a fast iterative design approach. Google has also gained attention for their unorthodox design methods, with many people complaining that they have a huge stable of products, but only a few they've designed well.

Porter, Joshua. User Interface Engineering (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Workflow

From Data Drought to Factoid Flood: Reinforcing the Banks of the River of Communication    

Information, once rare and valuable, is now as plentiful as it is meaningless. The constant accessibility rendered by various 'networking' technologies has led to a veritable glut of information. Deluged with data and flooded with facts, we are drowning in a river of communication with no clear direction or purpose. Media-mesmerized and stimuli-saturated, we are caught up in the murky current, making it increasingly more difficult to keep our heads above water. Whether we sink or swim will depend on how effective we are at controlling and managing the flow, how efficient we are at fishing for essence and meaning, and how adept we are at preserving the ecology between man and this digital morass.

Dahm, Rea Etta M. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Information Design>Usability

From Good to Great—: The Finer Points of Writing User Documentation  

A few years ago, the NeXT user publications group was handed a charter to create casual books with personality. We were also told to condense the user documentation for an entire operating system and several bundled applications into 300 pages. And of course we had the top priority of creating accurate, complete, and easy-to-use documentation. To our delight, these goals ended up being mutually compatible. The keys? Task orientation, flat hierarchy, carefully crafted page design, illustration, and a casual, intelligent tone. We also broke some 'rules'! (Caution: Some of the following material may seem radical to seasoned traditionalists.)

Casabona, Helen. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Software>Usability

From the SIG Manager's Desk--Technical Communicators and Usability

Why technical communicators and usability? Both writers and software development managers have asked me that question. In both cases, it springs from a narrow view of communicators as 'just writers.' It is a point of view that fails to see the many activities, from learning the subject matter to organizing the information or creating good document design, that are hidden behind that final task of writing the words.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Usability Interface (2000). Articles>Usability

From Writing Documents to Meeting User Information Needs  

As professional Technical Communicators, we constantly struggle with the question 'Is what we produce being used and is it making a difference?' Too often, we base our measures of success on our own views of what makes a good document, Help system, or other information product. Through broader and more detailed analysis, and by measuring success based on how our information products affect others, we can increase the effectiveness of our information products and increase our value to our users and companies.

Hurst, Bob, Cindy Line and Kerry Newberry. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Writing>Usability>Assessment

The Future of the "Mobile Internet"

In the near future the number of mobile Internet access devices will surpass the number of PCs in the world. This obviously has a number of implications for the future of the Internet and what form it will take in this changed environment. A recent article in the Economist compares the transition to that from the telegraph to the ‘speaking telegraph’, or what we now call the telephone. In both instances a technology which had been the preserve of specialist operators was passed into the hands of the public. And in both cases, this transition caused huge changes despite the underlying technology remaining largely unchanged. New usage models emerged as the user base changed.

Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2001). Articles>Usability>Wireless Web

Fuzzy + Expensive = Useful?

Executives as well as customers demand quality from technical communicators. However, the requirements of both groups seem hard to combine: Executives want quality to be achieved inside the company by applying quality standards without causing any delay or additional costs. Establishing customer-based quality, on the other hand, usually demands extra money and extra time. Nevertheless both demands can and should be utilized for developing a user-oriented quality system.

Bock, Gabriele. TC-FORUM (1998). Articles>Usability>Quality

Garbage In, Garbage Out: Using Affordances

The trick is to make data-entry forms clear enough that workers understand what you require of them without having to ask. This understanding alone can drastically reduce the frequency of errors, but to turn that understanding into a payback, you'll have to design a label for each field that is truly obvious to the workers. Information designers call these clues "affordances", and if you're lucky enough to have technical writers or editors in your organization, you can probably enlist their aid in designing these clues.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1999). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>Forms

Generic Commands

Applications can give users access to a richer feature set by using the same few commands to achieve many related functions.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Usability>User Interface

Get Out of Your Lab, and Into Their Lives

We need to practice research methods that accept the complexity of customers' technological world, and take it into account. Monolithic solutions are giving way to smaller point solutions, people are saving their information in a variety of places (personal computer, websites and hosted applications, handheld devices, print-outs), and reliance on stored passwords and favorites is deepening. And yet, in this climate, we still invite folks into a foreign lab, to use a computer that isn't theirs, to leave behind their files, papers, and Post-It Notes, and then ask them to engage in a scripted series of uninterrupted tasks.

Merholz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods

Get Real! Planning Tasks and Activities for Your Usability Test  

Producing usable task-oriented information requires thorough knowledge and understanding of the tasks to be supported. Technical communicators can acquire this knowledge and understanding in a number of ways, each of which has its own strong points and drawbacks.

Grice, Roger A. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Usability>Planning

Getting from Research to Personas: Harnessing the Power of Data

The usefulness of personas in defining and designing interactive products has become more widely accepted in the last few years, but a lack of published information has, unfortunately, left room for a lot of misconceptions about how personas are created, and about what information actually comprises a persona. Although space does not permit a full treatment of persona creation in this article, I hope to highlight a few essential points.

Goodwin, Kim. Cooper Interaction Design (2002). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas

Getting Involved in Product Usability as a Technical Communicator

Recently I transitioned into the role of user interface designer after working several years as a technical communicator in the software industry. Like many Technical Writers, I felt some frustration at being downstream in the development process and having to deal with some product usability issues while I wrote user documentation. As result, I became interested in getting involved upstream in the development process. A Technical Writer's role on the product team is as the communication liaison between the software domain and the user's world. Thus, a Technical Writer takes a broad view of the product and how it fits the user's world. This user perspective is critical to communicating effectively with the user. Not surprisingly this user advocate role also describes the view of the user interface designer.

Molloy, Karen. STC Usability SIG (2000). Articles>Usability

Getting Started With Usability

Practical experience and training helps me to go beyond usability fundamentals. I have learned about usability from books, news groups on the Internet, and university courses. Putting usability to practice means applying the lessons I have learned to small projects that have minimal impact on systems and services, but provide me with an opportunity to gain experience.

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

Getting the Complete Picture with Usability Testing

Good usability testing definitely provides an opportunity for clear-cut improvements in the usability of Web sites. In order to increase the chances of success with usability testing, it is important to measure effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction–they all measure different aspects of the usability of a Web site. If only one or two of these measures are used, it would provide an incomplete or partial picture of the possible human performance and user satisfaction results.

Bailey, Robert. Usability.gov (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing

Giveaways to Thank Helpful Users--What's Best?

What is the best way to thank helpful users for participating in a usability study? Carl Myhill asked this question to a popular discussion group of the Usability community. The following are some of the replies.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Usability>Testing

A Glimpse of China's Future at User Friendly 2005

After participating in UF2005, I'm left with the impression that the design and usability professions in China are developing at a breakneck speed.

Barlow-Busch, Robert. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Usability>Regional>China

Global Online Card Sort for World Usability Day 2006

World Usability Day has come and gone for 2006, and the results of the global online card sort are in. About five hundred people in 19 or 20 countries participated in the exercise. Find out what's next.

Bailie, Rahel Anne. Usability Interface (2007). Articles>Usability>Methods>Card Sorting

Goal Composition: Extending Task Analysis to Predict Things People May Want to Do

One of the basic questions during the development of a computer system and its user interface is what the users will want to do with the system. Unfortunately, a task analysis of users' current activities is not sufficient to predict what they will do in the future. It is well known that people's use of computers change over time and that new and unexpected uses are found for most new systems.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1994). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Goal-Directed Content Management

Anecdotal evidence from within the CM industry indicates that CM implementations fail to meet corporate expectations about half of the time. Part of the reason for missed expectations could be poor usability.

Fore, David. Cooper Interaction Design (2002). Articles>Content Management>Usability

Got Usability? Talking with Jakob Nielsen

Jakob Nielsen has brought usability to the attention of the general public, but within the user experience community he's been criticized by those who say he emphasizes a view that excludes other dimensions of user experience. So is he the defender of ease-of-use or the enemy of creativity?

Thornton, Chad. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Graphic Design vs. Usability

When the philosophy of the 'skin interface' is applied to other applications, it becomes problematic. There is nothing wrong with that concept as long as it is clear that it only works with highly specialized applications such as Winamp. It is even culturally expected in the Winamp community that skins will be created and made available.

Spillers, Frank. Demystifying Usability (2004). Articles>Usability>Graphic Design