#21095
Industry Usability Reporting and the Common Industry Format (ANSI-NCITS 354-2001)
The Common Industry Format (CIF) is a standard method for reporting usability test findings. The format is primarily for reporting results of formal usability tests in which quantitative measurements were collected and is particularly appropriate for summative/comparative testing. The CIF targets two audiences: usability professionals and stakeholders in an organization. Stakeholders can use the usability data to help make informed decisions concerning the release of software products or the procurement of such products. While the CIF is formally aimed for software products, it can be used for hardware usability as well.
Parush, Avi and Emile Morse. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Usability>Standards>Reports
#22076
Information Design Using Card Sorting
At the beginning of any information design exercise, it is normal to be confronted by a very long list of potential subjects to include. The challenge is to organise this information in a way that is useful and meaningful for the users of the system. A card sorting session can go a long way towards resolving this problem.
Robertson, James. Step Two (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods>Card Sorting
#20543
Information Engineering for the 21st Century 
Bowie urges technical communicators to spend less time creating documentation and more time designing products that people can use intuitively.
Bowie, John S. Intercom (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#25163
Information Engineering: Taking Technical Communication to the Next Level
The technical communication community can no longer be satisfied to produce documentation that scores high in quality but low in effectiveness. We must use whatever means necessary to ensure our users reach their goals with as few obstacles and distractions as possible. This will require us to change the very nature of our work, from simply documenting complexity to designing collaborative systems. Our ultimate goal is not to write a better manual or online help system or web page, but to ensure that human beings and products can work together effectively to achieve common objectives.
Bowie, John S. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2003). Articles>Documentation>Usability
#19758
Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster
The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
#22672
Information Specialists at the Intersection of Information Architecture and Usability
Discusses the intersection of information architecture (IA) and usability.
Head, Alison J. Florida State University (2001). Articles>Information Design>Usability
#23053
Information, Architecture, and Usability
What is the relationship between information architecture design and usability engineering? This is a loaded question, and I wade into dangerous waters by addressing it, but the answer has significant implications for a variety of audiences.
Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (1999). Articles>Information Design>Usability
#31267
This site is designed to provide information about instructional design principles and how they relate to teaching and learning. Instructional design, also know as instructional systems design, is the is the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of instruction. Instructional designers often use instructional technology or educational technology as tools for developing instruction
InstructionalDesign.org. Articles>Usability>Instructional Design>Methods
#20855
Instructions for Branch Office Testing
These are the instructions we gave to the people at various Sun branch offices in Europe and Asia for their user testing of a new design for the company's web pages. In a few places, these instructions refer to web-specific issues, so they will have to be modified slightly for use in other projects. These instructions were sent by electronic mail to those local Sun reps who had volunteered to lead a test.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing
#23909
Integrating Usability and Accessibility
Usability is a concept that we intuitively know when we experience it. The notion of usability can refer to ease of use, ease of learning, efficiency and usefulness. To render a satisfying user experience, a well-designed product should have a combination of these features.
Johannesen, Leila, Joe Sacco, Tim Hogan and Marc Boegner. IBM (2004). Articles>Usability>Accessibility
#26778
Interaction Modeling: User State-Trace Analysis
Interaction modeling is a good way to identify and locate usability issues with the use of a tool. Several methods exist. Modeling techniques are prescriptive in that they aim to capture what users will likely do, and not descriptive of what users actually did.
Queen, Matt. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Interaction Design
#26639
International Sites: Minimum Requirements
Users from other countries have special needs related to entry fields for names and addresses, measurements and dates, and information about regional product standards.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>International>Usability
#20859
International Usability Testing
Although products are commonly used in countries other than the one they were designed for, designers often forget to consider different usage circumstances. International use of the Web is particularly common since users can access pages from all over the world with a single click.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Usability>Methods>International
#23956
Les Internautes Détestent Scroller?!?
Readers hate to scroll... vous risquez d'entendre plus d'une fois cette rengaine! Bien évidemment, les utilisateurs n'apprécient pas de dérouler des masses de textes contenant des informations composites et indifférenciées. Bien évidemment, les accès et les messages les plus importants doivent être placés en haut de page s'ils veulent améliorer leurs chances d'être perçus. Mais cela ne veut pas dire que le scrolling est à bannir systématiquement et que toutes vos pages doivent tenir dans un écran ! Une fois passé en mode 'consommation', l'internaute déroulera volontiers une page dont le sujet l'intéresse.
Redaction (2004). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#18619
Interviews and focus groups let you query users about their experiences and preferences with your product. Both are formal, structured events where you directly interact with users, asking them to voice their opinions and experiences regarding your product.
#29997
Intranet Usability Shows Huge Advances
Measured usability improved by 44% compared to our last large-scale intranet study. The new research identified 5 times the previous number of intranet design guidelines.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Usability>Intranets
#14183
Intranet Usability: The Trillion-Dollar Question
The average mid-sized company could gain $5 million per year in employee productivity by improving its intranet design to the top quartile level of a cross-company intranet usability study. The return on investment? One thousand percent or more.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Usability>Intranets
#18733
La usabilidad (dentro del campo del desarrollo web) es la disciplina que estudia la forma de diseñar sitios web para que los usuarios puedan interactuar con ellos de la forma más fácil, cómoda e intuitiva posible. La mejor forma de crear un sitio web usable es realizando un diseño centrado en el usuario, diseñando para y por el usuario, en contraposición a lo que podría ser un diseño centrado en la tecnología o uno centrado en la creatividad u originalidad.
Hassan Montero, Yusef. Nosolousabilidad.com (2002). (Spanish) Articles>Usability>Web Design
#28728
Introduction to Agile Usability, User Experience Activities on Agile Development Projects: Part II
What would happen when usability community meets agile community? How to adopt usability practice by agilists?
Ambler, Scott W. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Usability>Agile
#26244
An Introduction to Personas and How to Create Them
There are many ways to identify the needs of users, such as usability testing, interviewing users, discussions with business stakeholders, and conducting surveys. However one technique that has grown in popularity and acceptance is the use of personas: the development of archetypal users to direct the vision and design of a web solution.
Calabria, Tina. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
#19937
Usability addresses the relationship between tools and their users. In order for a tool to be effective, it must allow intended users to accomplish their tasks in the best way possible. The same principle applies to computers, websites, and other software. In order for these systems to work, their users must be able to employ them effectively.
#25606
Investing in Usability: Testing versus Training
Assume that you are in charge of a development project and you have about $10,000 to spend on usability. What is the best way to use the money? What is the right thing to do for the organization? What will be best for customers?
#24375
Involving Customers in Developing Usability Metrics
Usability metrics are standards to measure a product against and are critical to finding out whether the product is successful in the areas that are important to its users. You can miss critical observations during a usability test if you do not use metrics to test the product. This is especially true if you are testing a product for the first time and do not know what the test will uncover. This paper describes how to find out what users want out of your product and develop usability metrics through focus group and contextual inquiry research.
Hammar, Molly. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability
#31296
User Centric, a privately held usability consulting firm based in Chicago, evaluated the long-term usability and user experience of the iPhone in 2007.
uiGarden (2008). Articles>User Experience>Usability
#31179
终于问世了，iPhone的可用性测试！毫无疑问，iPhone广告营销和推广已经超过了当代所有的消费设备，达到了登峰造极的程度。但是它真的名符其实吗？ inUse公司几位最好的可用性专家组织了一次比较性的可用性测试，测试了5个用户，比较了四款手机。众所周知，人们会很容易喜欢上那些外表华丽的产品，可是 如果这个产品很难使用，新鲜感就会烟消云散，沮丧和挫败感就会随之而来。 那么测试结果如何呢？难以置信！iPhone 给这个世界带来了全新的交互方式，再次证明在用户体验上“简洁才是王道”。
uiGarden (2008). (Chinese) Articles>Usability>Wireless Web
