#14187
To save costs, some companies are outsourcing Web projects to countries with cheap labor. Unfortunately, these countries lack strong usability traditions and their developers have limited access -- if any -- to good usability data from the target users.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Usability>Outsourcing>Offshoring
#31907
Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button? Following platform conventions is more important than suboptimizing an individual dialog box.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Usability
#28568
What if we could offer a course or two on usability, on thinking like a user, on design thinking, on the user-centered design process?
Sampson, Fred. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Usability>Education
#21094
On Being Modern: New Technologies and Voting Outside the US
The argument most frequently advanced in the United Kingdom in favour of implementing electronic voting is that it will increase turnout. In the UK, the under-25s tend to avoid voting in elections of any type. Local government and European Parliament elections rank among the worst for turnout (below 40 percent) and demonstrate a continuous downward trend in recent years.
Ferguson, Louise. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Civic
#10429
On Beyond Help: Meeting User Needs for Useful Online Information 
It is well accepted that understanding the users and a thorough analysis of their goals and tasks is a prerequisite for usability. To produce a document, online information, or knowledge base that is truly usable, the designer and writer must also consider different user approaches to the information to create it in a form that meets those needs. The underlying technology must also be considered, as it affects the presentation of the information as well as the functionality available to users. To meet user needs for useful online information, all these elements must be factored into the design—and technical communicators must master the skills necessary to make the right choices.
Quesenbery, Whitney. Technical Communication Online (2001). Articles>Usability>Information Design
#26624
The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#29592
One Hundred and One Spots, or How Do Users Read Menus?
Proceedings of a paper about how readers interact with designed documents.
Aaltonen, Antti, Aulikki Hyrskykari and Kari-Jouko Raeihae. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (1998). Articles>Document Design>Interaction Design>Usability
#28257
The early Web's explosive growth rate has slowed, but even the mature Web is still expanding and recently crossed the 100 million websites mark.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#19248
One Usability Testing Lab Draws a Refreshing Conclusion: Users are Stupid
Consumers may be smart in other things, but generally they're not knowledgeable about computer programming, says Dr. Randolph Bias. That's a main reason why online businesses fail, according to the cognitive psychologist. 'The software developers can't imagine how ignorant and uncaring we users are about their cool technology.'
Maselli, Jennifer. Information Week (2002). Articles>Usability
#13325
Online Groceries and Textbooks: Is E-Shopping the Answer for Today's College Student?
Statistics show staggering numbers of users abandon their shopping carts before making a purchase - many times due to 'poor user experience' (Gordon, 2000). In our continuing quest to further understand how people shop online, we investigated sites from two different domains that are of interest to today's university students: grocery shopping and student textbooks.
Chaparro, Barbara S., T. St. Romain and R. Hacker. Usability News (2001). Articles>Usability
#29869
Online Surveys for the STC Carolina Chapter and Usability SIG 
This paper discusses the processes used to develop two online STC surveys: the 'Employment and Salary Survey' conducted by the STC Carolina Chapter, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the 'Member Survey' conducted by the STC Usability SIG. Both surveys were available during the winter of 2003. This paper also highlights results from these surveys to demonstrate findings that online surveys can provide. Throughout this paper, we offer suggestions that other groups can apply to their survey efforts, including working methods to employ, types of questions to ask, ways to increase response rates, and approaches to verify and describe the respondent sample.
Kleid, Naomi A. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods>Surveys
#22868
OOBE Project: A Case Study in User-Friendly Hardware
Many people can't even program their VCR, let alone set up a new PC. As part of an industry-wide response to this problem, Epson America came up with the Users Digest. We hoped it would grab users' attention and hold it long enough to get them up and running without calling tech support. This paper relates the history of the User k Digest andprovides a guided tour of this innovative document.
Bergen, Karen A. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability
#26637
Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents
When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they're interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn't be given a browser UI.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Adobe Acrobat
#11833
Optimizing System Usability Without Re-Design
Projects critical to the missions of business organizations fail, devastating operations as well as IS budgets. Other systems are created or purchased at great cost only to be underutilized or plagued with non-standard 'work-arounds' that undermine the core efficiencies of the system. Fortunately, many of these systems can be recovered. They are technically adequate and potentially usable. User’s perceptions that they are unusable can be changed* through a multifaceted intervention process that we call Mission Critical System Optimization.
Orr, M. David. Usability Interface (1998). Articles>Usability>User Interface
#28328
Optimizing the User Experience
Web sites should be designed to facilitate and encourage efficient and effective human-computer interactions. Designers should make every attempt to reduce the user's workload by taking advantage of the computer's capabilities. Users will make the best use of Web sites when information is displayed in a directly usable format and content organization is highly intuitive. Users also benefit from task sequences that are consistent with how they typically do their work, that do not require them to remember information for more than a few seconds, that have terminology that is readily understandable, and that do not overload them with information.
#29623
An Orientation to Eye Tracking in Usability Studies
Eye tracking (ET) is a technique for capturing eye movements as a person looks at a computer interface. It provides insight into where a person is looking, for how long, and in what order. In usability testing, ET can help testers evaluate the quality of a website or software design based on the user’s eye activity. In this paper, we introduce you to ET and its application in usability. We identify questions that ET can answer, describe how it works, summarize some of the research in ET, and discuss its benefits and drawbacks in usability testing. with an eye tracker for usability testing. This process is specific to the ET hardware (ERICA) and software (GazeTracker) used in the Laboratory of Usability Testing in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington (UWTC LUTE).
Chin, Crystal, Shirley Lee, and Judith Ramey. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Usability>Methods>Eye Tracking
#23965
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, published in 1998, introduced the use of personas as a practical interaction design tool. Based on the single-chapter discussion in that book, personas rapidly gained popularity in the software industry due to their unusual power and effectiveness. Had personas been developed in the laboratory, the full story of how they came to be would have been published long ago, but since their use developed over many years in both my practice as a software inventor and architectural consultant and the consulting work of Cooper designers, that is not the case. Since Inmates was published, many people have asked for the history of Cooper personas, and here it is.
Cooper, Alan. Cooper Interaction Design. Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
#20839
Orr's Aphorisms About Tech Writing
A collection of hints and advice about documentation and usability from David Orr (one of our Institute instructors and the founder of the first usability lab in Chicago).
Abbott, Christine. Northern Illinois University. Articles>Documentation>Usability
#27941
Outliers and Luck in User Performance
6% of task attempts are extremely slow and constitute outliers in measured user performance. These sad incidents are caused by bad luck that designers can -- and should -- eradicate.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#31630
Overcoming Environmental Barriers
On May 3, 2008, something extraordinary happened: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities went into effect. The goals of the Convention are lofty: it insists that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms and sets out eight guiding principles and obligations to meet them.
Quesenbery, Whitney. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>International
#26390
Overcoming Resistance to Change: The North Carolina Board of Elections Tackles Accessibility
Many usability professionals are also responsible for the accessibility of the products they work on. We often find that the hardest step in creating an accessibility program is making it a 'way of life,' a goal supported throughout the organization.
McLean, Johnnie F. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Usability
#20595
OVID Tutorial: Mastering the Complexity of Creating Highly Satisfying User Experiences
A description and presentation materials from a tutorial given on OVID at the CHI 2002 and MITE 2002 conferences. OVID is a method to use while performing User Engineering.
#29871
This paper summarizes findings from several research studies that examined the validity of paper prototyping in terms of uncovering usability problems. It also discusses the question of how paper prototypes might bias a usability test, and the role of case studies in the usability literature.
Snyder, Carolyn. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Usability>Prototyping>Paper
#21009
Paper Prototyping: Getting User Data Before You Code
With a paper prototype, you can user test early design ideas at an extremely low cost. Doing so lets you fix usability problems before you waste money implementing something that doesn't work.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Prototyping
#27536
Password Security: What Users Know and What They Actually Do
This study investigated the common password generation practices of online users. Three hundred and fifteen undergraduate and graduate students completed a survey querying (1) the types and number of different password protected accounts maintained; (2) actual practices used in generating, storing and using passwords; (3) practices believed they should use in generating and storing passwords; and (4) general demographic information. Results indicate that, in general, users do not vary the complexity of passwords depending on the nature of the site (bank account vs. instant messenger) or change their passwords on any regular basis if it is not required by the site. Users report using lower case letters, numbers or digits, personally meaningful numbers and personally meaningful words when creating passwords, despite the fact that they realize that these methods may not be the most secure.
Riley, Shannon. Usability News (2006). Articles>Usability>Security
