Designing Educational Booklets for the Web

We discuss here the results of usability tests on two booklets which were transferred from print to the Web. The booklets provide the public with basic information on various cancers, cancer treatment, and other cancer-related topics. The booklets were written by the National Cancer Institute's Office of Education and Special Initiatives (NCI OESI).

Usability.gov. Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

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

Lessons Learned from Discount Usability Engineering for the Federal Government  

This case study presents lessons learned from usability engineering in a federal government setting. Technical communicators are becoming increasingly involved in usability issues but may face difficulties in addressing them. For example, producing web communications for the federal government presents special challenges, such as time and financial restraints, legal requirements, technical constraints, and an internal focus. Discount usability engineering helped the CDC address these challenges in developing an injury data web application. The lessons learned can help technical communicators advance usability as a priority in their workplaces and overcome constraints and challenges they face.

Pettit Jones, Colleen. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Usability>Government>Case Studies

Promoting Usability at Lucent Technologies

We sponsored an award to raise awareness of the importance of usability. Instead of focusing on what projects had done wrong with regard to usability, we decided to reward a project for doing things right!

Coyle, Cheryl L. and Karen L. Ziech. Usability Interface (2006). Articles>Usability>Case Studies

Usability Evaluation of the Spatial OLAP Visualization and Analysis Tool (SOVAT)  

Increasingly sophisticated technologies, such as On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS), are being leveraged for conducting community health assessments (CHA). Little is known about the usability of OLAP and GIS interfaces with respect to CHA. We conducted an iterative usability evaluation of the Spatial OLAP Visualization and Analysis Tool (SOVAT), a software application that combines OLAP and GIS. A total of nine graduate students and six community health researchers were asked to think-aloud while completing five CHA questions using SOVAT. The sessions were analyzed after every three participants and changes to the interface were made based on the findings. Measures included elapsed time, answers provided, erroneous actions, and satisfaction. Traditional OLAP interface features were poorly understood by participants, and combined OLAP-GIS features needed to be better emphasized. The results suggest that the changes made to the SOVAT interface resulted in increases in both usability and user satisfaction.

Scotch, Mathew, Bambang Parmanto and Valerie Monaco. Journal of Usability Studies (2007). Articles>Usability>EPSS>Case Studies

Usability in Practice: Company Profile of Hylotek

Which companies are actually practicing usability, and what does usability mean to them? Who's investing time and money into usability, and what kind of return are they receiving on their investment in the real world?

Giangrossi, Diane. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Case Studies

Building Usable Websites, Part 3

Website and software application usability is a classic intangible, hard to measure and even harder to sell to clients or management. Ironic, as I think it safe to say that at this stage in the game there are few sites that would not benefit from a usability survey and a bit of tweaking. Nevertheless, some companies have taken the cue and great usability case studies are beginning to emerge.

Shreves, Ric. Water and Stone (2008). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Case Studies

The Taxman Cometh but Merril Lynch Isn't Ready

With April 15th approaching, Lou needed some basic tax information, but Merrill Lynch's labeling system made the easiest answers tough to find.

Rosenfeld, Louis. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

Aspects of Design Quality

Usability scores for 51 websites show some correlation between navigation, content, and feature quality, but no connections to other usability areas.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

Donation Usability: Increasing Online Giving to Non-Profits and Charities

User research finds significant deficiencies in non-profit organizations' website content, which often fails to provide the info people need to make donation decisions.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

寄付のユーザビリティ：非営利団体および慈善団体へのオンライン寄付が増加

ユーザー調査の結果、非営利団体のウェブサイトはコンテンツが著しく不足しており、寄付に踏み切るための判断材料に欠けていることがよくあることがわかった。

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2009). (Japanese) Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

Cultural Ethnography: A Brief Report

There is a lot of curiosity about ethnography in design among designers, especially the academicians. Context study or field study are the other similar activities discussed in the domain of usability. I happened to have carried out an ethnographic assignment almost a decade ago. I thought, sharing that experience (good or bad) will be useful to many.

Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>Usability>Ethnographies>Case Studies

Designing the User Experience at Autodesk: A Case Study in Large-Application Usability Benchmarking

As a user researcher with a primarily qualitative background, I have to confess that when I was asked to conduct a usability benchmark study on AutoCAD, I was not exactly jumping out of my chair. Frankly, I was wary of the quantitative emphasis of the method and the proposal to reduce the whole user experience down to a single number. I was also more than slightly nervous about designing a benchmark study for a product as complex as AutoCAD.

Dawe, Melissa. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Case Studies