#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
#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
#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
#31996
People Finder: Searching Without Logic? Improving the People Finder Application
One of the most frequent tasks on many intranets is finding people within the company. Providing an effective way to search people is thus a key goal in designing intranets. This goal becomes even more important for an organization like Emirates, a leading international airline, which has over 35,000 employees with over 140 nationalities and where more people are likely to use this feature more frequently.
Deshmukh, Vivek. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Interface
#27573
Software is sometimes poorly designed to begin with and the interface should be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. But more often than not, I see software that started with a decent design and has since had features added onto it with each release, squeezed into the existing design rather than being designed in. People aren't in a design mindset but an 'enhancement' mindset somehow.
Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>User Interface>Usability
#30824
The problem of the perpetual super-novice is the tendency of people to stop learning about a digital product--whether it's an operating system, desktop application, Web site, or hardware device.
Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2007). Articles>Usability>User Experience>User Interface
#21015
Poor Code Quality Contaminates Users' Conceptual Models
Software bugs and system crashes result in huge productivity losses and undermine users' ability to form good models of how computers work. Website designers can help improve user confidence by prioritizing quality and robustness over features and the latest technology.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Software
#28464
A study of the benefits of big monitors fails on two accounts: it didn't test realistic tasks, and it didn't test realistic use. Productivity is a key argument for workplace usability, but you must measure it carefully.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>User Interface>Usability
#22920
Review: Quality Technical Information: Paving the Way for Usable Print and Web Interface Design 
Principles of information style and design have been around for years. Look at the shelf life of Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style, published in 1959 and still a bestseller. Producing Quality Technical Information is a gem of a book, whose precise, bullet-style list of seven requirements and a checklist is now even more insightful in the fast-paced world of online information and the World-Wide Web. As a writer, I'm amazed how the IBM authors crystallized the essence of good information design in less than 100 pages. This commentary describes how the book's seven qualities and thirty individual requirements can easily and usefully be extrapolated to address key issues of interface design and usability for today's professional designers and developers.
Mandel, Theo. Journal of Computer Documentation (2002). Articles>Reviews>User Interface>Usability
#20858
Traditionally, human-factors specialists have had a rather severe attitude toward human performance with computers: their goal was maximum throughput, often measured in transactions per minute. This attitude was justified when computers were mainly work-related; in some cases it still proves wise. For example, a usability improvement that shaves one second off the time it takes a directory-assistance operator to search a database for a telephone number saves several million dollars per year in the U.S. alone. This performance-obsessed approach to usability led many early user interface experts to condemn the popular term 'user friendly' with the argument that users didn't need "friendly" computers, they needed efficient designs that let them complete their tasks faster.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>User Interface>Usability
#28668
Seeing the World in Symbols: Icons and the Evolving Language of Digital Wayfinding
Of all the objects that occupy our digital spaces, there are none that capture the imagination so much as icons. As symbols, icons can communicate powerfully, be delightful, add to the aesthetic value of software, engage people's curiosity and playfulness, and encourage experimentation. These symbols are key components of a graphic user interface--mediators between our thoughts and actions, our intentions and accomplishments.
Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Graphic Design
#27580
Task Based Documentation and Good User Interface Go Hand in Hand
As I write the 'how to' documentation based upon the in-process design, the weaknesses of my original design become apparent and I go back and forth from writing text to designing the software until it all flows.
Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Interface>Usability
#29051
In visual querying, users analyze data for their decisions and problems by interacting with graphics that are dynamic and linked. This querying paradigm is new, a dramatic break from the more familiar retrieving of data via search statements and displaying of it in static charts and graphs. For this new visual querying paradigm, analysts conceptually and operationally need to master new approaches. To discover salient relationships, they need to manipulate displays. To drill down for detail or causes, they have to select data of interest directly from a graph. And to draw inferences, they have to consider meanings across several dynamically linked graphics. With the aim of studying users success in these new approaches, particularly focusing on the approach of directly selecting data from graphs, I conducted a scenario-based usability test with 10 data analysts. They interacted with visualizations to complete a realistic complex analysis evaluating employee performance. Test findings reveal a range of difficulties in visual selection that, at times, gave rise to inaccurate selections, invalid conclusions, and misguided decisions. To overcome these difficulties, support for visual selection needs to be built into interfaces and help. Results and recommended improvements are presented.
Mirel, Barbara E. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>User Interface>Usability>Visual Rhetoric
#23113
It's worth remembering the downsides to centralized computing. We must take steps to keep users in control as we grow the power of the network. It's essential that we keep a strong front end to balance out improved back-end features.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>User Interface
#21872
This Is Broken: A Compilation of Bad Experiences
If you know a user experience that irritates you, don't just site there and grouse about it. Send it in to ThisIsBroken.com, a compilation of bad experiences: products, services, places, and Web designs that don't put the user first.
Hurst, Mark. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>User Interface
#31916
Top-10 Application-Design Mistakes
Application usability is enhanced when users know how to operate the UI and it guides them through the workflow. Violating common guidelines prevents both.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction>Usability
#21873
Trends Toward Greater Usability in Voting Technology
UPA's Voting and Usability project is tracking several important trends toward greater usability in voting technology across the globe: Verified voting, The NIST Voting Symposium, FEC Brochures, Voting Developments in the UK and in the Republic of Ireland.
Scott, Josephine. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Civic
#31113
A blog post that discusses the XO laptop, and the risks that the designers and developers took when creating the user interface for the device - for the most part they succeeded in creating an intuitive interface and a usable computer.
DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Linux
#29819
A Usability Evaluation of Web Map Zoom and Pan Functions
Due to limitations on screen size and resolution, the usability of web maps relies heavily on their interface design. The main goal of this research is to find better interface designs for web maps and to facilitate their usage by the public. The research consists of two stages of investigation: (a) a survey on the operation interfaces of popular web maps; and (b) a usability evaluation of simulated interfaces by measuring task performance and conducting subjective evaluations.
You, Manlai, Chun-wen Chen, Hantsai Liu and Hsuan Lin. International Journal of Design (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Usability
#23872
Usability of My Digital Camera
The useful features of digital cameras are not enticing enough to trade for the simplicity of the non-digital design that meets the fundamental goals of the majority of users. As for me, I have learned my lesson with digital cameras. I will keep my user-friendly, old fashion, but reliable non-digital camera.
Dick, David J. Usability Interface (2003). Articles>User Interface>Photography>Usability
#21071
I recently purchased an 'old' Palm Vx of off eBay.com. Let me tell you, I couldn't be happier with it, except maybe if it had a color screen and the resolution were a little bit higher. It has a couple usability flaws from the original Palm V model, but nothing that dramatically decreases the user experience.
Rhodes, Matt. WebWord (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>PDA
#21093
Voting and Usability Project Update
It's been two-and-a-half years since we started the Voting and Usability Project. This project started as we all realized with some horror that usability problems in our voting systems could affect the results of an election--effectively disenfranching some voters through the design of the ballot, as Susan King Roth put it in the report on her research. Since then, our interest has expanded into a more general interest in the usability of voting systems and usability professionals can help make voting systems more usable for everyone.
Quesenbery, Whitney. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Civic
#19324
What Causes Usability Problems
With so much good advice available, and the need for user input being so much a matter of common sense, it seems fair to ask why usability issues are so common amongst websites and applications - even those which have invested significant resources in development. What is it that drives otherwise sensible organisations and businesses to build products and services that are counter-intuitive and actively annoying for many users? The answers to these questions are revealing, in the sense that they illustrate how easily usability can be subverted by alternative agendas. And they highlight the need for a user champion within the organisation, an individual outside any internal interest groups, and potentially the company itself, who acts as a corrective to the forces that can leave usability on the back burner. This list is not one of objections (no time, no money, etc.), most of which are spurious, but rather of explanations for apparently baffling decisions that are often taken without even thinking about the consequences.
Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2000). Articles>Usability>User Interface
#18315
Отработка Возражений Против Дизайна Пользовательского Интерфейса
У эргономиста могут возникнуть трудности в отстаивании своих позиций. Иногда сложно определить интересы всех участников обсуждения и найти сильную аргументацию для парирования возражений коллег. Задачей данной статьи является подготовка к ведению деловых бесед по вопросам проектирования и разработки пользовательского интерфейса. Представленный материал поможет добиться понимания и принятия позиции эргономиста в проекте при отстаивании интересов пользователя.
Andreev, Viktor. Usability.ru (2002). (Russian) Articles>Usability>User Interface
#33011
Interior Design Versus Product Design
From my outsider’s point of view, automobile interior design seems to be first and foremost about appearance, about style. Function matters, but it is not the primary focus, except for anomalies, such as when consumers force cupholders down the throats of reluctant designers or insist upon easy to fold rear seats for SUVs and the ilk. It feels as if dashboard designers see functions as irritants: so many controls and devices, so little room. How can we ever manage?
Norman, Donald A. JND.org (2004). Articles>User Interface>Usability
