#31995
Using Calculators for User Engagement
Calculators can play important roles on websites. They are especially popular for financial sites, where they can help users calculate mortgage payments, retirement needs, interest earned, and so on. They also appear on other sites, where users can calculate things as varied as their BMI (body mass index), carbon footprint, life expectancy, or gas mileage.
Zhou, Yun and Cliff Anderson. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Usability>Assessment>User Centered Design
#24572
Using Customer Data to Drive Documentation Design Decisions 
This article shows how user-centered design can be applied to documentation and reports the results of a two-year contextual design study. The article (1) demonstrates how contextualdesign can be applied to information and (2) reports some of the study's results,outlining key insights gleaned about users. The study found that users vary widely intheir information needs and preferences. Users employ a variety of learning strategies inlearning new software and in overcoming problems encountered within applications.Documentation can better meet variances in learning styles and user preferences whentightly integrated into applications, accessible in the user's own language. Additionally,documentation is most beneficial when several assistance options exist for users tochoose among, varying according to context, task, and user need. Finally, the article discussesthe constraints that affect the implementation of design ideas and explores implicationsfor practice and additional research.
Smart, Karl L. and Matthew E. Whiting. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
#25057
Using Customer Inquiries as a Basis for Revising and Editing User Manuals 
The Documentation Development Department (DDD) of Hitachi has been improving manuals by collecting, classifying, and analyzing inquiries from its customers to the Hitachi Customer Answer (HCA) Center. The HCA Center is a telephone inquiry center established to give quick and clear answers to inquiries from customers who use Hitachi computers.
Masuda, Tadashi. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
#28583
I recently made a career transition from technical writing to usability engineering. In my new position, I have been conducting site visits with customers in the area. During a recent visit, I found an opportunity to query a user, 'Mike,' about using online Help. Join Molly on her first experience watching a user try to work with documentation, an experience both illuminating and alarming.
Malsam, Molly. Usability Interface (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
#30879
Web Analytics: Insights From the Front Line, Part 1
In many companies Web and Web analytics have been a silo that someone else is taking care of. Web sites are becoming the most important customer touch point and the most important revenue generator, even for businesses that are not first of mind.
Mazon, Neil. ClickZ (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis
#25197
Web Analytics: The Voice of Users in Information Architecture Projects
How to use web analytics in designing web information architecture.
Hurol Inan (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis
#24549
When users visit your web site, their immediate impression of its credibility is based on appearance, colors, text fonts. Then, as they explore your site, other factors contribute to its credibility impact. Lose users here, and they probably will never return.
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Interaction Design
#31778
Web Interactivity: Connecting People and Knowledge
We humans are wired to seek interaction with other people. Complex language and reasoning powers support your interactive nature. Your brain can retrieve and store unlimited amounts of information from everyday interactions and use that information to think, analyze, and solve complex problems.
Girolami, Frank. Between the Lines (2007). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>User Centered Design
#15064
Widely utilized in the West to make environments more beneficial to occupants, the ancient Chinese practice of feng shui aligns the forces of chi (energy) to create balance, harmony, and prosperity. I've adapted a sort of feng shui for Web sites.
Deaton, Mary M. Builder.com (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design
#15063
Web Shui: Working the Guidelines
Design conventions represent the dominant and successful methods of Web site planning and creation and give you a clear set of dos and don'ts for your own site.
Deaton, Mary M. CNET Builder.com (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Web Design
#23258
The Web Category Analysis Tool (WebCAT) is a variation on traditional card sorting techniques that allows a web designer/usability engineer to test a proposed or existing categorization scheme of a website to determine how well the categories and items are understood by users.
NIST. Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design>Card Sorting
#22384
Weblogs Enable User-Centric Sites
Weblogs give users information from multiple sources in one page.
Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Blogging
#23288
What Do Manuals Say About Your Company?
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, product returns represent a $10 billion-dollar-a-year problem for the consumer electronics industry. Technical support costs are spiraling (even with the migration to off-shore providers) while consumer satisfaction with this support is plummeting. New technology and expanded offerings to a stabilized market are increasing competition. What can manufacturers do to help combat these problems? Better consumer manuals are a start.
Manual Labour (2003). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
#19497
What Does Usability Mean: Looking Beyond ‘Ease of Use’
The definition of usability is sometimes reduced to 'easy to use,' but this over-simplifies the problem and provides little guidance for the user interface designer. A more precise definition can be used to understand user requirements, formulate usability goals and decide on the best techniques for usability evaluations. An understanding of the five characteristics of usability – effective, efficient, engaging, error tolerant, easy to learn – helps guide the user-centered design tasks to the goal of usable products.
Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
#31002
What Is Your Mental Model? An Interview With Indi Young
Rosenfeld Media has just released Indi Young's Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy With Human Behavior. Boxes and Arrows sits down with Indi to talk about the origins and evolution of the mental model.
Baum, Chris. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design
#29191
What to Know About Your Audiences
If you provide your audience value in your publications equal to the effort or expense they put out, they will continue to come back. You will have created a stable system that continues to draw the audience and provide your organization with the value it deserves in return for its efforts.
Boiko, Bob. Content Management Professionals (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Audience Analysis
#21465
What's Your Idea of a Mental Model?
We need a way to document and express mental models that is as simple and robust as personas for user profiles and scenarios for tasks. By laying out users' current mental models and a target mental model, we can clarify our thinking and communication about the user interface's objects, metaphors, and interaction.
McDaniel, Scott M. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology
#31019
When Geolocation Gets Too Clever
Geo-redirecting -- redirecting users to different parts of your website depending on their own geographical location -- is a neat trick. It is handy when your website has different messages or product offers for users from different countries or regions. But many website owners mistakenly assume that their geolocation software works every time. It doesn't!
Heraghty, Michael. Mediajunk (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#27379
When Getting the Job Done Isn't Enough
Interface designers today are swirling within a blizzard of data. How many types of user data does your Web team collect?
Straub, Kathleen. Human Factors International (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis
#30315
When Products Become Easy to Use, What's Next for Writers?
People who follow the right trends will someday lead them. Such an opportunity now lies in the hands of technical writers, as the computer field moves toward standardized, graphical, easy-to-use interfaces.
Oram, Andrew. Boston Broadside (1991). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Documentation
#28912
When ROI Isn't Enough: Making Persuasive Cases for User-Centered Design
Making the case for user-centered design (UCD) is a topic of recurring discussion for UX professionals. Much of the discussion has centered on strictly objective approaches such as cost-benefit or return-on-investment (ROI) analysis. However, recent commentary suggests proving ROI is not always enough.
Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Project Management>Workplace
#22309
Why Consumer Products Have Inferior User Experience
Physical products, from consumer electronics to cars, are needlessly complex because they're developed by insular companies that continue to ignore the growing usability trend.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>User Experience>User Centered Design
#25076
Why Game Documentation is Essential to a Satisfying User Experience
Documentation and information organization are an integral part of video game construction. The video game industry may be one of the directions technical communicators will move toward in the near future.
Peterson, Martin. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Experience>User Centered Design
#27023
I view a user experience as a conversation between people separated over the distance of time. At one end of that conversation are those who create the product; at the other, the people who use it. In between is the product itself--with a design that either helps or hinders; creates a barrier-free interaction or shouts in an unfamiliar language. Because this conversation does not happen in real time, we are not there to smooth over the rough spots and make sure that we have spoken clearly. Instead, we have to build our understanding of those users into every aspect of the design, by putting people--users--at the center of the design process.
Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2005). Articles>User Experience>Communication>User Centered Design
#30622
Write Once, Use Many: Why and How We Make Product Information Modular
Faced with growing demand from customers for specific courses, addressing only their needs, in very short time-frames, we had to re-examine the way we worked. Patching together one-shot customized coursework was labor-intensive for a non-homogeneous and unsatisfactory result. Each new customer request required repetition of the same amount of effort. With reduced turnaround time and dwindling human resources, a solution had to be found.
McClelland, Patricia J. and Alison Bourdel. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Information Design>User Centered Design
