Elementos de Navegación y Orientación del Usuario

Los elementos de navegación y orientación tienen como función básica informar constantemente al usuario acerca de dónde se encuentra, que relación tiene el nodo web que está visualizando respecto al resto de la arquitectura del website, dónde ha estado y hacia dónde puede ir. El objetivo: no perder al usuario.

Hassan Montero, Yusef and Francisco Jesus Martin Fernandez. Nosolousabilidad.com (2002). (Spanish) Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Empirical Evaluation of a Popular Cellular Phone's Menu System: Theory Meets Practice    

A usability assessment entailing a paper prototype was conducted to examine menu selection theories on a small screen device by determining the effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a popular cellular phone's menu system. Outcomes of this study suggest that users prefer a less extensive menu structure on a small screen device. The investigation also covered factors of category classification and item labeling influencing user performance in menu selection. Research findings suggest that proper modifications in these areas could significantly enhance the system's usability and demonstrate the validity of paper-prototyping which is capable of detecting significant differences in usability measures among various model designs.

Huang, Sheng-Cheng, I-Fan Chou and Randolph G. Bias. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>User Interface>Usability>User Centered Design

The Empowered User: A New Approach To Software Documentation  

User empowerment offers a strategy for addressing the software end user's needs. The definition of user empowerment emphasizes a user-driven, informationmanagement oriented approach in response to changes that have taken place in the modern workplace after computers and computer software arrived. Working with software requires a significant shift in thinking and learning, responding to increased abstraction, isolation, and information volumes. Computermediated work demands that users develop new skills and job roles, and that documentation writers develop new techniques for manuals.

Barker, Thomas. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Engagement: Should We Care?

These days, the idea of customer engagement is almost as hot as Web 2.0--and almost as controversial. As busy UX professionals, should we invest our time and energy in caring about engagement, or is it just another buzzword? I think we do need to understand customer engagement, so that, at a minimum, we can respond intelligently to questions about it from marketers or executives. We might even glean some useful insights from thinking about engagement. This column aims to cut through the hype and reveal the potential value of engagement.

Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design>Audience Analysis

Engagement: The Definition Debate

I know what engagement is (everyone does), but I don't know what it means or how to explain it, let alone how to measure it. In a digital marketing context, I think it's one of those words that everyone understands but can't define.

Mason, Neil. ClickZ (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Engaging User Creativity: The Playful Experience

With so many choices as to how we can spend our time in the digital age, attention is becoming the most important currency. In today's splintered media environment, new digital products and services must compete with everything under the sun, making differentiation key to developing an audience that cares, invests, and ultimately drives value.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction by Assuring Documentation Quality  

From the customer's perspective, an important and visible part of a product or service is its documentation. Bellcore's Technical Publications (Tech Pubs) organization uses a Quality Assurance (QA) program that focuses on enhancing customer satisfaction through delivering high-quality documentation. This program emphasizes a 'network' approach to documentation development, whereby technical writers can most efficiently use the support network of QA reviewers and management available to them. The Tech Pubs QA program draws on the needs of clients and the expertise of technical writers to strive to achieve the highest level of quality possible in producing documentation.

Dolese, Cathy and Tara Durkin. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Quality>User Centered Design

Ensuring A Successful CMS Implementation

The single most important factor in a successful CMS implementation lies with you and your people. Your staff members are the principal users of the system, and the SMEs in your organization are the secondary users. It is their adoption of the new processes and governance structures that makes or breaks a CMS implementation. According to some, process and cultural change accounts for 90%, while technology contributes only 10% to the success of a CMS.

Hamer, Emma C. Rockley Bulletin (2007). Articles>Content Management>User Centered Design>Collaboration

Envisioning the Whole Digital Person

As a human society, we're quite possibly looking at the largest surge of recorded information that has ever taken place, and at this point, we have only the most rudimentary tools for managing all this information--in part because we cannot predict what standards will be in place in 10, 50, or 100 years.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Information Design>Databases

Ergonomics As Customer Focused Risk Management

We often see investment in new working environments, expensive software and equipment wasted, because the real needs of the user and their tasks are not taken into account when the purchase or change is made.

System Concepts (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Ergonomics

Review: Everything and the Kitchen Sink

I've used personas for years (though some might regard my process as a slightly heretical perversion of the method). I always think about the big picture, and I was just thinking BIG about personas at work when The Persona Lifecycle landed on my desk. Given my review of what's out there, The Persona Lifecycle is the most comprehensive book on personas I've come across. If you're so inclined, it can taking you from novice to expert. The authors, Jonathan Pruit and Tamara Adlin, take advantage of extensive teaching experience and punctuate their discussion with lots of real-world examples, case studies, anecdotes, bright ideas and handy guidelines. That being said, it's not an easy read, and it's not for everybody.

Govella, Austin. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Reviews>User Centered Design>Personas

Expanding the Approaches to User Experience

Jesse James Garrett’s 'The Elements of User Experience' diagram has become rightly famous as a clear and simple model for the sorts of things that user experience professionals do. But as a model of user experience it presents an incomplete picture with some serious omissions—omissions I’ll try address with a more holistic model.

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>User Centered Design

Exploring the World of User-Centered Design  

Gribbons discusses trends in the marketplace that challenge the traditional view of technical communication and offer valuable opportunities for technical communicators in user-centered design.

Gribbons, William M. Intercom (2002). Articles>User Centered Design

Extreme User Research

What is the biggest problem I face almost every time a client hires me to do something about a web project going awry? They don't know a thing about their users. They don't have a clue, whatsoever. Unbelievable but true!

Lafreniere, Daniel. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>User Centered Design>Research>Usability

Eyes Top Left: Lessons from Eyetrack III

Where do your eyes go when you read articles on the Web? What do you notice, and what do you miss? The upper left quarter of the screen gets the most attention, according to the Eyetrack III research of The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Eye Tracking

Face to Face With Your Users: Running a Nondirected Interview

An interview is a funny situation. It's like a friendly conversation between strangers, but unlike the kind you may have on the bus. When chatting on the bus, people try very hard to agree with each other and to quickly communicate interesting information. Each person wants to be liked and adjusts the way they speak and what they say so as not to offend. This type of exchange is perfectly fine for maintaining civil society -- deeper exchanges can always happen as an acquaintance deepens -- but shallow banter isn't appropriate for an interview. You need to find out what someone is experiencing, what they're thinking, or what their real opinions are.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Interviewing>Usability

Fast Surfing, Broad Scanning and Deep Diving: The Influence of Personality and Study Approach on Students' Information-Seeking Behavior  

To explore information behavior from a psychological perspective by relating information seeking to personality traits and study approaches. Fast surfing could be related to a surface study approach and emotionality, as well as to low openness to experience and low conscientiousness. Broad scanning was linked to extraversion, openness, and competitiveness, whereas deep diving was a search pattern typical of analytical students with a deep and strategic study approach.

Heinström, Jannica. Journal of Documentation (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology

Faut-il Supprimer la Barre de Navigation?

Comment navigue un internaute? Qu'est ce qui le motive dans son parcours? Des études comportementales permettent de dégager des principes de base. Les façons d'agir ou de réagir des internautes sont désormais étudiées et testées. La navigation qui faisait la part belle à la structure technique du site se déplace vers une approche plus contextuelle. La barre de navigation va-t-elle donc disparaître?

Eminet, Bernard-Paul. Usabilis (2004). (French) Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

Ferraris and Fiestas

Ferrari or Fiesta, which do you prefer if price is not a consideration? What does go through our minds as we make such comparisons actually? Russell Beale presents us with his thoughts in user-centred design.

Beale, Russell. uiGarden (2005). Articles>User Centered Design

Field Studies: The Best Tool to Discover User Needs

The most valuable asset of a successful design team is the information they have about their users. When teams have the right information, the job of designing a powerful, intuitive, easy-to-use interface becomes tremendously easier. When they don't, every little design decision becomes a struggle. While techniques, such as focus groups, usability tests, and surveys, can lead to valuable insights, the most powerful tool in the toolbox is the 'field study'. Field studies get the team immersed in the environment of their users and allow them to observe critical details for which there is no other way of discovering.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering. Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Usability

Figuring Out What Your Customers Really Need  

Effective technical manuals and training meet the needs of the customer. No one will argue with that statement. But the trick is to identify the needs of the customer. This paper describes one method to focus product information development on the customer: the needs analysis survey. This methodology that is common in course development and training identifies the tasks customers perform. It also allows course developers and technical communicators to collaborate on an area that they both understand.

Brockett, Susan H. and Susan Katz. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Finding a Cure for Survey Fatigue  

A downward trend in survey response rates is often blamed on the fact that people simply become tired of taking surveys. Butthere are ways to avoid the malaise setting in, says Angela Sinickas, a key one being making sure thatpeople feel their opinions are actually being listened to. Here she shares three common causes of survey fatigue and how to deal with them.

Sinickas, Angela D. Sinickas Communications (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Surveys

Finding the Right Users

If you’re using the eenie meenie method to select users for your research, perhaps it’s time you tried something a little more scientific. There is no such thing as sound user research without an airtight user-selection process behind it. No matter how good the observation and analysis, it’s all for naught if you’ve studied the wrong people. Too much “user research” is conducted, analyzed, and applied without anyone ever having spoken to users. Researchers then offer guidelines based on the needs and preferences of people who would never use the product in question. Relevant user research results depend on two factors: First, obviously, you’ll need to find people who are likely to use the product. Second, you’ll need to interview enough of them so that trends emerge from their collective behavior. These trends will indicate your primary design targets.

Merholz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability

First Contact: Talking to Your Documentation Users  

You've never met them before. To you, they may represent the unknown and the strange. They view things differently, and their ways may seem almost alien. Yet you are supposed to serve their needs. They are your customers. Isn't it time you made first contact? In this paper, we share lessons learned and invite you to being your own voyage of discovery.

Macdonald, Kyla and Judith Rachel. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design