Does a Good User Interface Obviate the Need for Documentation?

This question was raised on a programmer's group recently and I was intrigued. The programmer's point was that with many web applications these days there is no print documentation distributed to end users, and even if it existed, many users won't read it although this makes me wonder who's buying all those how-to books I see in the bookstore. The programmer suggested that applications should be designed without documentation and wondered about the impact that would have on design.

Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>Documentation>User Interface>Software

Driving, Death, and Usability

This article discusses turn signals and how they are used. Turn signals improve safety because they give people time to react and they reduce driving ambiguity. However, they are only effective when people actually use them. Several lessons are applied to web usability.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Articles>Usability>User Interface

DUX—Five Lessons Learned

Normally I would write a traditional conference overview to inform people about the recent Designing for User Experiences conference (DUX) held in San Francisco, June 6-8. Instead, I would like to impart a few of the impressions I came away with and recommend that everyone go to the AIGA Case Study Archive to read the papers that were accepted.

Malone, Erin. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Interface

Ease of Instant Messaging: How the use of IBM Lotus Sametime Changes Over Time  

This article discusses the results of surveys that indicate the IBM Lotus Sametime instant messaging product is a successful 'walk-up-and-use' application, requiring little documentation and no training. Users achieve a commercially significant level of performance within three months. In addition, over a much longer period, users continue to develop their skills (chat behaviors), social networks (chat partners), and attitudes toward the technology (reasons for using IM). This combination of attributes — ease of learning and sustained development of skills and strategies — is unusual in Human-computer interaction, and poses some unique challenges for creating a product that experienced users continue to find useful and usable.

IBM (2004). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Instant Messaging

Easy, Intuitive and Metaphor, and Other Meaningless Words

A vital skill for designers is to notice fine detail in the other designs which form part of the technological ecosystem in which their design will live. For example, on Mac OS there are now two different styles of text entry fields for forms. One has square corners, and is used for general data entry. The other has rounded ends, and is used for entering searches. I was recently outraged to find a piece of software which used the rounded style for data entry. This kind of design vandalism muddies the rules which users would otherwise learn, and devalues all software on the platform.

Bagnall, Peter. uiGarden (2007). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction

Effective User Assistance Design: Ten Best Practices

In a utopian world, a product would be so perfect it would not need any user assistance at all. But in reality, products aren't perfect, and users need assistance through different stages of their use. User assistance (UA)--in the form of manuals or online Help--guides users in their tasks, suggests better ways of getting their work done, and provides directions for troubleshooting their problems.

Dalvi, Meghashri. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Interface>Help>Online

Electronic Voting: Usability, Communication, Trust

Beyond just the undeniable importance of a usable form and voting mechanism, is the need to consider the comfort and satisfaction of voters dealing with sometimes radically changed voting systems, especially when the move is from paper-based voting systems to electronic systems.

Bachmann, Karen L. Usability Interface (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Civic

Elephants in the Living Room: The Destructive Role of Denial in Web Design

Four of your fellow development team members, all trying to do their specific jobs to the best of their abilities, have the power to sink your best effort at interaction design. As an interaction designer, it is your job to see they don't do so. (If you are not an interaction designer, read on anyway; you may be surprised to learn that you may be part of the problem.)

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2000). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Collaboration

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

An Empirical Study Comparing Denim and Visio

An ethnographic observation and controlled experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of Denim and MS Visio in terms of supporting user creativity.

Zhao, Haixia. University of Maryland (2002). Articles>User Interface>Software>Visio

Ergonomic Mice: Comparison of Performance and Perceived Exertion

This study reports a psychophysical comparison of four ergonomic mouse-type devices to the standard mouse. It was hypothesized that muscle activity transferred from the distal to proximal limbs for some of the ergonomic mice may result in increased load on the shoulders and declines in target acquisition performance. Results revealed a potential tradeoff between performance and safety with the devices as participants performed the best with the standard mouse but reported more wrist exertion with this device.

Scarlett, Deborah. Usability News (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Usability

Essential Use Cases and Responsibility in Object-Oriented Development  

Essential use cases are abstract, lightweight, technology-free dialogues of user intentions and system responsibilities that effectively capture requirements for user interface design. Employing essential use cases in typical object-oriented development processes requires designers to translate them into conventional use cases, costing time, imposing rework, and delaying work on the object-oriented development until the user interface design is complete. We describe how essential use cases can drive object-oriented development directly, without any intervening translation, allowing user interface development to proceed in parallel. Working with essential use cases yields some unexpected further benefits: analysts can take advantage of recurring patterns in essential use cases, and the crucial common vocabulary of responsibilities lets designers trace directly from the essential use cases to the objects in their design.

Biddle, Robert, James Noble and Ewan Tempero. Constantine and Lockwood (2001). Articles>User Interface>Methods

Executive Dashboards

Contrary to first impression, an 'executive dashboard' is not found in a CIO’s car. Rather, an executive dashboard, also known as a manager dashboard, executive cockpit, or digital cockpit, is a child of what in the 1980s was referred to as the Executive Information System (EIS).

Kirtland, Alex. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Management>User Interface>EPSS

Fonts, Image, Interface Layout Solution under High Resolution

For an application to work well under a high resolution display environment, there are four major elements to consider: Text, Fonts, Image (Picture, Icon and Mouse Cursors), and Layout.

Liu, Steven. uiGarden (2006). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction

Foundations of Interaction Design

An interview with David Malouf on his article, Foundations of Interaction Design. We discuss several foundations of Interaction design including time, metaphor, abstraction, and negative space. David also provides greater detail to comments posted on his article from readers from around the world.

Malouf, David Heller and Jeff Parks. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>User Interface>Interaction Design>Podcasts

Framework of Product Experience

In this paper, we introduce a general framework for product experience that applies to all affective responses that can be experienced in human-product interaction. Three distinct components or levels of product experiences are discussed: aesthetic experience, experience of meaning, and emotional experience. All three components are distinguished in having their own lawful underlying process.

Desmet, Pieter and Paul Hekkert. International Journal of Design (2007). Articles>User Interface>Human Computer Interaction>User Experience

From Essential Use Cases to Objects  

One of the main motivations for essential use cases was the context of user interface design. We, however, have been exploring the application of essential use cases in general object-oriented system development. Our experience has been very positive, and we found advantages to essential use cases that assist in both analysis and in design. This paper outlines two techniques involving essential use cases: use of role-play in requirements analysis, and distribution of system requirements from essential use cases to objects.

Biddle, Robert, James Noble and Ewan Tempero. Constantine and Lockwood (2003). Articles>User Interface>Methods

From GUI to E(motional) UI

How ironic that we think we can get more exact results from our computers by emulating human interaction, but when we want exact results from human interaction, we unintentionally emulate computers. Engineering, air traffic control, legal contracts--in all endeavors where precise communication is critical--our success has depended on washing out human emotion and natural language in favor of formal procedures and protocols, complete with a detailed domain-specific language.

Agro, Leandro. UXmatters (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Interface>Emotions

The Gap Between 25 Seconds and 5 Seconds

If designers took the perspective of users in the design of air conditioners, perhaps the wait for the cold air would not have been 25 seconds, unless you really think that 25 seconds of waiting time is fun for users.

Jiong, Zhou. uiGarden (2007). Articles>User Interface>User Experience

Generic Commands

Applications can give users access to a richer feature set by using the same few commands to achieve many related functions.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Usability>User Interface

Google Voice Search

Google Voice Search allows you to make a telephone call to Google with a search query and get the results on a web page. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe the user experience and investigate the usability implications of this tool.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Audio

Review: GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design DON'Ts and DO's

GUI Bloopers 2.0 describes common user-interface mistakes found in today's software products and services, and provides design rules and guidelines to avoid them. Johnson describes the design decisions that lead to misuse of controls, poor navigation, prose-riddled labels, bad design and layout, faulty interaction, and poor responsiveness. GUI Bloopers 2.0 is well illustrated with hundreds of examples from real products and online services, and stories from his own experience.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (2007). Articles>Reviews>User Interface

Handheld Devices and the Flow of Functionality

Handheld devices and small appliances pose a unique challenge to the interface designer. The blur between user interface and functionality (interface vs. interaction) is even more pronounced in these environments. The interface of any small device is extremely important; yet, more than ever, the necessity to build in exactly (and only) what is required by the user is extremely important!

Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>User Interface>Workflow>PDA

Hands Across the Screen: Why Scrollbars are on the Right and Other Stories

Why are scrollbars on the right, and is it the best place for them? There are good reasons to think that the left-hand side may be the better choice. In this short paper we'll talk about two cases, from which we can find: the best placement does not look right when you see it statically, but feels right when it is used.

Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface

The Harmonics of Usability: A Trio of Implications for Software Interface Design  

In the world of usability, Thomas Gilbert, human performance engineer; John Bowie, information engineer; and Genichi Taguchi, quality engineer, are singing a three-part harmony. Exemplifying different generations as well as three distinct but overlapping domains, these experts converge at a vantage point from which they should be jointly capable of conducting the whole orchestra. This article explains the contributions each individual has made, directly or indirectly, to the domain of software development.

Sommers, Adele. Usability Interface (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface