Ευχρηστία και διαδίκτυο

Η αναγκαιότητα χρήσης του Internet στις μέρες μας είναι προφανής ακόμα και για ανθρώπους που δεν έχουν άμεση ή έμμεση σχέση με το αντικείμενο των Ηλεκτρονικών Υπολογιστών. Ο πλούτος της παρεχόμενης πληροφορίας, η αμεσότητα ενημέρωσης οι προσφερόμενες υπηρεσίες και τα εργαλεία που συγκροτούν την έννοια που αποκαλούμε συνολικά διαδίκτυο, προκαλεί δέος. Πολλοί μάλιστα μιλούν για "τεχνολογικό αποκλεισμό" σε περίπτωση που κάποιος δεν προσπαθήσει να προσαρμοστεί και να ενσωματώσει τη νέα αυτή πραγματικότητα στο τρόπο ζωής και εργασίας του. Προφανώς λοιπόν το έργο που έχει να επιτελέσει η επιστήμη της Ευχρηστίας Λογισμικού σε αυτό το τομέα είναι σημαντικό και θα πρέπει να γίνει κατανοητή από όλους μια πιο ανθρωποκεντρική θεώρηση της διαδικασίας σχεδιασμού και ανάπτυξης λογισμικού για το διαδίκτυο. Το Internet έχει αρχίσει να ενηλικιώνεται και πλέον πρέπει να βελτιωθεί με τέτοιο τρόπο ώστε να προάγει μια ευρύτερη ουμανιστική αντίληψη της χρήσης του υπολογιστή με κέντρο τον άνθρωπο και μέσο τον υπολογιστή που έχει σαν πάγιο στόχο να εξυπηρετήσει αρτιότερα, ταχύτερα, πιο ευχάριστα και πιο πλήρως τις ανάγκες του.

University of Patras. (Greek) Articles>Education>Usability>Web Design

"About Us" -- Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website

Study participants searched websites for background information ranging from company history to management biographies and contact details. Their success rate was 70%, leaving much room for usability improvements in the 'About Us' designs.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Writing

Afraid So: Horrible Web Monstrosities

Here they come. Nightmare web sites that, from a usability perspective, are horrid monsters. When you're tired and in a hurry, you want a web site to quickly and easily provide relevant content to you, so you can solve a problem or perform some task. Discover common hideous impediments to web usability. WARNING: Not for the faint hearted!

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design

Alertbox #200

Jakob Nielsen has published 200 Alertbox columns on the Web since 1995; in addition to promoting usability, the column's readership statistics validate the practice of archiving content.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Altruistic vs. Narcissistic Web Sites

Users are repulsed by web sites that are narcissistic, egotistic, corporate-speak, hard to understand, and difficult to use. Users are attracted to and enjoy web sites that are altruistic, user-prioritized, user-focused, easy to understand, easy to use, and full of fresh, relevant content.

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Analyzing Usability of a Beta-Version Web Site Through Server Logs, User Profile Data, and Online Questionnaire Responses  

This paper discusses the use of automated data collection to learn from hundreds of beta-test users of a web-based industrial product database how successfully the product met their needs. The collected data consisted of web server log data, opinion data from online questionnaires and follow-up interviews, and user profile data from telerecruiting and online registration was also collected. In the Proceedings of the 1998 Usability Professionals' Association Conference.

Kantner, Laurie and Larry Rusinsky. Tec-Ed, Inc. (1998). Articles>Web Design>Usability

The Art of Being Human

Site visitors crave the sense that someone is there, within and behind your Web pages, your emails and newsletters. Dealing with the bare technology of online interactions is a cold experience for many, or even most of us. It makes us feel anxious. Technology isn't warm. It has no heart. It neither understands us, nor cares for us. For many Web sites, whether for businesses or organizations, we simply plug in and play the bare technology - the super-duper means of information delivery. All the site visitor sees and feels is the design, the interface, the links and the clicks. The experience is about as warm and human as banking with an ATM machine.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

As Simple As Possible

The virtues of simplicity are well-known among experienced systems designers. And many of the things that are 'right' with simpler software systems are also applicable to Web pages and site designs.

Sullivan, Terry. All Things Web (1996). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Assessing Web Site Usability from Server Log Files  

White paper on how to glean usability data from web server log files and how to use that data.

Tec-Ed, Inc. (1999). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Avi Parush

Few usability professionals are as well-rounded as Avi Parush. Avi has worked in industry and academia, testing and design, the Old World and the New, with web applications and airplane cockpits, in operating rooms and on the bridges of ships.

Anderson, Clifford. Usability Professionals Association (2008). Articles>Interviews>Web Design>Usability

Avoiding Bias from the Survivor Effect

Only a few of the survey sites we analyzed in 2000 are still around. We can safely assume that the surviving sites are not a random sample of the original group, but rather that significant differences exist between the sites that made it and those that died. Survival might be due partly to luck, but it is mainly a result of good management and an understanding of Internet fundamentals. Thus, the surviving sites are likely to be disproportionately clued-in about what it takes to run an online business.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods>Web Design

Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill?

Introductory text on Web pages is usually too long, so users skip it. But short intros can increase usability by explaining the remaining content's purpose.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Usability

Branding and Usability

Many web sites exist primarily to create or strengthen the brand for a product or service. We’re finding that a site’s usability can dramatically affect branding. And the graphical aspects of the site — such as logos or evocative pictures — have much less effect on branding than we expected.

User Interface Engineering (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Budgeting for Advertising and Customer Experience

The most effective companies realize that they can't succeed on advertising alone; the customer matters.

Hurst, Mark. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Experience

Build a Cross-Platform Web Design Testing Station in Mac OS

Everybody talks about cross–platform testing, but nobody’s shown how to do it on a nuts–and–bolts level. Until now. Sciortino’s comprehensive tutorial for Mac–based web designers will set you up with the testing platform of your dreams. (’Nix and Windows users, we hope to do the same for you in a future issue.)

Sciortino, Paul. List Apart, A (2002). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Building a Better Interface

If you build it, they may or may not come. But if they do come and you've built it badly, they almost certainly won't come back. While it's immensely difficult to figure out what makes a user bookmark a site, usability is a critical factor. Despite this, most Web builders spend far too little time thinking about this aspect of site design.

Shafer, Dan. Builder.com (1998). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Case Study: Conducting Large-Scale Multi-User User Tests on the United Kingdom Air Defence Command and Control System    

IBM was contracted to provide a new Air Defence Command and Control (ADCC) system for the Royal Air Force. The IBM Human Factors (HF) team was responsible for the design of the operations room, workstations and the graphical user interfaces. Because the project was safety-related, IBM had to produce a safety case. One aspect of the safety case was a demonstration of the operational effectiveness of the new system. This paper is an in-depth case study of the user testing that was carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system. Due to time constraints the HF team had to observe five participants working simultaneously. Further, to provide a realistic operational environment, up to twenty-eight operators were required for each test. The total effort for this activity was four person-years. The paper will detail the considerations, challenges and lessons learned in the creation and execution of these multi-user user tests.

Hey, Elliott. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites

Even small holiday decorations can increase joy of use and make websites feel more current and more connected to users' lives and physical environment. The key is to commemorate without detracting from your users' main reasons for visiting the site.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Change vs. Stability in Web Usability Guidelines

A remarkable 80% of findings from the Web usability studies in the 1990s continue to hold today.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Standards

Characteristics of Web Site Content

Web site content must be recrudescent, repositorial, refluent, and rectilinear. What? Here's an innovative treatment of the essential attributes of online text. Find out why great web site content generally has these 14 characteristics that start with a "R".

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Usability

Check Your Website's Usability Quickly and Cheaply

Anybody who hasn't done a usability study desperately needs to. No one knows yet how to design the perfect user interface, so even simple do-it-yourself studies often show you serious problems.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Chinese Banks Homepage Usability Research Report

The homepages of three leading Chinese retail banks are assessed for their usability.

Zhao, Ming. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Collecting Feedback From Users of an Archive (Reader Challenge)

The collective brainpower of the Internet is an awesome beast that used to manifest itself on Usenet newsgroups. Most of these groups have degenerated into spam, flames, and newbie ignorance. The Web has not yet evolved good ways of utilizing this power, since most so-called 'community' sites are equally degenerate.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1999). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Comparing the Usability of Three Dual-Language School Websites

This study evaluated the usability of three websites for Spanish-English Dual Language K-8 schools. Twelve participants (6 parents, 6 teachers) reviewed and performed tasks on the three public school websites. Site usability was determined through both objective and subjective measures, including task completion time, first-click, total number of pages visited, task success, perceived task difficulty, user satisfaction, and overall ranked preference. Results indicated that one site was preferred more than the others by both user groups and resulted in more efficient search behavior. Clear navigation, link terminology, and proper use of both languages were found to be critical factors contributing to the sites’ usability.

Naidu, Shivashankar, Veronica D. Hinkle and Sav Shrestha. Usability News (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Localization

Composition and Usability

Since the advent of the Web, we've seen a myriad of design schemas evolve--from the simple navigation/content style of site to the cluttered portal. And as this evolution has progressed, so did the war between UI designers and usability experts. On one side, there are usability experts who want to make every website look exactly like Yahoo because users know Yahoo and so they will automatically know how to use the site. On the other side, there are UI designers who want to design entire sites in Flash and Shockwave just because it's cool. Overly dramatic? Well, yes, maybe a little--but it's not entirely a false analysis. Many UI designers that work with usability folk complain that their creativity is hampered, whereas many usability gurus complain that designers are confusing a site's user with their visual semantics. But are the goals of UI designers and the usability folk that far apart?

Cecil, Richard F. Digital Web Magazine (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design