#30827
User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly
Users now do basic operations with confidence and perform with skill on sites they use often. But when users try new sites, well-known usability problems still cause failures.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
#14887
User-Friendly Web Sites Keep Agencies in Touch With Citizens
It used to be that people surfed the Web not knowing or even caring where they ended up. Now, more people are going to the Web to find critical information that they previously obtained — and can still get — from traditional sources. For all the convenience of the Web, going there for information can still be an adventure.
Bailey, Robert. Federal Times (2002). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Adobe InDesign
#19364
User-Testing Techniques - Site Reviews
Accurately measuring reader-friendliness is a complex task for any Website. Usability testing techniques have been applied with some success to Web pages. But formal usability tests are difficult to set up, and very expensive to conduct (often prohibitively so). And the diversity of the audience of Internet sites probably limits the utility of formal usability testing of many Web pages. Happily, inspection-based usability evaluation is generally as effective as formal, experimental testing, and it is much easier (and less costly) to conduct. This series focuses on inspection-based usability assessment. A site review is basically an unstructured inspection by a third party, typically focusing on the site's usability and aesthetics. It's a difficult but worthwhile effort for serious-minded authors to seek out reviewers who are willing to invest the time to undertake a serious review of your site, offering constructive suggestions for improvement.
Sullivan, Terry. All Things Web (1996). Articles>Usability>Methods>Web Design
#27940
Users Interleave Sites and Genres
When working on business problems, users flitter among sites, alternating visits to different service genres. No single website defines the user experience on its own.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#28015
Using Eye Tracking to Compare Web Page Designs: A Case Study 
A proposed design for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Web site was evaluated against the original design in terms of the ease with which the right starting points for key tasks were located and processed. This report focuses on the eye tracking methodology that accompanied other conventional usability practices used in the evaluation. Twelve ASCO members were asked to complete several search tasks using each design. Performance measures such as click accuracy and time on task were supplemented with eye movements which allowed for an assessment of the processes that led to both the failures and the successes. The report details three task examples in which eye tracking helped diagnose errors and identify the better of the two designs (and the reasons for its superiority) when both were equally highly successful. Advantages and limitations of the application of eye tracking to design comparison are also discussed.
Bojko, Agnieszka. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Eye Tracking
#27701
Variability in User Performance
When doing website tasks, the slowest 25% of users take 2.4 times as long as the fastest 25% of users. This difference is much higher than for other types of computer use; only programming shows a greater disparity.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Testing
#30765
Visually Challenged Users and Need for a Universally Accessible Web Site
Visually impaired people suffer from no faults of their own. This is quite worthy of consideration that a little more efforts toward adoption of certain features in your web site can help them retrieve information in the desired manner. Their ease of accessibility to your web site will not go unrewarded; they can well augment your business interests by turning into your most valuable customers.
Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Universal Usability
#20852
The Internet doubles every year and has done so ever since it was founded. Currently, the Web grows even faster (doubling every four months or so), though this higher growth rate will have to slow down eventually since the Web is a subset of the Internet and thus cannot outgrow it.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#20339
Web Pages, Interactive Interfaces and Worm Holes: The Next Generation of User Interface Designers
Working in teams has its challenges. What would you do if you were part of a team that included software engineers, usability professionals, managers, teachers and elementary school students? What would you do if the team had to learn about web technology and user interface design in a few short weeks and then apply that skill to creating a web page ? Well, we had fun, and we achieved our goal. Join our panel discussion to hear more about an exciting project between members of IBM’s S/390 team and local elementary schools from Hyde Park, New York.
Bahruth, Carol, Kirsten Brunner, David Hans, Vikki Hanast and Cheryl Loughlin. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Collaboration>Web Design>Usability
#13072
Web Research: Believe the Data
We know a good deal about users' behavior on the Web. For example, they demand fast download and are extremely impatient and want immediate support for their own goals. Even so, most websites are slow, internally-driven, and do not focus on solving the users' problems. Do not ignore research: it can improve your site by several hundred percent.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#15061
Web Shui: Automatic for the People
Potential clients of mine regularly complain that user-centric design costs too much to build. Usability testing in particular is said to be too expensive. To meet cost-conscious demands, a few enterprising dot-commers have produced tools that they claim will monitor your site, then tell you how to increase its usability. But a boxed solution seems too good to be true when it comes to usability...
Deaton, Mary M. Builder.com (2003). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#15062
You have design ideas for your Web site: you've researched your competitors' strategies, and you've read books and Web style guides to learn about the conventions for usable Web sites. But you're still not sure if your visitors will find the site easy to use. What now?
Deaton, Mary M. CNET Builder.com (2003). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#10675
Usability implies purpose and audience. Part of the difficulty of defining 'Web Usability' is the diversity of purposes and audiences within the Internet community. The original audiences were heavily weighted in favor of academics with high levels of computer savvy. Early users were fault tolerant of unsophisticated interface design, satisfied with an absence of pictures, and happy in a world of keystrokes that could flow between the Internet and simple text editors.
Murphy, Arthur R. Computer-Mediated Communication (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#26630
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Blogging
#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
#27378
Where Are You When I Need You? (or... Ending the Search for Search)
Just as with any relationships, users' previous experiences--good or bad--will influence the expectations and hopes that they will have for their relationship with your site. And as with human relationships, this means that if you really want it to work, you need to know some of the gory details of their past to make the future smooth. That's the bad news. The good news is that we are only talking about Web sites.
Straub, Kathleen. Human Factors International (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#13323
Where Should You Put the Links? A Comparison of Four Locations
Online newspapers and journals, as well as many other types of informational sites, are invariably confronted with the question of where to place links associated with the online document. Currently, many informational sites place associative links below (as seen with CNN.com) or on the side of the document (as seen with techreview.com), while a shrinking number of sites embed associative links within their documents.
Bernard, Michael. Usability News (2001). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#10258
Why Frames Suck (Most of the Time)
Judging from the email I receive, the most controversial statement I have made in my Alertbox columns so far was to make 'the use of frames' one of the mistakes in my list of top ten mistakes in Web design. For new or inexperienced Web designers, I stand by my original recommendation. Frames: Just Say No.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#25600
Why Listening to Users Can Damage Your Website
The first time I noticed that people tend to say one thing and do another in a usability test was back in 2000. We had been building a new company website and testing it with real users brought us an unexpected problem. All the users liked the new design a lot more than the old one, but nobody could work out how to use it.
Unsworth, David. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#10580
In our most recent web-site studies, we watched users look for information within web sites. Our goal was to gather data about what makes a good link, but we did not tell users whether or not they should use the site’s search facilities. Users went to these search engines in almost half the tasks. Maybe they shouldn’t have.
User Interface Engineering (1997). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#31906
Writing Style for Print vs. Web
Linear vs. non-linear. Author-driven vs. reader-driven. Storytelling vs. ruthless pursuit of actionable content. Anecdotal examples vs. comprehensive data. Sentences vs. fragments.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Usability
#31418
Zebra Striping: Does it Really Help?
The user of a table would be looking for one or more data points. Therefore, if we set a task that uses a table, and zebra striping does make things easier, then we would expect to see improvements in accuracy and speed.
Enders, Jessica. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>CSS
#20867
Zipf Curves and Website Popularity
Much available data suggests that Web use follows a Zipf distribution. The figure shows the distribution of incoming page requests to www.sun.com during a one-month period last year. Each datapoint represents one page, with the x-axis showing pages sorted according to popularity: the first page is the most popular one (the home page), the second page is the one that received second-most requests that month, and so on until we reach page number 10,000 which was only requested a single time that month.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#28374
初期の頃の爆発的な成長も徐々にそのスピードを緩め、成熟に達しつつあるWebではあるが、その歩みは留まることなく、最近、ウェブサイトの数が1億を突破した。
Nielsen, Jakob. U-Site (2006). (Japanese) Articles>Usability>Web Design
#26904
Google 的真实情况是怎样的呢？回答是：它并不简洁。 瞧，我喜欢 Google。它是个很棒的搜索引擎，但是我比较反感听到有人表扬它的外观优雅而简洁。见鬼，所有的搜索引擎都有一部分是优雅而又简洁的：在输入框中输入要查询的词语，然后按“回车”键。 “不”，有人会马上反对说：“Google的搜索页面是那样的简洁、优雅，没有和其它的功能挤在一起”。
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2006). (Chinese) Articles>Web Design>Usability>Search
