Usability and Branding: How to Make or Break Usability Conventions to Create Brand Identity

It has long been acknowledged in the study of usability, that the usability of a product affects the associated brand identity. While study of usability is universal to any product design, it has sprung up with the advent of the world wide web. It is becoming more important of individuals and institutions to establish a strong on-line identity for themselves or their products.

Content Matters (2006). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Usability

Interface Design for Children’s Searching and Browsing

Elementary-age children are among the largest user groups of computers and the Internet, so it is important to design searching and browsing tools that support them. However, many interfaces for children do not consider their skills and preferences. Children are capable of doing Boolean searches, but have difficulty with the sequential presentation of hierarchical structures used in many category browsers. Based on previous research, we believed a simultaneous presentation of a flat category structure might better support children. We conducted two studies of searching and browsing with these two types of category browsers. Our results suggest that a flat, simultaneous interface provides advantages for both Boolean searching and casual browsing. These results add to the understanding of children’s searching and browsing skills and preferences and suggest guidelines for other interface designers.

Hutchinson, Hilary Browne, Benjamin B. Bederson and Allison Druin. ACM SIGCHI (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Children

Toys 'R' Rushed: A Cautionary Tale

Website critic Lou Rosenfeld is shopping for a baby present, but the website he's using is making his task tougher than it should be. Lou takes on www.toysrus.com.

Rosenfeld, Louis. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Assessment

The Taxman Cometh but Merril Lynch Isn't Ready

With April 15th approaching, Lou needed some basic tax information, but Merrill Lynch's labeling system made the easiest answers tough to find.

Rosenfeld, Louis. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies

Who Cares How Pretty Web Sites Are?

A few weeks back, I wrote about why I think web standards are difficult to learn. I wrote that because I was spending 80% of my time getting my code into XHTML 1.0 and styling it with CSS so that it rendered consistently across 5 or 6 browsers. What was I doing the other 20% of the time? Creating content, of course. I was putting together what a huge percentage of my site visitors come for. When I thought about it in these terms (time spent), I felt like styling with CSS was a lot of work for comparatively little gain. After all, people will still be able to find the site, read the content, and click on the links, whether or not I’ve styled it.

Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Usability

Common Ways Links Fail Users

I’ve thought of a few ways that links can fail users. By preventing these sorts of things (which admittedly, aren’t all that easy to prevent) we can design better links with the hopes of attaining that place where users never get lost.

Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Hypertext

Five Points Concerning Designers Vs. Usability Folks

Web designers and usability folks don’t seem to get along very well. Web designers say that they don’t need usability folks because they design with inherent usability: it’s simply a part of good design. Usability folks, on the other hand, say that everything must be tested. Who’s right? Can both be right?

Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Visual Communication and Web Application Design

In order for a Web application to be "usable", it must be understandable. It needs to communicate, and communicate effectively. When a user interacts with a Web application they have only the visual presentation (the interface) to "tell" them what the application has to offer, and how they can make use of it. As a result, designers must rely on visual communication principles to tell our audience: about the behavior, structure, and purpose of our Web applications. The better at communicating we are, the easier it is for our audience to understand our messages and intentions, and the easier it is for them to use and appreciate our Web applications.

Wroblewski, Luke. Functioning Form (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Visual Rhetoric

The Sphere of Design

The web design community thankfully seems to be wrapping up the "design vs. usability" argument. In case you missed it, the conclusion was: "Not either/or but both, and it depends."

Hunt, Ben. Web Design From Scratch (2006). Articles>Web Design>Graphic Design>Usability

Graphic Design vs. Usability

Graphic Design can "hijack" usability efforts if the graphic design team is not "on board" with usability. This is probably why these days more and more graphic artists (like the students at the Art Institute of Portland where I am currently teaching a class) are learning about usability and have a sensitivity for its user-centered intentions.

Spillers, Frank. Demystifying Usability (2004). Articles>Web Design>Graphic Design>Usability

Next Generation Mobile Authoring

Technological convergence, increased connectivity and consumer expectations are merging to create a landscape of opportunity for the next generation of mobile content, services and applications. Success and adoption are dependent on creating usable and useful experiences — positive interactions that are integrated into an individual's actual lifestyle. Emerging technologies providing streaming music, video and entertainment raise the level of interaction and usage to a new level, increasing the complexity of interfaces and heightening challenges to interface designers and usability professionals.

Goto, Kelly. GotoMedia (2006). Articles>Web Design>Wireless Web>Usability

Learn From Your Customers for Usable Web Applications

Usability consultant Paul Englefield takes you on a journey to demonstrate that listening to your customers is the only way to provide the ultimate usability when designing an e-commerce site or Web-based applications. Through examples, the article weaves user-centered design techniques into the steps of designing an effective business site, focusing on gathering data about your customers' (and their customers') usage behaviors, offers two design models, and demonstrates how to integrate customers' input into the testing and evaluation process.

Englefield, Paul. IBM (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Intranets: Strategy First, Usability Second

More and more intranet teams are buying into the need for usability. However, usability is not a strategy, and without a clear strategy, usability can become a pointless, wasteful and counter-productive exercise.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Usability

Quantitatively Test the Effectiveness of Your Home Page

Staff should be able to confidently, quickly and accurately step from the home page of the intranet towards the information they require. If staff can’t achieve this without resorting to search, the home page needs to be redesigned. This article explains a quick and effective technique for assessing whether your home page is an effective gateway to site content.

Barker, Iain. Step Two (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Assessment

Five Things to Know About Users

Over the years, we've studied the usability of hundreds of product and web site designs. We've seen designs that were incredibly effective for users and designs that fell tremendously short. One emerging pattern in our ongoing research is that design teams that know a lot about their users are more likely to produce user experiences that are usable, effective, and pleasing.

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

Analysis Phase

It is most effective and efficient to incorporate accessibility from the very beginning of a project. When accessibility is only addressed late in product design, it can be very costly to make required design changes. Incorporating accessibility early in the project increases the potential positive design impact, and decreases the time and money required to design accessible products. This chapter provides information on setting usability goals, user analysis, workflow analysis and understanding accessibility issues.

UIaccess (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability

Why Readability Testing is not Enough

he recent press coverage of the Bath University research paper "Readability Assessment of British Internet Information Resources on Diabetes Mellitus Targeting Laypersons" has raised interesting questions about some of the methodologies used to measure users' experience on the web. On the face of it, the conclusion and the methodology used is fine, but due to the indiscriminate nature of automated testing tools, it doesn’t present the entire picture and, at worst, can give the impression that the users of these websites can’t understand the content at all, which may not be the case.

Goddard, Matthew. Usability News (2004). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Usability

Reading on the Web

People rarely read web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In a study John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen found that 79 percent of test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Usability

Five Ways To Make Sure That Users Abandon Your Forms

What do you really need to know in your form process? Be brutal. Don't include stuff that your sales team would like. Completing a form is rarely (if ever) the goal in and of itself. The goal is to entice the user into a deeper relationship (of some sort) with your web site. Notice that I didn't say that the goal was to complete a transaction or make a sale. That is evidence of the deeper relationship, not the vehicle by which you persuade your users.

Meyer, Eric. Improving Customer Experience (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms

First Impressions Count in Website Design

Web designers have as little as 50 milliseconds to capture the interest of potential customers. Through the halo effect, first impressions can influence subsequent judgments of website credibility and buying decisions.

Website Optimization (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>CSS

Sink the Splash Pages

Skip intro splash pages degrade performance, increase bailout rates, and decrease your search engine rankings. Most importantly splash screens reduce web credibility with up to 71% traffic loss.

Website Optimization (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Accessible Forms

This document is concerned with what the user of a Website form "sees" and interacts with. It outlines how you can create forms for the Web that are more accessible and describes the appropriate use of.

Hudson, William. Webusability (2004). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms

Colons at the End of Labels?

You are writing captions or labels for fields in forms, for example 'Name' or 'Date of birth'. Should they be finished with a colon, or not?

Light, Ann. Usability News (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms

Forms: The Importance of Getting it Right

Urgh – it’s what we all think when presented with a form to complete, whether printed or online. What is it about forms that make us feel this way? Maybe, the history of being officious and complicated, a drain on our time, and they often make us feel stressed. As forms represent a business or an organisation, all these feelings are subsequently associated with that organisation – not good for customer relations or reputation!

Lift (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Forms