#10553
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>Semantic
#13794
Everything served to a visitor -- from the first page through marketing, sales, and product fulfillment -- generates data about the customer. Web marketers can tap into this 'free' source of profile data for just the cost of converting existing data into a format that can be used by a data-analysis program.
Allen, Cliff. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Log Analysis
#32064
Creating Usable, Search Engine Friendly URLs
There are many reasons to use mod_rewrite to create informative, useful URLs for your website. Most dynamic websites use some form of PHP or ASP to pull the data from the database and often times use that data in the URL as a string. This is not only a potential security flaw, it also gives the user and search engine alike a very uninformative destination for your website.
Robbins, Kyle. ReEncoded (2008). Articles>Web Design>Search Engine Optimization>Usability
#22850
Designing and Testing Customer Satisfaction Surveys on WWW Sites 
The types of surveys being conducted on the web fall into two categories: surveys that determine who is using the WWW and surveys that determine customer satisfaction with the product or service. To the survey guidelines described by GVU, we add five guidelines for designing web customer satisfaction surveys based on reviews of recent surveys and browsing the web: (1) Begin with a clear mission statement. (2) Classlfy current users of the site. (3) Report the results online. (4) Limit the length of the questionnaire to no more than 25 multiple-part questions. (5) Limit big graphics.
Feinberg, Susan G. and Peter Y. Johnson. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Usability>Testing>Web Design
#20642
Designing Educational Booklets for the Web
We discuss here the results of usability tests on two booklets which were transferred from print to the Web. The booklets provide the public with basic information on various cancers, cancer treatment, and other cancer-related topics. The booklets were written by the National Cancer Institute's Office of Education and Special Initiatives (NCI OESI).
#27407
Designing for the "Average User"
User advocacy is one of the central goals of usability. User advocacy can be defined as the process an IT professional (with an interest in user experience) goes through in re-sensitizing herself to the world of the 'average user'.
Spillers, Frank. Demystifying Usability (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#20643
Creating an online form can present developers with many challenges. This case study reviews how a paper-based form was taken through the usability engineering process to develop a functional online version. We discuss the steps in planning and research, prototype development, test design, and the usability test results.
#24079
Developing Intranets Which People Use: Making Progress When Everyone has an Opinion
The goal of an intranet site is to improve knowledge sharing and productivity. In a large company, it can be difficult to achieve consensus on how to make this happen. Knowledge management experts, information systems project managers, graphic designers, marketing leaders, HTML developers and usability engineers are used to fighting for their places, convinced that they know best. In truth, the intranet is not yet mature, and there are no definite answers. This chapter describes experiences with the intranet sites of two Fortune 500 companies. In both cases, the usability engineer was a consultant from outside the company, in one case part of a team of consultants and in the other working more closely with company employees. Both intranet projects were riddled with mishaps, bad decisions, personality conflicts, and compromises. Still, the usability engineers were able to improve the sites by becoming members of the project teams, and by tirelessly incorporating usability in everything they did.
Zukor, Lee. ACM (2001). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#13328
Developing Schemas for the Location of Common Web Objects
An essential ingredient in constructing the content of a website is knowing the typical users' mental model or 'schema' for the characteristic location of web objects on a website. Knowledge of this schema and constructing a site that reflects this should aid in the site's accessibility. This, in turn, should produce more accurate and faster information retrieval, as well as greater satisfaction with the site. However, little is known about the average users' schema for the location of web objects on a typical website.
Bernard, Michael. Usability News (2001). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#25391
Developing Your Site for Performance, Part II: Optimal Cache Control
Focuses primarily on sending that data as infrequently as possible by means of better utilization of caching on the Web. Once you start to design your sites with an eye towards effective caching control, you will dramatically reduce page load times for your users - particularly your most loyal, repeat visitors - as well as lower your overall bandwidth consumption and free up your server resources.
Powell, Thomas A. and Joe Lima. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#27485
Setting legal standards for making websites 'accessible' to all won't help web designers, or users.
Perks, Martyn. Spiked Online (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability
#28699
Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI From Usability?
Although the gains don't fall into traditional profit columns, there are clear arguments for improving usability of non-commercial websites and intranets. In one example, a state agency could get an ROI of 22,000% by fixing a basic usability problem.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#28696
Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#24552
Prevent major user annoyance by checking all your web forms: feedback, comment posting, product orders, newsletter sign-up, newsletter opt-in, unsubscribe option, site registration, etc. When a form won't submit, or otherwise fails, after user inputs lots of data, it causes extreme ill will toward your web site, and may be legal violation (UCE laws).
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>Forms>Usability
#24734
People are increasingly relying on web channels to check on their billing relationship with companies. The problem: Not all billing applications present information that’s easy to navigate and action.
Szuc, Daniel and Gerry Gaffney. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#10554
I am personally calling this the year of the e-Tailer. I have seen more hype in e-commerce this year than in any other holiday season in the past including the year the almighty Amazon.com launched its e-commerce site. I consider myself an avid web user and I know what it takes to develop a full-fledged e-commerce site because I have been there in the trenches developing some of those sites in time for the holiday season. I have seen battles won and lost in as few as a week's time. Nothing turns me off more than a poorly constructed e-commerce site and this year, the numbers seem to be taking a turn for the worse.
Finck, Nick. Digital Web Magazine (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#27527
The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News
This study examined the effects of line length on reading speed, comprehension, and user satisfaction of online news articles. Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed. No effects of line length were found for comprehension or satisfaction, however, users indicated a strong preference for either the short or long line lengths.
Shaikh, A. Dawn. Usability News (2005). Articles>Web Design>Typography>Usability
#19027
Once upon a time, if it was on the web, it was good. If it did tricks, so much the better. And how did a company know if its website was really good? Of course, by measuring traffic. The more traffic, the better, right?
Jaleshgari, Ramin. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Log Analysis
#10168
Websites must tone down their individual appearance and distinct design in all ways: visual design; terminology and labeling; interaction design and workflow; and information architecture. These changes are driven by four different trends that all lead to the same conclusion.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Interaction Design
#27529
Evaluating the Usability of Educational Websites for Children
This study examined the usability of educational websites for children. Children ages 7 - 11 performed seven search tasks with one of three websites. Overall, participants, especially those less than 10 years of age were not very successful. Terminology, number and organization of links, location of information above the fold, and length of individual pages all influenced performance on the tasks.
Naidu, Shivashankar. Usability News (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Children
#20049
Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility
This document outlines approaches for preliminary review Web site accessibility, and for evaluation of conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. While it does not provide checkpoint-by-checkpoint testing techniques it does include general procedures and tips for evaluation during development of Web sites, and for monitoring of established Web sites. Other resources will be developed for in-depth compliance testing. The measures described here are intended to supplement an organization's existing procedures for content management and quality assurance on their Web sites. For information about why making Web sites accessible is important read the Introductions on the WAI Resources page.
#28554
Evaluation of an Informational Web Site: Three Variants of the Think-aloud Method Compared 
To evaluate Web sites, usability experts often use methods that were originally employed for the evaluation of software applications. In doing so, they assume that these methods will work exactly the same for both types of test objects. However, there is a major difference between transactional software applications and informational Web sites, a difference that could have an effect on the workings of various usability methods. As such, we felt that it was valuable to repeat one of our previous studies in which we compared concurrent think-aloud protocols, retrospective think-aloud protocols, and constructive interaction to evaluate a Web application, this time using a Web site. The results of our study showed that in some respects, the methods did work differently depending on the test object they were applied to. However, we conclude that the three methods are largely interchangeable and that the decision to choose one variant of the think-aloud method over the other should be based on practical considerations.
van den Haak, Maaike J., Menno de Jong, D.T. and Peter JanSchellens. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Methods
#28095
Evolution Trumps Usability Guidelines
'Use a Search Box instead of a link to a Search page.' This is one guideline from the plethora of recently created usability guidelines to help designers produce more usable web sites. It makes sense. After all, there are more than 42 million web sites on the Internet. It should be simple to study these sites and put together a list of 'do's' and 'don'ts' that, when followed, will produce easy-to-use sites. But...
Spool, Jared M. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>Standards>Web Design
#27484
Without innovative solutions that are imaginative and that promote the talents of the producer, the designer is left solving narrow, piecemeal issues that don't add up to much. Which is why Nielsen and Tahir reduce everything to the banal. They accept that the interface is the most critical aspect of the product, losing sight of the possibilities of the product itself.
Perks, Martyn. Spiked Online (2002). Articles>Usability>Web Design>CRM
#31905
Extreme Usability: How to Make an Already-Great Design Even Better
The 1% of websites that don't suck can be made even better by strengthening exceptional user performance, eliminating miscues, and targeting company-wide use and unmet needs.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability
