#11873
Some analysts conclude that navigation is useless and that navigation elements should be removed from Web pages. Don't try teaching users the site structure, don't try showing them where they are, don't try telling them where else they can go. Instead, just show people content. I don't fully agree with this analysis. Navigation is overdone on many sites. In particular, the so-called spoke design where every page is linked to every other page leads to reduced usability. Similarly, many sites have overblown footers that link to too many meta-features (say, 'about the company' or a privacy statement).
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#22754
It Is Easy To Criticize But...Challenge to Find Examples of GOOD Usability
It is easy to find examples of poor usability and many books and sites devote themselves to this. We can learn from mistakes and we can laugh and feel superior about it, but what about learning from great design?
Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#27415
A Journey Through Accessibility
Identifies web accessibility problems throughout the web generations, and summarises where we are now, and what we can expect for the future.
Scano, Roberto. Juicy Studio (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability
#13336
Just How 'Blind' Are We to Advertising Banners on the Web?
The most common medium for advertising on the Web is through the use of banners. This form of advertisement often combines animation, sophisticated graphics, and even audio to endorse product information. Currently, advertising companies test the effectiveness of banners by calculating their 'click-through' ratio rate (Briggs & Hollis, 1997). This ratio is the number of times an ad appears on a page compared to the number of times an individual clicks on the banner. It has been argued by Nielsen (1997) that click-through ratio rates are typically about 1%, which suggests that 99% of the time Internet users don’t bother to click on advertisements.
Bayles, Michelle. Usability News (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#19018
A dead fragment of text is what's left after a usability expert has had his or her way with some perfectly good copy. The process works a little like this... First, take some great text that engages the reader on a number of levels. Here are a few words from Martin Luther King, Jr.: 'I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.' Now cut that back to make it more 'usable': 'Have sons judged by character and not color.' What are you left with? A brief, but dead, fragment. The substance of the communication remains, but the soul has been ripped out of it.
Usborne, Nick. ClickZ (2001). Articles>Writing>Usability>Web Design
#22848
Lessons Learned from Usability Testing Web Pages 
This session brings you actual case studies and specific advice based on 'lessons learned' from usability tests of Web sites.
Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny', Janet R. Borggren, Meghan R. Ede and Laurie A. Roshak. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#30771
Let's Learn How Not To Mess Up With Your Web Site Content
Every web site is conceived and designed keeping in view a particular purpose to serve. The aim of web site may vary: some web site intends to showcase products or services of the company it belongs to, some provides information to its target audience, or some just exposes its company on the web in a brand building exercise. This is to note that whatever be the nature of web site, web copy plays it own crucial role in furthering the interest of the site. It is imperative that web content is easy-to-read, easy-to-find, and easy-to-understand.
Azam, Rahbre. Insider Reports, The (2008). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Usability
#31908
Lists of links are an intermediate case between content-embedded links and menu items. Showing listed links in blue or in the site's main link color is the recommended design — and the one most intranets follow.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Color
#30194
Long vs. Short Articles as Content Strategy
Information foraging shows how to calculate your content strategy's costs and benefits. A mixed diet that combines brief overviews and comprehensive coverage is often best.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Writing
#14886
Both Congress and the Bush administration have made more accessible Web sites a core mandate of e-government. The law known as Section 508 requires agencies to make information technology, including Web sites, accessible to people with disabilities. It forced many Webmasters to think seriously about Web design and usability for the first time. But talking about usability and making sure it happens are two different things. Usability means more than coming up with a good site design. It requires follow-through, and that's where many agencies — short-staffed and with little time or money for training — often come up short.
Robinson, Brian. Federal Computer Week (2002). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Section 508
#19023
Measuring User Motivation from Server Log Files 
Estimating user interest and motivation by just counting page requests from a World Wide Web server log (or 'hits') provides a distorted metric of user activity. Some of the reasons why this metric is unreliable are that the path dependent nature of hyperlink usability treats index and navigational aid pages as equal to the goal, because differenes in web browsers can determine how effectively users can percieve content and navigational alternatives, and because the poorly designed structure and content of the documents themselves can inhibit users from finding what they are looking for. This paper proposes that measures of how much time users spend looking at a page are better estimates of user interest than page hits, providing simple human factors principles have been applied. An extended example of how this method might be used to collect and analyze data is also included. The types of decisions that can be made by authors and system administrators based on a time-based metric of user interest is summarized.
Fuller, Rodney and Johannes J. de Graaff. Microsoft (1996). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Log Analysis
#27808
Million Dollar Web Usability Tips
What has long been a struggle for UEX professionals can actually be a great tool to demonstrate the importance of your role. We have found a way, using tools that you may already have, to support the users' needs that can positively impact your company’s bottom line.
Remus, Jacqueline and Jessyca Frederick. Usability Interface (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Experience
#27005
Users were having trouble learning about the Open University's special form of distance education on the existing site. To solve this problem, we wanted to make recommendations for the style and format of the information as part of our design.
Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#21046
Custom error pages are better than stock error pages, and there are even better practical solutions that may eliminate the need for custom error pages to begin with.
Baker, Adam and Keith Instone. Merges.net (2001). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#28952
The Myth of the Genius Designer
Having a good designer doesn't eliminate the need for a systematic usability process. Risk reduction and quality improvement both require user testing and other usability methods.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Testing
#23973
Many people have a hard time talking about the distinctions between different kinds of Web development, which makes it difficult to decide how to proceed. This article offers a quick survey of various Web projects and of the techniques that address them.
Korman, Jonathan. Cooper Interaction Design (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Heuristic Evaluation
#24230
Not Getting Personal: Assessing Website Effectiveness
Websites are sometimes evaluated primarily on first impressions or personal preference. More difficult to ascertain is their success in terms of communication. Assessments of websites can benefit from research and developments from fields such as usability studies, linguistics, professional writing, and rhetoric.
Durham, Marsha. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Web Design>Assessment>Usability
#11872
Web usability has traditionally been focused on increasing ease of learning for the novice users. This makes great sense and should continue to be the main goal. Remember Jakob's Law of the Internet user experience: users spend most of their time on other sites than your own. Thus, users rarely learn enough about any given site to become true expert users.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#26624
The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#28257
The early Web's explosive growth rate has slowed, but even the mature Web is still expanding and recently crossed the 100 million websites mark.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#26637
Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents
When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they're interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn't be given a browser UI.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Adobe Acrobat
#28261
PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption
Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Adobe Acrobat
#19757
PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption
Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Adobe Acrobat
#31996
People Finder: Searching Without Logic? Improving the People Finder Application
One of the most frequent tasks on many intranets is finding people within the company. Providing an effective way to search people is thus a key goal in designing intranets. This goal becomes even more important for an organization like Emirates, a leading international airline, which has over 35,000 employees with over 140 nationalities and where more people are likely to use this feature more frequently.
Deshmukh, Vivek. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Interface
#19261
A Preliminary Report on Two Pilot Readability/Usability Studies
Companies are beginning to conduct readability studies to determine how to provide customers with usable sites. Results have been inconclusive, conflicting, and often contradicting results of printed text studies. To discover how users use web sites, two pilot studies were designed to examine users, their purposes, and their reading processes. Many results parallel those of previous studies. In addition, new results indicate we need to examine several new variables, including amount of usage, site-specific knowledge, conventionalization, print bias, gender and age.
Boiarsky, Carolyn. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
