The Usability of Open Source Software  

Open source communities have successfully developed a great deal of software although most computer users only use proprietary applications. The usability of open source software is often regarded as one reason for this limited distribution. In this paper we review the existing evidence of the usability of open source software and discuss how the characteristics of open source development influence usability. We describe how existing human-computer interaction techniques can be used to leverage distributed networked communities, of developers and users, to address issues of usability.

Nichols, David M. and Michael B. Twidale. First Monday (2003). Design>Usability>Software>Open Source

Usability SIG Web Site Tests Macromedia FlashPaper

The Usability SIG is always interested in new ways to put publish our newsletter on the Web. When an upgrade to Macromedia’s Contribute 2.0 included a new program called FlashPaper, we decided to give it a try.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Flash

Use Actions in Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop's Actions utility is a great way to speed up repetitive image-editing jobs or quickly perform commonly used edits. This tool lets you assign a sequence of commands to a single key. Rather than going through a number of steps, the program records a set of actions and allows you to recall those same actions with a single keystroke the F12 function key, for example.

Regenold, Stephen. Presentations (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

User Style Sheet Wizard

This is a simple 'wizard tool' to create a User Style Sheet. These can be extremely useful for students with visual impairments, scotopic senstivity or visual processing difficulties such as some forms of dyslexia. User Style Sheets are a client-side application of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), they can be used to overide the presentation of HTML based web pages. They can be extremely powerful in enforcing the way in which the user desires a web page to be presented. You can set option of text font, size and colour. The font colour of hyperlinks etc. The user style sheets can be used in Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla.

TechDis (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Software

Using Acrobat Standard 6.0 in a Document Review Cycle

A six-part sample lesson on how to use Acrobat and PDF for document review. Included for download are several files referenced in the exercises.

PlanetPDF (2004). Articles>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Using Color to Bring Harmony to Photographs

What do you do if the photographer is on assignment -- hundreds of miles away -- shooting an event that happens only once, and all the elements in the setting seem to work against each other? After getting the images via email the next morning I couldn't hardly call the photographer to say 'shoot it again.'       In this scenario the photographer had but one chance to create the images for a web page with an important, compelling story. In situations like this the only thing you've got to work with are the camera and your senses.       The serious nature of the message dictated that the audience play an important role in the overall impact of the story. However, the lights were mixed incandescent and fluorescent, giving a greenish tint to the audience when the stage lights rendered flesh tones fairly well.

Photoshop Tips and Tricks (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Using Customized Sounds Effectively

Learn about the advantages of, as well as common tools for creating customizable sounds.

Microsoft (2002). Design>Accessibility>Software>Audio

Using Distiller to Build Booklets  

Adobe InDesign and Adobe PageMaker include utilities that create booklets using a simple page imposition routine. However, other applications such as Adobe FrameMaker or Microsoft Word do not have these utilities and leave users with a bit of a dilemma when they want booklets made. Using Adobe Acrobat Distiller and a simple PostScript file (sig.ps), you can create booklets from EPS (encapsulated PostScript) pages printed from your application. The PostScript file takes the EPS files and arranges them on pages in a single PDF document. This technical guide briefly explains impositions and signatures and provides instructions for editing the associated sig.ps PostScript file used to create a booklet. Knowledge of PostScript may be helpful but is not absolutely necessary; you need only to make a few clearly explained edits for the sig.ps file to work with any documents you have.

Virginia Tech. Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe Acrobat

Using Guides Effectively

Adobe InDesign 2 has some incredible features that aren't found in any other page-layout application and that's why so many designers are migrating to it. What's often overlooked, however, are the cool, subtle, yet powerful features for everyday production work.

White, Terry. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

Using Layers Creatively

Adobe® PageMaker® 7.0 includes a powerful Layers tool with countless applications—we’ll show you three in this tip: 1. Multiple versions 2. Quick arrangement of layers from top to bottom 3. Layered communication—'stick-on' notes

Adobe (2003). Design>Document Design>Software>Adobe PageMaker

Using OpenType Pro fonts in InDesign 1.x

This document is intended to serve as a brief introduction to both the new OpenType font file format, as well as the ways you take advantage of the advanced features of OpenType Pro fonts within InDesign.

Cole, Tim. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Software>Document Design>Adobe InDesign

Using Opera to Check for Accessibility

There are a lot of tools available to check your Web content for accessibility. Some tools are Web-based (such as WAVE 3.0). Other tools are stand-alone software products that you install on your hard drive. One tool that you may have overlooked is the Opera Web browser. Opera is not an accessibility validator—it's a Web browser—but it can act like an accessibility validator if you know how to use it that way. In fact, it's one of the best available. This article explains why.

WebAIM (2003). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Software

Using RoboHelp to Develop a Simple Web-Based Tutorial

RoboHelp is a top application for developing online help. It is also used for developing Web-based help, such as JavaHelp and RoboHelp's WebHelp. Besides being used for online or Web-help, RoboHelp can also be used to develop simple tutorials.

Kurtus, Ron. School for Champions (2001). Design>Documentation>Software>Adobe RoboHelp

Using Streamline with Adobe Illustrator

I've been doing pen and ink illustration for years. It's part of my comic book roots I guess. It's taken a while but I've figured out how to combine pen and ink skills along with Adobe Illustrator to create a completely digital illustration, with a little help from Adobe Streamline and a dash of Photoshop.

Sellers, Mike. Illustrator World (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Illustrator

Using the Photoshop 5 Type Tool

This tutorial explores the features and uses of Photoshop 5.5's type tool. Photoshop 6 uses a different type tool which we shall cover in a future tutorial, though a lot of the techniques mentioned here will work in Photoshop 6.

Elated (2001). Design>Typography>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Using the Photoshop Zoom Tool

Photoshop's zoom facility is very versatile and allows you to zoom in and out of an image in many different ways. You can even have different views of the same document open at once, with different zoom levels! In this tutorial we will explore the zoom tool and its applications.

Elated (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Using XML as an Application-Level Protocol

In one of my past articles, A Pattern/Framework for Client/Server Programming in Java, I discussed a pattern for client/server development using java. That article does not answer exactly how the two parties, client and server, communicate with each other. We require an application-level protocol to do the talking between two entities. It sets up rules about how the two applications/entities communicate and understand each other over a network. If you happen to know the TCP/IP networking model or the OSI networking model, you will observe that network-based communication is implemented in layers, with the application layer at the top and the physical layer at the bottom. This article discusses issues you must face when implementing an application-level protocol and how XML proves to be an excellent choice to represent and implement the application-level protocol.

Saleem, Usman. Developer.com (2002). Design>Information Design>Software>XML

Version Cue: Balancing Simplicity, Functionality in CS Workflow Tool

Adobe's release of Creative Suite last fall introduced Version Cue, a tool designed to help individuals and small creative teams keep track of the latest versions of their graphics and page layouts. The Seybold Reports took it for a test drive to assess its performance.

Dyson, Peter and Mark Walter. Creative Pro (2004). Design>Document Design>Software>Workflow

Viewing Image Information

In this tutorial we're going to show you some quick and easy ways to find out information about your image in Photoshop. The tutorial was written for Photoshop 4 users, but also applies to later versions of Photoshop.

Elated (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Visio Glue: Not For Sniffing

Spend any time with Visio and you'll find yourself wondering how glue works. In the real world, it's pretty straightforward: put glue between two things and they'll stick. Although glue is used for sticking shapes together in Visio, the metaphor ends there.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Information Design>Software>Visio

Warp Type with Inlines

When adding powerful new features from Photoshop 6, you can create amazing effects in very little time. Scott Kelby shows you how to create this great type effect in a few short steps.

Kelby, Scott. Mac Design Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Software>Adobe Photoshop

Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools: Overview

Web accessibility evaluation tools are software programs or online services that help determine if a Web site meets accessibility guidelines. While Web accessibility evaluation tools can significantly reduce the time and effort to evaluate Web sites, no tool can automatically determine the accessibility of Web sites.

Abou-Zahra, Shadi. W3C. Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Software

Web Accessibility Toolbar  

The accessibility toolbar is to aid the manual process in validating web sites. Developed by AIS and provided in Europe and the UK by Southbourne Internet Ltd.

Southbourne Internet Ltd. (2004). Design>Accessibility>Software>Web Browsers