http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Usability A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Usability in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Usability http://tc.eserver.org/35696.html http://tc.eserver.org/35696.html Those who think video games are not educational, this post is for you. Not only can video games be an enjoyable experience, they can teach us many things. Websites and video games often use similar concepts about usability in order to achieve an amazing end-product. I’ve come up with 6 essential concepts that video games can teach web designers about usability. http://tc.eserver.org/35598.html http://tc.eserver.org/35598.html I’m part of the AEC User Experience Team at Autodesk. Our goal is to design a great user experience for our customers, but just what does that mean? Our definition of user experience focuses on all the touchpoints that current or new users have with our product. For example, the downloading of software trials is often the beginning of one’s user experience with a product. If you have to fill out forms that ask for too much information, (should “cell phone number” be a required field on a trial download form?) or present you with too many obstacles, the likelihood of a positive user experience will be low. Your interactions with technical support, documentation, the product, and even other products that you use, are all aspects of the user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/35577.html http://tc.eserver.org/35577.html Fortunately, you don't see dialogs in web apps much, but this sort of modal dialog lunacy is, sadly, becoming more popular in today's AJAX-y world of web 2.5. Those who can't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, I guess. http://tc.eserver.org/35578.html http://tc.eserver.org/35578.html This may sound a little harsh, but you'll see, when you do usability tests, that there are quite a few users who simply do not read words that you put on the screen. If you pop up an error box of any sort, they simply will not read it. http://tc.eserver.org/35593.html http://tc.eserver.org/35593.html How can we designers get valid feedback from more design iterations in less time? One bottleneck in the design flow is finding a steady stream of usability testers. Between the extremes of the perfect (an actual user, on site) and the unacceptable (the developer who's coding the feature), lies the grey zone of user proxies. Can you use internal employees with relevant domain knowledge to usability test your products, and still get valid data? http://tc.eserver.org/35454.html http://tc.eserver.org/35454.html When designing an online store, you have to consider many different types of customers: repeat customers, first-timers, people in a rush, etc. One thing that would help all of them is optimum usability. You can achieve this in a variety of ways, starting with eliminating the most common usability problems from your website. Fixing any one of the following eight common usability problems will get you started on the path to usability and user-experience heaven and, ultimately, more sales. http://tc.eserver.org/35397.html http://tc.eserver.org/35397.html Next time you consider adding a reset button to a form, think it through very carefully first. Does the user really benefit from being able to reset the form? Is being able to reset the form to its initial state so valuable that it is worth the risk of the user losing the data they have entered? Probably not. http://tc.eserver.org/35366.html http://tc.eserver.org/35366.html Although there are other ways to increase your blog's readability, these are the most important elements to consider: font size, line height, line length, typeface, background, subheadings, paragraphs, white space, graphics, and invisibility. http://tc.eserver.org/35305.html http://tc.eserver.org/35305.html Users hate change, so it's usually best to stay with a familiar design and evolve it gradually. In the long run, however, incrementalism eventually destroys cohesiveness, calling for a new UI architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/35306.html http://tc.eserver.org/35306.html Users like the simplicity of messages that pass into oblivion over time, but were frequently frustrated by unscannable writing, overly frequent postings, and their inability to locate companies on social networks. http://tc.eserver.org/35230.html http://tc.eserver.org/35230.html I live and breathe user experience design, and yet it took me two years to get myself the device referenced by almost every single presentation about user experience since 2007… Apple’s iPhone. My reasons were very specific and perhaps boring, but what is interesting is the perspective this wait has afforded me. Since it was released, the iPhone has grabbed an astonishing share of mobile Web traffic, been regarded as a “game-changer” in both the design and business worlds, and has even been referred to as the “Jesus Phone.” Now that I’ve owned one for two weeks I’ve developed a different perspective. The iPhone is surprisingly difficult to use, but it sure is fun! And that is why it’s a game-changer. http://tc.eserver.org/35213.html http://tc.eserver.org/35213.html Everyone would agree that usability is an important aspect of Web design. Whether you’re working on a portfolio website, online store or Web app, making your pages easy and enjoyable for your visitors to use is key. Many studies have been done over the years on various aspects of Web and interface design, and the findings are valuable in helping us improve our work. Here are 10 useful usability findings and guidelines that may help you improve the user experience on your websites. http://tc.eserver.org/35162.html http://tc.eserver.org/35162.html Now when people show up at a website, many of them ignore our lovingly crafted navigational elements and jump to the site search box. The increased use of site search as a core navigation method makes it very important to understand the data that site search generates. http://tc.eserver.org/35173.html http://tc.eserver.org/35173.html Affordance allows us to look at something and intuitively understand how to interact with it. For example, when we see a small button next to a door, we know we should push it with a finger. Convention tells us it will make a sound, notifying the homeowner that someone is at the door. This concept transfers to the virtual environment: when we see a 3D-shaped button on a web page, we understand that we are supposed to “push” it with a mouse-click. http://tc.eserver.org/35096.html http://tc.eserver.org/35096.html Recently, Office Depot redesigned their search user interface, adding attribute-based filtering and creating a more dynamic, interactive user experience. Unfortunately, Office Depot’s interaction design misses some key points, making their new search user interface less usable and, therefore, less effective. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Office Depot site presents us with an excellent case study for demonstrating some of the important best practices for designing filters for faceted search results. http://tc.eserver.org/35103.html http://tc.eserver.org/35103.html We made a timeline message more punchy, credible, and viral through 5 rounds of redesign. http://tc.eserver.org/35106.html http://tc.eserver.org/35106.html Websites that let users customize the UI have the same measured usability as regular sites. Sites for customizing products, however, score substantially worse due to complex workflow. http://tc.eserver.org/35052.html http://tc.eserver.org/35052.html Marketing departments – especially in IT – like to speak in the modern lingo about a product’s innovative “Look and Feel”. While “Look“ refers to the design of the solution, “Feel” means usability, the quality of use. Developers of Content Management Systems and other enterprise IT solutions have to walk a fine line to meet the exacting demands of users in both areas. But in recent years a clear trend has become apparent: There is a drive towards the modern, “cool” product design where at a minimum usability takes a back seat, often to its detriment. http://tc.eserver.org/34891.html http://tc.eserver.org/34891.html Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures. http://tc.eserver.org/34892.html http://tc.eserver.org/34892.html ユーザがパスワードを打ち込んでも、黒い点の列でしかフィードバックが返ってこないとき、ユーザビリティは損なわれている。パスワードを隠したからといって、セキュリティは強化されないことが多く、逆に、ログインの失敗によって、あなたのビジネスに悪影響を及ぼす。 http://tc.eserver.org/34901.html http://tc.eserver.org/34901.html ごくごく小規模な経験的な事実（例えば、観察対象のユーザが2人）からでも、そこから得られる事実はUIデザインに対して、正しい判断ができる確率を大きく高めてくれる。 http://tc.eserver.org/34902.html http://tc.eserver.org/34902.html 個人投資家はあまりにも複雑なIRサイトに怖気づき、財務データのシンプルなサマリーを欲しがっている。個人投資家も投資専門家も、共に必要としているのは、企業自体のstoryとその投資ビジョンである。 http://tc.eserver.org/34904.html http://tc.eserver.org/34904.html タスク成功率は、2004 年のユーザビリティ統計と比べると大きく上昇した。しかしそれにもかかわらず、ユーザがタスクを完遂できないケースがあり、その原因の大半は情報アーキテクチャ(IA)の出来の悪さにある。 http://tc.eserver.org/34905.html http://tc.eserver.org/34905.html リンクの最初の11文字がどれだけ理解されるかをテストすれば、そのサイトがユーザのために書かれたかものかどうかがわかる。ユーザというのはリストの項目を全部読む、というよりは、流し読みをするものだからだ。 http://tc.eserver.org/34906.html http://tc.eserver.org/34906.html ユーザー調査の結果、非営利団体のウェブサイトはコンテンツが著しく不足しており、寄付に踏み切るための判断材料に欠けていることがよくあることがわかった。 http://tc.eserver.org/34908.html http://tc.eserver.org/34908.html 大きな二次元のドロップダウンパネルは、ナビゲーションの選択肢をグループ化することでスクロールの必要性を無くし、タイポグラフィやアイコン、ツールチップを使うことで、ユーザの選択できる内容をわかりやすく提示してくれる。 http://tc.eserver.org/34870.html http://tc.eserver.org/34870.html The job of a retail site is to attract the consumer, sell the product, and deliver it. In the case of a manufacturer site, the only difference when encountering a retail customer is that, instead of delivering the product, the site may deliver the customer—to an authorized retailer. http://tc.eserver.org/34872.html http://tc.eserver.org/34872.html Want to build a great website incorporating aesthetic design and usability? Find out what to measure to help ensure your site has great aesthetic design. http://tc.eserver.org/34803.html http://tc.eserver.org/34803.html Usability and compatibility testing is a must. If you’re developing a Web application, test it with not only the major desktop browsers but with the popular mobile browsers as well. If your application isn’t friendly to mobile devices, say so up front when someone visits that application using a mobile browser. It will prevent a lot of frustration on the part of users. http://tc.eserver.org/34759.html http://tc.eserver.org/34759.html Four major components are covered in this checklist: accessibility, identity, navigation and content. The list is a printable PDF and contains a rating system and space for comments. http://tc.eserver.org/34686.html http://tc.eserver.org/34686.html Las normas básicas de como escribir un texto para web, vamos, lo que todo copywriter se sabe de carrerilla. http://tc.eserver.org/34637.html http://tc.eserver.org/34637.html Even though your customers may not read manuals, your tech support team probably does, which means someone is reading the manuals and using them to help others. But if your users find it easier to call someone, wait on hold for an agent, and then ask the agent a question rather than find the answer in the help, maybe your help materials aren’t very usable. Maybe increasing the usability of your company’s documentation could alleviate the need users feel to seek answers from another source. http://tc.eserver.org/34622.html http://tc.eserver.org/34622.html Summary The issue with HP laptops that have a touch pad with a scroll zone contained it (as shown in image A) is that they do not provide a tactile cue for the user to help interpret what section of the touch pad the finger is positioned at. In the absence of a tactile cue, it is difficult for the user to determine whether the finger is on touch pad or the scroll zone without looking at it, resulting in the accidental scrolling on the screen when actually the user simply wants to move the cursor. The issue and multiple solutions are discussed ahead. http://tc.eserver.org/34617.html http://tc.eserver.org/34617.html The concept behind website operability is simple: Can everybody use the tools and mechanisms required to operate your website? Operability may seem easy, but it can be very challenging. Every control, every link, and every button on your site is a potential point of failure for operability. Without appropriate consideration for the disabled, you run the risk that disabled users will be unable to access your site. http://tc.eserver.org/34537.html http://tc.eserver.org/34537.html Even the tiniest amount of empirical facts (say, observing 2 users) vastly improves the probability of making correct UI design decisions. http://tc.eserver.org/34538.html http://tc.eserver.org/34538.html Individual investors are intimidated by overly complex IR sites and need simple summaries of financial data. Both individual and professional investors want the company's own story and investment vision. http://tc.eserver.org/34514.html http://tc.eserver.org/34514.html There are a exponentially growing amount of applications being developed. Some of them vanish at an early stage, while others grow to be quite (and sometimes extremely) popular. What really dazzles me is how sucky many of them (both the popular and the unpopular ones) are regarding how they deal with user-interaction. http://tc.eserver.org/34479.html http://tc.eserver.org/34479.html When we’re creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading our finely crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click. What they actually do most of the time (if we’re lucky) is glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page that they don’t even look at. http://tc.eserver.org/34457.html http://tc.eserver.org/34457.html Usability is central to the successful completion of online forms. Whether applying for insurance, completing tax returns or simply making an online purchase, a poorly designed or confusing form can lead to users abandoning the process. The following are some tips when designing online forms. http://tc.eserver.org/34459.html http://tc.eserver.org/34459.html The out of box experience (OOBE) describes the users first interaction with a product or service. In the technology sector this first experience invariably involves plugging stuff in, installing some software and crossing your fingers in the hope that the product will work. The problem is that, in far too many cases, it doesn’t. http://tc.eserver.org/34463.html http://tc.eserver.org/34463.html In recent user testing with a range of participants including Visually Impaired (VIP) and Blind users we found that the majority of problems were common across all groups. However the effect of poor usability is more severe for users with visual disabilities. Surprisingly all of the issues are very familiar and are easy to fix so we thought we’d revisit some of the basics of accessible web design. http://tc.eserver.org/34464.html http://tc.eserver.org/34464.html In several recent websites we have user tested, the site designers have placed important task critical links and information on the right hand side (RHS) of three column page layouts. The user testing was conclusive, users ignore any information presented on the RHS. We think this is a similar effect to the well documented banner blindness. It is essential to ensure that import links or information is not positioned on the RHS as they will surely be ignored. http://tc.eserver.org/34290.html http://tc.eserver.org/34290.html Task success is up substantially compared with usability statistics from 2004. Bad information architecture causes most of the remaining user failures. http://tc.eserver.org/34291.html http://tc.eserver.org/34291.html Testing how well people understand a link's first 11 characters shows whether sites write for users, who typically scan rather than read lists of items. http://tc.eserver.org/34292.html http://tc.eserver.org/34292.html User research finds significant deficiencies in non-profit organizations' website content, which often fails to provide the info people need to make donation decisions. http://tc.eserver.org/34293.html http://tc.eserver.org/34293.html Given that regular drop-down menus are rife with usability problems, it takes a lot for me to recommend a new form of drop-down. But, as our testing videos show, mega drop-downs overcome the downsides of regular drop-downs. Thus, I can recommend one while warning against the other. http://tc.eserver.org/34294.html http://tc.eserver.org/34294.html Writing for Kindle is like writing for print, the Web, and mobile devices combined; optimal usability means optimizing content for each platform's special characteristics. http://tc.eserver.org/34299.html http://tc.eserver.org/34299.html Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions. http://tc.eserver.org/34300.html http://tc.eserver.org/34300.html As three studies of journalists show, they use the Web as a major research tool, exhibit high search dominance, and are impatient with bloated sites that don't serve their needs or list a PR contact. http://tc.eserver.org/34304.html http://tc.eserver.org/34304.html Simplicity is key to any successful website or web app. If your site is too complicated, the user will have to go through too many hoops to find what they are looking for and won’t even bother trying it out. http://tc.eserver.org/34285.html http://tc.eserver.org/34285.html Looking to design a website for older users? Read through these top tips and ensure your site is as effective as possible. http://tc.eserver.org/34170.html http://tc.eserver.org/34170.html All of the members of the best teams could tell us, with relative ease, the top five business goals of their application, the top five user types the application was to serve, and the top five platform capabilities and limitations they had to work within. And, when questioned more deeply, each team member revealed an appreciation and understanding of the challenges and goals of their teammates almost as well as their own. http://tc.eserver.org/34121.html http://tc.eserver.org/34121.html To address the challenge of developing a shared understanding of the users that participate in each scenario we have developed a set of personas that describe the work styles, characteristics and motivations that are common to particular groups of people using our products. The personas help us communicate these characteristics by humanizing them, increasing the empathy that team members have for these fictional users. http://tc.eserver.org/34125.html http://tc.eserver.org/34125.html Do you want faster-loading Web pages? Learn how you can make the browsing experience better for dial-up users by reducing loading times by as much as 80 percent, in some cases. http://tc.eserver.org/34080.html http://tc.eserver.org/34080.html If your site’s core function is in the content you publish, then the interface should take a back seat. Make an interface that’s transparent and not distracting to use. Remember that the UI is not the content and not the focus of your site. Getting these priorities right will help you make a great user interface. http://tc.eserver.org/34046.html http://tc.eserver.org/34046.html Using a self-designation with a certain amount of specificity sacrifices practicality to accuracy. Individuals who have been hired as a single-function specialist may have the luxury of presenting as a “usability engineer” or “information architect”. For the independent consultant, this strategy can have definite negative consequences. http://tc.eserver.org/34014.html http://tc.eserver.org/34014.html Talks about the importance of usability for businesses communicating with both new and potential customers. Featuring a case study of how a company improved their revenue-per-employee by 95% over a 2 year period, along with some attendee participation, this 17 minute presentation touches on a wide variety of websites and activities, such as lead generation sites, information portals and search engine marketing campaigns. Most significantly conversion rates for e-commerce websites are discussed, where usability can have a remarkable affect on a companies bottom line, if the right decisions are made in making improvements. http://tc.eserver.org/33963.html http://tc.eserver.org/33963.html It can be difficult to move from a static, pixel-based design approach to an elastic, relative method. Properly implemented, however, elastic design can be a viable option that enhances usability and accessibility without mandating design sacrifices. http://tc.eserver.org/33953.html http://tc.eserver.org/33953.html When people talk about both usability and accessibility, it is often to point out how they differ. Accessibility often gets pigeon-holed as simply making sure there are no barriers to access for screen readers or other assistive technology, without regard to usability, while usability usually targets everyone who uses a site or product, without considering people who have disabilities. In fact, the concept of usability often seems to exclude people with disabilities, as though just access is all they are entitled to. What about creating a good user experience for people with disabilities—going beyond making a Web site merely accessible to make it truly usable for them? http://tc.eserver.org/33956.html http://tc.eserver.org/33956.html Search results pages are some of the most visited pages on typical e-commerce sites—to say nothing of a search engine like Google. Many articles appear each year about optimal search algorithms, database performance, and the like. In contrast, very few publications focus on improving the search experience from the customer’s perspective. http://tc.eserver.org/33939.html http://tc.eserver.org/33939.html The usability of a website is relative to the audience that it was designed for. A website that is designed well for its primary audience will not necessarily provide a great user experience for everyone that tries to use it. It’s important to identify your target user if you’re going to make a site that works well for the right people. http://tc.eserver.org/33911.html http://tc.eserver.org/33911.html How we choose what to buy is a key question that should be asked when designing an ecommerce website. Find out the importance of and relationship between aesthetics and usability. http://tc.eserver.org/33912.html http://tc.eserver.org/33912.html Even in these relatively advanced times, there's a whole set of problems faced by mobile users when it comes to accessing the Internet. Read about the importance of mobile usability. http://tc.eserver.org/33840.html http://tc.eserver.org/33840.html This paper focuses on managing constraints in a way that enables developers to create an accessible and usable user interface (UI). The constraining processes presented in this paper comprise of a language to describe a logical web page in an application, a basic bottom-up repository management system and the processing required for compiling pages. http://tc.eserver.org/33747.html http://tc.eserver.org/33747.html I've been in the following scenario several times. I'm in a meeting room with the web and marketing teams and there is a raging debate about brand guidelines. A proposed improvement to the design contravenes the guidelines. One group think that branding is more important than usability. The other group think the opposite. They are both wrong. Usability is branding. It shapes people's opinions of your product or organisation. http://tc.eserver.org/33719.html http://tc.eserver.org/33719.html The next wave in Web site design is persuasive design, designing for persuasion, emotion, and trust. While usability is still a fundamental requirement for effective Web site design, it is no longer enough to design sites that are simply easy to navigate and understand so users can complete transactions. As business mandates for Web site design have grown more strategic, complex, and demanding of accountability, good usability has become the price of competitive entry. So, while usability is important, it is no longer the key differentiator it once was. http://tc.eserver.org/33650.html http://tc.eserver.org/33650.html In any field of applied studies such as technical communication, you have to be aware of industry changes. Keeping current with research and academic journals is important, but so is keeping current with what is going on in your industry, particularly in your own city. If you are educating people to get jobs as technical communicators, then you need to be sure you are giving them the right training for the markets they are entering. http://tc.eserver.org/33596.html http://tc.eserver.org/33596.html Intranets are getting more strategic, with increased collaboration support. Team size is growing by 12% per year, and platforms are becoming integrated. Improving usability increased use by 106% on average. http://tc.eserver.org/33581.html http://tc.eserver.org/33581.html Adaptive Path’s Peter Merholz recently talked to the founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool about user research. http://tc.eserver.org/33582.html http://tc.eserver.org/33582.html Everyone is mad for personas. They’ve permeated the highest and deepest levels of organizations, and have become a standard interaction design tool. Whole projects are now built around creating them, and there’s a feeling that once you get a half dozen or so, your design problems will be solved. Presumably, your personas solve them for you. The problem is, most teams build personas from the wrong kind of user information, or worse, base them on assumptions. It’s no surprise that a Web search for personas brings up an amazing variety of persona sets, and most of them are terrible. http://tc.eserver.org/33487.html http://tc.eserver.org/33487.html This article introduces the "Sphere of Design", which is a simple conceptual model that illustrates the relationship and trade-offs between 'looks' and 'works'. http://tc.eserver.org/33453.html http://tc.eserver.org/33453.html Usage goes down as interaction costs increase. User motivation determines how fast demand drops, following an elasticity curve. http://tc.eserver.org/33455.html http://tc.eserver.org/33455.html Usability scores for 51 websites show some correlation between navigation, content, and feature quality, but no connections to other usability areas. http://tc.eserver.org/33456.html http://tc.eserver.org/33456.html Automated email can improve customer service, strengthen relationships, and help websites bypass search engines. But most messages fared poorly in user testing and didn't fulfill this potential. http://tc.eserver.org/33458.html http://tc.eserver.org/33458.html We found a 9% improvement in the usability of About Us information on websites over the past 5 years. But companies and organizations still can't explain what they do in one paragraph. http://tc.eserver.org/33459.html http://tc.eserver.org/33459.html Finding addresses and location information on company websites has gotten dramatically easier, but users increasingly turn to search engines first for this task. http://tc.eserver.org/33460.html http://tc.eserver.org/33460.html New user testing of site maps shows that they are still useful as a secondary navigation aide, and that they're much easier to use than they were during our research 7 years ago. http://tc.eserver.org/33444.html http://tc.eserver.org/33444.html Jupiter Research reports that only 14% of consumers say personalised offers or recommendations on shopping Web sites lead them to buy more often from online stores, and just 8% say that personalisation increases their repeat visits to content, news or entertainment websites. By contrast, the majority of consumers said that basic site improvements would make them buy or visit websites more often - 54% cited faster-loading pages and 52% cited better navigation as greater incentives. http://tc.eserver.org/33448.html http://tc.eserver.org/33448.html The fads and big deals that get the press coverage are not important for running a workhorse website. To serve your customers, it's far better to emphasize simplicity and quality than to chase buzzwords. http://tc.eserver.org/33449.html http://tc.eserver.org/33449.html The distinction between information architecture and usability may seem like semantics, but there are significant differences between the two disciplines. Though they are often discussed interchangeably, and practitioners are often well-versed in both, information architecture and usability differ in their scope and areas of focus. http://tc.eserver.org/33427.html http://tc.eserver.org/33427.html An easy way to define persuasive web design is to contrast it with usable design. Usability focuses on giving users the ability to complete a transaction if they so desire. A usable site makes it easy for users to complete transactions, from buying products to convincing users to read featured articles. Unfortunately, having a usable web site is not always enough to convince users to transact. Even if a user can complete a transaction on your site, doesn't mean that they will transact. To be successful, sites must go beyond Usability by focusing on Persuasive Design. http://tc.eserver.org/33428.html http://tc.eserver.org/33428.html Many users are highly motivated to complete tasks before they begin and before any external motivation is provided. In other words, usability can easily be an umbrella that covers persuasion. http://tc.eserver.org/33429.html http://tc.eserver.org/33429.html Changing people's attitudes and behaviors for the good could help us to make this world a better place. And turning this world into a better one is one of the key drivers for most of the usability people I know. Most of them don't advocate usability for the money; they want to help make things and consequently life easier. http://tc.eserver.org/33421.html http://tc.eserver.org/33421.html Debates about Microsoft Word vs. Adobe Framemaker appear with regular frequency on the tech-writing mailing lists I am subscribed to. Everyone agrees Frame is an awesome publishing tool. Yet, everyone keeps cribbing about it. So, why does a bright bunch of people who are masters at figuring out stuff, otherwise known as tech-writers, only hesitatingly agree Frame is “kind of great”? I think it’s mostly because Frame is so difficult to use. http://tc.eserver.org/33417.html http://tc.eserver.org/33417.html This post is part of a series on usability and maintainability. At first, meeting the needs of content consumers through usability can seem at odds with meeting needs of technical communicators through maintainability. My purpose in these posts is to discuss how technical communication best practices can satisfy both needs. I’ll use Gurak and Lannon’s usability criteria of users being able to “find what they need, understand the language, follow the instructions, and read the graphics.” http://tc.eserver.org/33418.html http://tc.eserver.org/33418.html A few days ago, I posted some thoughts I was having about usability and maintainability. On the surface, they seemed to be two ideas that couldn’t exist together. As I’ve thought further on it, I’ve decided that there may be situations (such as an example I gave in the first post) where this is the case. But on the other hand, the two can go together quite comfortably. http://tc.eserver.org/33381.html http://tc.eserver.org/33381.html Over at Smiley Cat Web Design they’ve put together a showcase of many different login and registration forms. While you’re there, take a look at some of the other showcases listed in the sidebar. They have sets for calendars and date pickers, footers, search boxes, and many more. http://tc.eserver.org/33343.html http://tc.eserver.org/33343.html Five questionnaires for assessing the usability of a website were compared in a study with 123 participants. The questionnaires studied were SUS, QUIS, CSUQ, a variant of Microsoft’s Product Reaction Cards, and one that we have used in our Usability Lab for several years. Each participant performed two tasks on each of two websites: finance.yahoo.com and kiplinger.com. All five questionnaires revealed that one site was significantly preferred over the other. The data were analyzed to determine what the results would have been at different sample sizes from 6 to 14. At a sample size of 6, only 30-40% of the samples would have identified that one of the sites was significantly preferred. Most of the data reach an apparent asymptote at a sample size of 12, where two of the questionnaires (SUS and CSUQ) yielded the same conclusion as the full dataset at least 90% of the time. http://tc.eserver.org/33354.html http://tc.eserver.org/33354.html Usability and design are two fields that collide more often than not. But why is that? Why can’t we all just get along and center our efforts around delivering a better product, a top-notch Web site or a user-friendly interface. Everybody would benefit from an open-minded, reciprocal understanding. Right? http://tc.eserver.org/33366.html http://tc.eserver.org/33366.html Just what are the design practices on the web that have the highest frequency? And are there design practices that all (or nearly all) sites employ? http://tc.eserver.org/33310.html http://tc.eserver.org/33310.html When broken links frustrate your site’s visitors, a typical 404 page explains what went wrong and provides links that may relate to the visitor’s quest. That’s good, but now you can do better. With Dean Frickey’s custom 404, when something’s amiss, pertinent information is sent not only to the visitor, but to the developer—so that, in many cases, the problem can be fixed! A better 404 means never having to say you’re sorry. http://tc.eserver.org/33229.html http://tc.eserver.org/33229.html That one webpage bears all the promotional burdens that would typically be spread through an entire printed edition of your newspaper. Your homepage begins to look as though a dozen designers from different departments each built their own piece. http://tc.eserver.org/33230.html http://tc.eserver.org/33230.html Users say they don’t like to scroll. As a result, many designers try to keep their web pages short. But one of the most significant findings of our research on web-site usability is that users are perfectly willing to scroll. However, they’ll only do it if the page gives them strong clues that scrolling will help them find what they’re looking for. http://tc.eserver.org/33235.html http://tc.eserver.org/33235.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33223.html http://tc.eserver.org/33223.html One of the most overlooked aspects of designing a Web site is how users get to it. Separate factions are often devoted to promoting, designing, and maintaining a Web site, and the lack of communication and involvement can lead to apathy or confusion. Too frequently is it assumed that visitors are knowledgeable about the company and Web site, and that they enter through the home page. False assumptions about visitor entry can plague even a well-planned, well-designed site. http://tc.eserver.org/33199.html http://tc.eserver.org/33199.html The words 'click here for...' and 'click here to...' serve no purpose within links. Unfortunately, many news sites still use them. According to Google, 'click here' is on about 8,970 pages at sptimes.com alone. http://tc.eserver.org/33200.html http://tc.eserver.org/33200.html These checklists pull together best practice in the disciplines of information design, usability and accessibility, into an easy to apply format. If you are already familiar with those topics, the checklists serve as a handy reminder that is easy to refer to and apply when planning navigation. If unfamiliar it's also a fast-track lesson - providing you with a head-start in getting it right and enables you to make better informed choices / compromises. http://tc.eserver.org/33202.html http://tc.eserver.org/33202.html An average person can deal with only 7-10 choices on a web page, according to Google research. That's why it's so hard to get a link on the Google home page. http://tc.eserver.org/33112.html http://tc.eserver.org/33112.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33114.html http://tc.eserver.org/33114.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33115.html http://tc.eserver.org/33115.html Readability, browsability, and searchability do not have to be equally represented in every information system. As your collection of information increases, different aspects of these qualities take on greater significance. Thus, the amount of readability, browsability, and searchability your information system exhibits depends on the type and quality of your collected data, as well as the information needs of your clientele. http://tc.eserver.org/33117.html http://tc.eserver.org/33117.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33122.html http://tc.eserver.org/33122.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33123.html http://tc.eserver.org/33123.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33126.html http://tc.eserver.org/33126.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33129.html http://tc.eserver.org/33129.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33131.html http://tc.eserver.org/33131.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33133.html http://tc.eserver.org/33133.html 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? http://tc.eserver.org/33135.html http://tc.eserver.org/33135.html 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! http://tc.eserver.org/33076.html http://tc.eserver.org/33076.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33091.html http://tc.eserver.org/33091.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32963.html http://tc.eserver.org/32963.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32965.html http://tc.eserver.org/32965.html 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." http://tc.eserver.org/32970.html http://tc.eserver.org/32970.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32977.html http://tc.eserver.org/32977.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33002.html http://tc.eserver.org/33002.html What is the difference between user centered design and usability? Until writing this column I didn't have the faintest idea. http://tc.eserver.org/33006.html http://tc.eserver.org/33006.html 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." http://tc.eserver.org/33012.html http://tc.eserver.org/33012.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32897.html http://tc.eserver.org/32897.html If we want to reach our target audiences when presenting text-based information, we as content specialists (designers, programmers, writers, and project managers) need to constantly consider usability. We must move crucial concepts of legibility, readability, and usability to the forefront of our design practices else we will unquestionably lose our audience. http://tc.eserver.org/32898.html http://tc.eserver.org/32898.html What is the single-most important element to consider when developing a web page design strategy? Issues of navigational ease are generally an area of concern to both users and designers alike. Most users will not spend much time navigating a page that is not well organized. Color and animation are also issues of some significance. "Flashy" web pages with easily readable fonts and wonderfully coordinated colors can make browsing enjoyable. One aspect of design that isn't always so explicitly apparent to both the user and designers alike is the page response time-- just how long it takes for the web page to be "rendered" or displayed in the browser. Response time is quite possibly one of the most important issues to consider when designing a web site. http://tc.eserver.org/32900.html http://tc.eserver.org/32900.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32902.html http://tc.eserver.org/32902.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32930.html http://tc.eserver.org/32930.html With April 15th approaching, Lou needed some basic tax information, but Merrill Lynch's labeling system made the easiest answers tough to find. http://tc.eserver.org/32940.html http://tc.eserver.org/32940.html We know that we should do user research for projects. All the user-centred design material says so, we talk about it at conferences, we put it in proposals. We just know that it is a good thing to do. But when I talk to people about their actual projects, I find that very few people actually do user research. There are many many reasons (no time, no money, already know what users need etc etc etc). I think that part of the reason it doesn’t happen is also that we don’t have good tools to tell us just how much research to do, and even when it isn’t necessary at all to do research. http://tc.eserver.org/32951.html http://tc.eserver.org/32951.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32952.html http://tc.eserver.org/32952.html To know the mind of others is one of the fundamental problems of being human. Much of our energy is spent trying to do so. For web designers, knowing the mind of users is complicated by having very little interaction with them. It is possible, on some projects, to design and redesign web sites without ever talking to one user. http://tc.eserver.org/32954.html http://tc.eserver.org/32954.html 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.