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

Leveraging Universal Design in a Financial Services Company

The changing physical, cognitive and social requirements of customers demand the changes of user interfaces. Universal design is a solution. Let's look at what Fidelity has done to incorporate accessibility into their system and in return how Fidelity benefits from it. Though there are no formulas and figures to calculate ROI in this article, the ROI of the universal design adoption is obvious.

Bergel, Marguerite, Ann Chadwick-Dias and Tom Tullis. uiGarden (2007). Design>Usability>Case Studies>Universal Usability

Link Color Déjà Vu

It seems that Jakob Nielsen is back grinding on one of his old organs with the current AlertBox and the tune is 'standard link colors improve usability'. No one can blame Jakob for recycling old material. My goodness, he has been publishing a weekly column for almost 10 years, things are bound to come around again and again.

Anderson, David J. UIdesign (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Color

Link List Color on Intranets

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

Linking Out Is Good

Linking out to external websites is a great thing - it can enhance your website's usability, credibility and search engine ranking.

Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability

Listening to the Learners: A Case Study in Health Information Website Design  

An important mantra of user-centered design is to 'know thy user.' Accomplishing this requires one to decide what should be known about the user and how to gather the information. In this paper, we focus on the specific instance where the user is a learner. Specifically, we describe our efforts to listen to the learners of an information website, the Arthritis Source, and to act on this information.

Turns, Jennifer and Tracey S. Wagner. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Scientific Communication>Usability

Little Machines: Understanding Users Understanding Interfaces    

This paper questions the ubiquitous practice of supplying minimalist information to users, of making that information functional only, of assuming that the Shannon-Weaver communication model should govern online systems, and of ignoring the social implications of such a stance. Help systems that provide fast, temporary solutions without providing any background information lead to the danger of users completing tasks that they do not understand at all. (Word will help us write a legal pleading, even if we have no idea what one is.) As a result, we have help systems that attempt to be invisible and to provide tool instruction but not conceptual instruction. Such a system presents itself as a neutral tool, but it is actually an incomplete environment, denying both the complexity and alternative (and possibly improved) modes of thinking about the subject at hand.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. Journal of Computer Documentation (2001). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Usability

Location of the Scrollbar

Are scrollbars located close enough to where users typically work with a Website or list box to encourage the fastest possible use?

Bailey, Robert. Human Factors International (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability

Location, Path and Attribute Breadcrumbs

Three type of breadcrumbs on the web are defined, examples are given of each, and a set of research questions involving breadcrumbs are presented. Location breadcrumbs, the most common, show the single location of a page within a site. Path breadcrumbs, which are becoming more common with database-driven sites, show the particular path the user has taken within the site to the page. Attribute breadcrumbs are meta-information within the site that are represented in a breadcrumb-like fashion.

Instone, Keith. Instone.org (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability

The Long List of Reasons Ease of Use Doesn't Happen on Engineering Projects

A list of the most common reasons engineering projects don't result in something that's easy to use. It covers diverse topics such as customer confusion, the impact of code architecture, the spinal tap commerative reason, and more.

Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2002). Design>Usability>User Centered Design

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

Low-End Media for User Empowerment

Fancy media on websites typically fails user testing. Simple text and clear photos not only communicate better with users, they also enhance users' feeling of control and thus support the Web's mission as an instant gratification environment.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Usability

Low-Fidelity Prototyping for Technical Communicators  

Technical communicators are responsible for a great deal of what the user sees and touches. This means that more technical communicators are becoming integrated members of product design teams, bringing their expertise into the group and taking the lead in designing and evaluating their information systems, Creating low-fidelity paper prototypes of software for customer feedback sessions is an effective methodfor gathering valuable user input early in development.

Rauch, Thyra L., Dana L. Gillihan and Paul Leone. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Macromedia Director as a Prototyping and Usability Testing Tool

Efforts to understand user requirements commonly focus on the functionality and features of a product. However, it is important to analyze other product attributes, such as usability. A product may meet all of its functional requirements, but can fail if it has an interface that is difficult to navigate and learn. To address this problem, it is important to get feedback from users as early in the development life cycle as possible. A common technique is to develop a prototype or mockup of a product's interface to present to users.

Ludi, Stephanie. ACM Crossroads (2000). Design>User Interface>Usability

Major User Interface Issues in the Near Future

A discussion of new technologies from the November 2002 COMDEX.

Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability

Make It Usable

Usability is often the most neglected aspect of Web sites, yet in many respects it is the most important. If visitors can't use your site, they will leave and never become customers. The Web gives people too much freedom and too many choices; no one will suffer a poorly designed site. To make your site usable, you need to involve potential customers in its design.

Nielsen, Jakob, Kara Pernice Coyne and Marie Tahir. PC Magazine (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability

Make Testimonials Believable!

Testimonials are obviously an extremely important part of any website - be sure to maximise their effectiveness.

Geld, Scott F. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability

Making Do

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

The Making of a Discipline: The Making of a Title

Many people who work within the design field have had a hard time assimilating the full scope of Experience Design—and a harder time accepting their niches within it. The reasons for this resistance uncover much about the state of design as well as the state of identity.

Shedroff, Nathan. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Careers>Usability>User Centered Design

Making Research-Based Design Decisions: Results of Research Poll

Usability information is being published in a variety of different locations. Most of it is still paper-based, and most current, full articles are not readily available on the Internet. This makes it very difficult for many (most) practitioners to use this information in a timely way.

Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability

Making Research-Based Design Decisions: What is the Best Way to Get User-Centered Research Results to Practitioners?

There are about 1,000 usability-related articles published each year. My guess is that less than 5% ever have any practical, long-term value to most usability practitioners. In some cases, the topics being studied are of little interest to practitioners. In many cases the research results are simply too hard for practitioners to find.

Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Articles>Publishing>User Centered Design>Usability

Making Rich Web Application Architecture Usable

'Focus on the user and all else will follow' is a philosophy that can make or break a product. Software designers have become notorious for concentrating on implementation patterns and neglecting the user. It is easy to get lost in grand concepts at an abstract level and get excited over stuff that makes your work as a developer easier; thus, the needs and desires of the 'real' users may sometimes take a back seat. Identifying the usability constraints and designing within them keeps the focus on the user.

Gondi, Viswanath. SitePoint (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability

Making URLs Predictable

URLs that are easy to predict make it easier for users to type in a URL and link to pages.

Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability

Making Usable Products: An Informal Process for Good User Interfaces

At Microsoft we have full-time employees, called usability engineers, who are trained to help product teams understand what the user's needs are, and analyze how well our product user interfaces match those needs. They do a great deal of work, and understand the discipline of UI design and data collection really well. They are critical to the success of our products. As I've learned from the e-mail I've been getting at hfactor@microsoft.com, most developers don't have the luxury of this kind of support, and are on their own to make good interface design decisions. This issue will introduce a basic development process that helps good UI make it into products. Word of warning: There is no magic recipe for good UI, or for writing good code, and I can't guarantee improved interfaces without some extra effort.

Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (1999). Design>User Interface>Usability

Making Use of User Research

By focusing on how a product performs in the lab without broader knowledge of the user's environment and goals, measurement alone may be misleading. To get the most value and meaning out of user feedback it is important to choose the appropriate method for conducting and analyzing user research.

Anderson, Gretchen. Cooper Interaction Design (2001). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design