Mobile Phone Usability

Nokia are the world's leading maker of mobile phones. Their user-centred approach to developing products has been identified as one crucial factor behind this success. 'Nokia starts its planning from what the consumer actually wants while Ericsson and Motorola tend to be more engineering driven' commented Mark Davies Jones of Schroder Solomon Smith Barney. Anecdotal evidence and our own previous observations suggest that consumers find Nokia's mobile phones easier to use than many of their competitors and often take this into account - either consciously or sub-consciously - when making their purchasing decision. Frontend decided to evaluate the usability of a Nokia phone, the popular 3210, against a competitor, the older Siemens C25. We found that the Nokia is significantly easier to use in a number of areas.

Magennis, Mark. Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Usability>Wireless Web

Modeling Information for Three-Dimensional Space: Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design    

Perhaps these concerns sound familiar: visitors complain that they cannot find information of interest. One observes, 'I know there's information about that type of robotics here, but darned if I can find it;' visitors enter the site but don't stay particularly long. Some might even express an interest in the subject; let's say it's modern art. But they leave almost as quickly as they enter without paying much attention to the artwork that the designers painstakingly displayed; other visitors spend hours at the site but never seem to notice particular sections. For example, a visitor might be thoroughly familiar with the content on radios but oblivious to the section on industrial hardware. These observations could describe visitors to Web sites. Actually, these observations describe museum visitors. The connections between the two are discussed in this article.

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2001). Design>Information Design>Usability

More About Fonts

No Web page fonts should be less than 10-points, Optimal reading speed for most adults will be elicited with 12-point fonts (size=3). There is probably no reliable difference in reading speed for most adults when viewing common font styles (Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman). Most users tend to prefer sans serif fonts (Arial, Verdana). Older users will benefit from type sizes that are at least 14-points.

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

More Alike Than We Think

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

More Website Manner Tips

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

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

The Myth of "The User"

Instead of becoming computer users, like the cheery protagonists of Star Trek, we've become the computer used, like the gloomy inhabitants of Dilbert.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Indus (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Name and Address Forms on the Web: Research into Usability  

Internet forms can be found on all kinds of sites that enable visitors to interact with companies, such as order forms in online shops or application forms on job boards. These forms ask visitors to fill out their name and address, which in many cases results in user errors as a consequence of design failures. In this article we report on a research project using event logs to analyze user errors and optimize the design of name and address forms. Two factors are identified as crucial for usability: the sequence of elements in the name field and the spatial orientation in the address field.

Lentz, Leo and Mark de Jong. STC Proceedings (2005). Design>Web Design>Forms>Usability

Navbars: Why Drill-Down Menus are Harmful

Drill-down menus make interaction more difficult, destroy the user's overview, and poor wording make users give up using the site.

Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>DHTML

Navigating Isn't Fun

The artless Websites created during the Web's infancy were of necessity built only with simple HTML tags, and were forced to divide up their functionality and content into a maze (a web?) of separate pages. This made a navigation scheme an unavoidable component of any Website design, and of course, a clear, visually arresting navigation scheme was better than an obscure or hidden one. But many Web designers have incorrectly deduced from this that users want navigation schemes. Actually, they'd be happy if there were no navigation at all.

Cooper, Alan. Cooper Interaction Design (2001). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability

Navigation: An Often Neglected Component of Web Authorship

Web authors should follow web design conventions that account for the variety of ways users will try to navigate through their pages. While usability testing is the best way to ensure your site is really operating as you intend it to, this page offers a basic overview of basic navigation principles that most visitors will expect on most pages that they visit.

Jerz, Dennis G. Seton Hill University (2000). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability

Navigation: Left is Best

Web sites and Web applications require users to select from navigational options to access subsequent content pages. An important question relates to where the first navigational choices should be located on the page. Is the navigation better placed at the top of the page, on the left or right panels? If three clicks (i.e., three navigational level selections) are required to get to the desired content, should they be grouped together at the top, left, right, or split between different locations (e.g., select from the top, with the next selection[s] from the left, top or right)?

Bailey, Robert. Usability.gov (2006). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

The Need for Speed

Every Web usability study I have conducted since 1994 has shown the same thing: users beg us to speed up page downloads. In the beginning, my reaction was along the lines of 'let's just give them better design and they will behappy to wait for it.' I have since become a reformed sinner since even my skull is not thick enough to withstand consistent user pleas year after year.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Design>Web Design>Usability>Bandwidth

Needle in a Haystack

In most organizations, data is piling up by the minute: e-mails, names, addresses, transactions, you name it. As a result, finding what you need when you need it is becoming increasingly complicated, which is why more companies are deploying enterprise search tools. According to a recent report by Boston-based Yankee Group, 75 percent of businesses with more than 100 employees have some sort of enterprise search technology in place. The study also found that the bigger the organization, the more likely it is to invest in search technologies, as 91 percent of companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue report having enterprise search capability. In 2001, a similar Yankee Group survey found that 63 percent of businesses employed search technology. In that year, enterprise search vendors generated $400 million in revenues.

Surmacz, Jon. CIO Magazine (2003). Design>Content Management>Usability

New Ideas for Web Searches  

The author offers advice on choosing the most appropriate search engine, as well as a list of tips for using search engines.

Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search

New Technical Writer: Use the Persona to Create the Most Useful Section of Your User Document

A good User Document includes sections on how to set up, use, and care for the product. However, to create a great User Document, the technical writer should use the Persona, generated in the analysis of the User/Reader, to create the topics for the most useful section of the User Document. This article describes this procedure.

Millman, Barry. Article Alley (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas

Nielsens Kategorier

Jakob Nielsens hypotese må enten være baseret på hypertekst som et teoretisk felt, eller i relation til HTML. Dette bliver der ikke taget stilling til fra Nielsens side, så umiddelbart må det ses som en personlig vurdering af Nielsen. Man kunne lige så godt sige at computere eller http protokollen var vigtigst. At links er vigtige for navigationen i et hypertekst dokument er der ingen tvivl om. Hvis der ikke forekom links i en hypertekst ville det blive overordentligt svært at forestille sig Internet som det ser ud i dag.

Quark, The (2002). (Danish) Design>Web Design>Theory>Usability

Nondirected Interviews: How to Get More Out of Your Research Questions

As user experience designers, a key component to nearly all the techniques we use in our practice is the one-on-one interview. It's the basis of requirements gathering, usability testing, and task analysis. In order to remove our personal biases, expectations and opinions from the questions asked, I practice a kind of questioning technique called the nondirected interview. The questions asked are at the heart of any interview. Following are a loose set of guidelines to help you frame questions in a way that elicits honest and accurate responses.

Kuniavsky, Mike. Adaptive Path (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Interviewing>Usability

Not All Web Sites Are Alike

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

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

Novice vs. Expert Users

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

Observing Users Who Listen to Web Sites

In this article we focus on the first of these goals and give you some of the fascinating findings about how vision-impaired users work with web sites.

Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny' and Mary Frances Theofanos. Usability Interface (2003). Design>Usability>Methods

Ode to Balloon Help

Perhaps we should look to the simplest elements of usability for inspiration. Perhaps it's time to recognize the contribution of a single humble helper. Yes, it's time for an ode to Balloon Help.

Cavanagh, Thomas B. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Design>User Interface>Usability

Official Winter Olympics Site: Not Even Bronze

An early tweaking raised the Salt Lake City website to 70% compliance with homepage usability guidelines. Inside the site, however, task support falls far below medal contention.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability

On Beyond Help: Meeting User Needs for Useful Online Information    

It is well accepted that understanding the users and a thorough analysis of their goals and tasks is a prerequisite for usability. To produce a document, online information, or knowledge base that is truly usable, the designer and writer must also consider different user approaches to the information to create it in a form that meets those needs. The underlying technology must also be considered, as it affects the presentation of the information as well as the functionality available to users. To meet user needs for useful online information, all these elements must be factored into the design—and technical communicators must master the skills necessary to make the right choices.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Technical Communication Online (2001). Articles>Usability>Information Design