#18667
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
#20155
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
#21253
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
#19411
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
#23995
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
#23297
Users' expectations of a product depend on the maturity of its market. Markets for software products go through some predictable stages, each with a different emphasis. By identifying what stage your product is in now, you can anticipate some of the pitfalls that lie ahead.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (1997). Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#21165
Más Allá de la Usabilidad: Interfaces 'Afectivas'
La creciente popularización de las nuevas tecnologías de la información obliga a que cualquier producto interactivo sea diseñado para una audiencia cada vez más heterogénea y menos tolerante con experiencias de uso frustrantes. Las técnicas, metodologías y prácticas propias de la Usabilidad y Accesibilidad, intentan hacer frente a este hecho, estudiando las necesidades, objetivos y comportamiento del usuario, y enfocando cualquier decisión sobre el diseño, así como la evaluación, en base a estos factores.
Hassan Montero, Yusef and Francisco Jesus Martin Fernandez. Nosolousabilidad.com (2003). (Spanish) Design>User Interface>Usability>User Centered Design
#28812
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
#27143
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
#29998
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
#18943
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
#31869
Of Mice and iPods, or The Death of the Designer
Computing technologies are becoming so familiar it can feel as if they have always been here. It is strange to think that the mouse, for instance, was invented by Doug Englebart in the seventies. He must encounter a degree of incredulity when he mentions this to people. “You invented the mouse? Really? How nice. Did you also invent the pen?”
Blythe, Mark. uiGarden (2008). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design>Usability
#22868
OOBE Project: A Case Study in User-Friendly Hardware
Many people can't even program their VCR, let alone set up a new PC. As part of an industry-wide response to this problem, Epson America came up with the Users Digest. We hoped it would grab users' attention and hold it long enough to get them up and running without calling tech support. This paper relates the history of the User k Digest andprovides a guided tour of this innovative document.
Bergen, Karen A. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability
#23965
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum, published in 1998, introduced the use of personas as a practical interaction design tool. Based on the single-chapter discussion in that book, personas rapidly gained popularity in the software industry due to their unusual power and effectiveness. Had personas been developed in the laboratory, the full story of how they came to be would have been published long ago, but since their use developed over many years in both my practice as a software inventor and architectural consultant and the consulting work of Cooper designers, that is not the case. Since Inmates was published, many people have asked for the history of Cooper personas, and here it is.
Cooper, Alan. Cooper Interaction Design. Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
#23996
It's easy to assemble a set of user characteristics and call it a persona, but it's not so easy to create personas that are truly effective design and communication tools. If you have begun to create your own personas, here are some tips to help you perfect them.
Goodwin, Kim. Cooper Interaction Design (2001). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
#24672
Personas, Participatory Design and Product Development: An Infrastructure for Engagement 
The design of commercial products that are intended to serve millions of people has been a challenge for collaborative approaches. The creation and use of fictional users, concrete representations commonly referred to as 'personas', is a relatively new interaction design technique. It is not without problems and can be used inappropriately, but based on experience and analysis it has extraordinary potential. Not only can it be a powerful tool for true participation in design, it also forces designers to consider social and political aspects of design that otherwise often go unexamined.
Grudin, Jonathan and John Pruitt. Microsoft (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability>Personas
#29874
Practicing Persona Development: an In-House Case Study
As Technical Communicators, many of us were initiated into this industry with the oft-cited cliche, 'know thy audience.' But what does this really mean? To what extent must we 'know' our audience in order to deliver effective information products? The critical questions are, 'what tools and means can I use to sufficiently understand the needs of my audience? Rather than relying on the directives of Engineering and Marketing, how can I discover the true needs of my audience and develop a user-centered design? And how do I hone my skills at gathering and applying this crucial data?' One of the emerging trends in Technical Communications is to develop user 'personas' as a design tool. This paper presents 'real-world' advice and 'best practices' on using the persona methodology to design information products.
Leritz-Higgins, Sarah E. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas
#21137
Preference Does Not Equal Performance
People will swear up and down that they love a particular product. They will tell you that the colors are right, the size is perfect, and the information is exactly what they needed. However, until you watch and test users you will not see how well the product works. You will not find out if they really would continue using the product, in the right amount, at the right time, under the conditions you expected. People have a funny way of deciding when, where and how they will using something.
Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2000). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
#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
#31873
Preparing for User Research Interviews: Seven Things to Remember
Interviewing is an artful skill that is at the core of a wide variety of research methods in user-centered design, including stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, and focus groups. Consequently, a researcher’s skill in conducting interviews has a direct impact on the quality and accuracy of research findings and subsequent decisions about design. Skilled interviewers can conduct interviews that uncover the most important elements of a participant’s perspective on a task or a product in a manner that does not introduce interviewer bias. Companies hire user researchers and user-centered designers because they possess this very ability.
Hawley, Michael. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Interviewing>Usability>User Centered Design
#28462
Progressive disclosure defers advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design
#31904
Reduce Bounce Rates: Fight for the Second Click
Different traffic sources imply different reasons for why visitors might immediately leave your site. Design to keep deep-link followers engaged through additional pageviews.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Design>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
#21023
Rethinking User-Centered Information Development
Often in the computer industry there is a tendency to provide information about the features of a system. However, customers usually purchase the system based on knowledge of its features, when they receive the product they need information on how to accomplish tasks. Developing task-oriented information requires a shift in perspective from what the computer technology can do, to what your customers want to do with the technology. The resulting information must be usercentered rather than feature-driven. These types of customer requirements demand afresh development approach.
Stertzbach, Lori A. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Usability
#19127
A discussion of the process of making letters for veterans easier to understand.
Daniel, Reva. Technical Communication Online (1995). Articles>Writing>User Centered Design>Usability
#20850
Web users need structure to make sense of the many and varied information spaces they navigate. The fundamental nature of the Web does not support any structure beyond the individual page which is the only recognized unit of information. For information spaces that cannot easily be hierarchically structured, the subsite can be used as a helpful additional structuring mechanism. Subsites can also be used in hierarchical information spaces to give particular prominence to a certain level of the hierarchy which is used as the subsite designator.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Design>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
