Low Bandwidth and the Highs of Web Design

The emergence of Internet was, and still is a fascinating thing to happen in technology firmament. The ease and the comforts of connecting to people, defying geographical boundaries, and getting a global audience for businesses were unparalleled -- first of its kind ever. So wonderful a thing has, unfortunately, got its share of woes -- the connection speed. The bandwidth of Internet connectivity was considerable at the time when it was entirely new to the world. The newness of the medium did not let it know to the excited lots of users and beneficiaries. Gradually, when people wished for more speed, they earnestly expected that things will turn favorable in the times ahead. Strategy is not something entirely applicable to chart out the direction of a corporation. Yeah, Your web design has to be strategized as well if you wish to serve your target audience in business friendly manner.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>Technical Writing>User Centered Design

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

Making Emotional Connections Through Participatory Design

Most of the people we talk to believe that the desired end result of experience design is an emotional connection between a person and her experience with a product or service. When a company is able to make them, such connections can have a positive impact on the company’s brand.

Gage, Marty and Preetham Kolari. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>User Centered Design>User Experience>Emotions

Making Help More Human, and Other Discussions

Discusses a number of trends in the technical writing world, particularly the need to make help more human by adopting conversational tones and addressing the angry/frantic state of the user.

Johnson, Tom H. and Heidi Hansen. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Help

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 Personas More Powerful: Details to Drive Strategic and Tactical Design

Personas ought to be one of the defining techniques in user-focused design, but they've unfortunately become more of a check-off item than a useful tool. So how did we get here?

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Design>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Making Personas Work for Your Web Site: An Interview with Steve Mulder

It's important for the people responsible for creating the personas to have active listening skills, empathy, and clear communication skills. Ultimately, what design teams need to do is aggregate all of the qualitative or quantitative data into a clearly communicated story. This means that writing and communication skills are also critical. From the point of view of a more tactical skillset, the design team will get better results if they have experience conducting interviews and writing surveys.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Centered Design>Personas

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 URLs Accessible

Many Web pages, especially those created in authoring tools, have a tendency to treat URLs as impenetrable magic cookies. Users benefit when URLs are kept readable and understandable, and when the structure of a URL reflects the structure of the site. Even naive users may be helped by such a design. Here, Peter takes a look at why it's important to make URLs accessible, and offers some strategies for doing this effectively.

IBM (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

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

Managing the Knowledge Behind Business Decisions Through User-Centered Design: A Case Study

Jerome and Giovanni explain why efficient access to knowledge is essential for global business operations. Giovanni discusses how his company realized its systems needed improvement – and why user-centered design proved to be the appropriate solution. This empirical approach to interface design/architecture enables effective business decisions.

Nadel, Jerome and Giovanni Piazza. Human Factors International (2006). Presentations>User Centered Design>Streaming

Market Maturity

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

MarthaStewart.com: Making the Case for Customer-Centric Content Management

When you hear the term "customer centric content management", you might think we're talking about marketing content. We're not. We're talking about managing the delivery of all types of content, including marketing content. And, we're specifically talking about providing individuals -- people -- both existing and prospective customers, with only the content that is relevant and of interest to them. You may think you already do a good job at this task, but in most organizations, there is significant room for improvement. Most of the problems are caused by one very big mistake: failing to listen.

Rockley Bulletin (2006). Design>Web Design>Content Management>User Centered Design

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

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Acting without planning can be expensive, and because of the potential cost of poorly thought-out actions, we should not only plan, but plan twice.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (2000). Articles>Project Management>Planning>User Centered Design

Measuring the Success Of a Classification System

When working with government and large private organizations on complex information systems, project managers and business representatives often demand early-stage validation that the proposed classification system provides the user-friendly solution they are charged with delivering. They also require this validation in a format that will be engaging for senior business stakeholders.

Barker, Iain. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Information Design>Taxonomy>User Centered Design

Mental Processing of Online Documentation: From Concepts to Applications  

This panel will review the existing literature on how we mentally process online documentation and describe some implications for effective online document design. We invite the audience to define with us some critical areas for further research.

Knodel, Elinor L., Henrietta Nickels Shirk, Candace Sodetston and James Thibeau. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Documentation>User Centered Design

Metrics for Heuristics: Quantifying User Experience (Part 2 of 2)

In part one of 'Metrics for Heuristics,' Andrea Wiggins discussed how designers can use Rubinoff’s user experience audit to determine metrics for measuring brand. In part two, Wiggins examines how web analytics can quantify usability, content, and navigation.

Wiggins, Andrea. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Heuristic Evaluation

Mobile Phone Games Designed for Girls

Unlike many game developers, one company creates games primarily targeted at young women and girls. MiniFizz is certainly not just a traditional boys’ game painted pink.

Allaeys, Sabine. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>User Centered Design>Wireless Web>Games

Modeling the Empowered User  

An STC-funded study of computer users in an R & D organization attempts to identify users who reflect a high degree of productive integration of computers into workplace tasks. The study reveals user stratification along the lines of low-strategic and high-strategic users: users who choose to use computers to accomplish information and communication-oriented tasks. The study attempts to confirm this stratification by indicating that users identified in this way also use computers to perform a higher frequency of information-related computer behaviors, such as use of email, electronic information transfer, archiving, and software learning. Identifying users in this way can help writers and documention designers by providing models of integrated computer use.

Barker, Thomas and Patricia Goubil-Gambrell. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design

Modeling User Workflows for Rich Internet Applications

As Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) become more advanced, the tasks, problems, and processes they address become increasingly complex, making it more important than ever to accurately model user workflows. Early Internet applications were often narrowly focused in scope, and the steps were relatively simple and sequential, for example, purchasing items through simple e-commerce, reserving hotel rooms, or renting cars. But as productivity applications move toward a web-based distribution model, the tasks become more complicated.

Hogue, David. Adobe (2005). Design>User Centered Design>Web Design>Flash

The Most Hated Advertising Techniques

Studies of how people react to online advertisements have identified several design techniques that impact the user experience very negatively.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>User Centered Design>Marketing

Moving from Flatland to Hyperspace Part I

My entrée into the web world--Spaceland, or 'Hyperspace'--was not a smooth one; in fact, it was downright mind-bending. My personal journey from designing and writing for print media to becoming an information architect for websites conjures up images of Flatland, written by Edwin A. Abbott, an English clergyman, educator, and Shakespearean scholar (1884).

Cole, Meg. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

Moving from Flatland to Hyperspace Part II

The intense focus on the user experience differentiates websites from printed products—and information architects from print designers and writers—more than anything else. Information architects must think like print designers and writers—and they must do what print designers and writers do—on a much bigger scale, in 'N dimensions.'

Cole, Meg. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

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