AJAX Usability Metrics

A look at how to quantify or measure the benefits of a better user interface built with Ajax.

Charland, Andre. SlideShare (2006). Presentations>Web Design>Usability>Ajax

Assessing Web Page Usability  

Assessing Web site usability can be complex, because the medium can be both a document and a 'software product.' Documentation usability testing asks how headings, page elements, and index entries help users find the content they need, and whether that content is useful. Software usability testing asks how well the user inteface supports users’ job-task activity, indicates functionality, provides navigation signposts and program status, and prevents errors. A Web site must meet a combination of these goals—links should lead to the content that users seek, through pathways that users can easily follow without reaching a dead-end or getting lost.

Hinderer, Deborah and Laurie Kantner. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Usability>Web Design

Beyond the Universal User: How to Design for the Universe of Users  

There are problems with non-user-centered/system-centered design. We must know, understand, and work with actual users so that the people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their own tasks.

Bowie, Jennifer L. Texas Tech University (2003). Presentations>Web Design>Usability>Personas

Building a Dynamic Web Site: Separating Data From Display  

The principles discussed here are part of a general technique we refer to as "'DIDDS" (Dynamic Information Data Delivery System). This approach is useful for organizations or groups who want Web pages that can be changed quickly, easily and consistently by individuals unfamiliar with HTML. The key to this strategy-keeping data separate from display-involves a suite of customized CGI programs whereby data requested by a client is passed through a "display jilter" that attaches the HTh4L tags and generates the page "on the fly."

Murphy, Daniel J. STC Proceedings (1997). Presentations>Web Design

Cascading Style Sheets Tutorial  

The Cascading Style Sheets standard returns some control of style to web authors. HTML describes only the structure of information. CSS, though incompletely implemented as yet, adds a style sheet where an author can specify fonts, colors, margins, alignments, indentations and other elements for any HTML tag or class of tag. An introduction to CSS shows the status of the CSS standard and various browser implementations, how to generate HTML and style sheets, the use of CSS compared to PDF, and the role of style sheets in HTML Help.

Jackson, Ken and Sonya E. Keene. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Web Design>CSS

Communicating Design: Web Design Documentation

An overview of web design methods, including a survey of questions one should ask during the process.

Brown, Dan. SlideShare (2006). Presentations>Web Design>Documentation

Complexity Theory as a Way of Understanding our Role in the World-Wide Web  

Complexity theory offers a way of understanding our role within the World-Wide Web. Postulating a rhetorical object based on object-oriented analysis and design, we can harness a number of ideas from complexity theory to gain a new perspective on the Web. This paper reviews a number of complexity ideas that may help technical communicators grapple with the exponential growth in the volume of inter-related and interacting rhetorical objects on the Web, viewing the rhetorical situation as the result of the law of increasing returns, which has brought us through a phase transition to a new environment, with its own emergent properties, creating new roles for writers, and new work for managers.

Price, Jonathan R. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Web Design>Theory

Conducting Usability Tests to Upgrade Your Web Sites  

Usability testing can be planned and executed at various levels of complexity to enhance your Web site throughout stages of development. Include usability testing in the front-end planning and set Web site usability goals. Test early prototypes and then test again to quantify improvements. Assemble a team to plan the testing even if it is just two people. If you follow a planning and testing checklist, you should be rewarded with valuable data to analyze and upgrade your Web site. The process and outcome can enhance your company¶s reputation or improve your credibility as an information designer or developer.

Lester, Susan M.J. STC Proceedings (1999). Presentations>Web Design>Usability

Create a Slideshow with the Dreamweaver Timeline

The Dreamweaver Timeline uses layers and JavaScript to create animation and interactivity. To create a series of rotating images, prepare each image at the same size in a graphics program first (i.e., Photoshop, Fireworks, ImageReady, etc.). Then insert a layer on the page. This layer will serve as a placeholder for the rotating images.

Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2001). Design>Web Design>Presentations>Dreamweaver

Creating a Unified Web Site Design for the School of Technology at Purdue University  

The problem with any poorly designed web site is inconsistency. As a web designer or developer, one must create a web site as a finite, predictable universe with a specific set of standards and design specifications. When visitors go to any given page on a site, they should be able to recognize that they’re in the same site. The main focus of this paper outlines how a unified web site design was created for the School of Technology at Purdue University. In developing unified web sites it is important to have visual hints throughout a given site such as consistent typefaces for specific needs, consistent color palettes, and consistent placement and layout.

Miller, Susan G. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design>Usability

Decision Support Systems for Environmental Management: Web-Based Communication Modules to Enhance Public Participation  

Nature provides important basic functions for society. Expert systems for integrated knowledge management, so-called decision support systems (DSSs), are tools to manage vegetation, air, soil, and water, and to assure functional integrity of ecosystems, e.g. river basins. Over the past decade sustainability has became the accepted norm to manage our life support resources. This concept is based on responsibility to the “Other” and on participatory consensus-forming dialogues leading to stakeholder models; before, the predominant school of thought has been utilitarianism. Scientists, engineers and technical communicators are challenged to develop feasible technologies to facilitate management, for example to supplement DSSs with virtual libraries and web-forums.

Kaempf, Charlotte. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Web Design>Management>Participatory Design

Designing Bilingual Web Sites  

My paper discusses the specific challenges associated with designing a Chinese-English Web site in Taiwan for both local and English-speaking audiences abroad. My paper seeks to answer this umbrella question: How can we integrate the Chinese and English portions of the site into a single, consistent presentation? Using an example of a Taiwan-based company, I explore how technical communicators working on this bilingual Web site project (1) developed content in English that is suitable both for native English speakers around the world; (2) reconciled different audience responses to visual communication strategies; (3) tackled the technological challenge of a bilingual Web site; and (4) addressed the cultural and political challenges of developing a Web site for diverse audiences.

Chu, Steve W. STC Proceedings (1999). Presentations>Web Design>Regional>China

Designing for the Web: Special Considerations for Safety Information  

Manufacturers are currently grappling with determining whether they should put safety information on the Web and if they do how it should be presented. Technical communicators, Web content developers, and Web designers will ultimately be responsible for the presentation of Web-based safety information. This article discusses special considerations that should be given the formatting (HTML, PDF, etc.), design, (font, size, and color), and location of safety information on the Web. Additionally, areas for future research on the issue of Web-based safety information are identified.

Tallman, Lisa A. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Web Design>Documentation

Designing Web Personalization Features  

Personalization, which allows a web user to choose the content and layout of their own portal web page, is one of the most popular ways of increasing traffic at web sites, and helps to ensure return customers. But to be successful, it must be simple and it must be intuitive. This paper presents common personalization features used by top portals and reviews the design of the interfaces of three top portals: My Excite, My Yahoo and MSN. This paper provides examples of good and bad design techniques used in the portal sites, and gives tips on how to design usable personalization features.

Kravatz, Harris. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design>Personalization

Designing Web Sites to Educate, Induce Action, and Promote Participatory Communication for Decision-Making  

Knowing more about how web site characteristics work to reach non-e-commerce goals can guide web designers working towards some of those goals. Environmental advocacy sites are apt to provide rich examples of how web sites try to educate, change behaviors and values, induce action, and promote participatory decisionmaking. Studying them, then, may help us understand how the characteristics of their web sites work. This paper explores how a particular advocacy group web site, www.seedcoalition.org, educates and induces action in its visitors. The site seems likely to effectively educate and induce action, but could do more to induce deliberation and encourage interpersonal communication and discussion about issues, which might better support the group’s long term goals.

Sehmel, Heather. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Web Design>Education>Participatory Design

An eCommerce Primer for Technical Communicators  

The burgeoning eCommerce industry has redefined not only traditional business processes, but the technology required to impart them. Roles are being created or redefined, where programmers, systems analysts, and engineers now have to have almost as much knowledge of business process development as they do of their technical specialty. The same can be said for technical communicators. Technical communicators involved in eCommerce today need to have an understanding of the major issues involved in eCommerce. This paper addresses five of these major eCommerce areas: the statistics behind eCommerce issues, eCommerce infrastructure providers, managed electronic commerce, business object technology, and data mining.

Le Vie, Donald S., Jr. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design>E Commerce

Editing Strategies for Print and World Wide Web Copy  

Editing copy is more than fixing commas and typographical styles. Although many of the same editing strategies apply to both print and online copy, editing Web copy requires carefully considering the Web site’s functions, thinking about reading strategies, making heads and links clear, and considering Web structures.

Simmons, Barbara A. and Donald E. Zimmerman. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design

Educational Websites and Gender Equality: An Analysis of How Educational Websites Respond to Gender Differences in Use  

The integration of technology into education includes increased educational Internet and web use. However the websites used in and for education are rarely critically examined, especially in regard to gender equality, design, and use. Print has been argued to carry with it certain attributes that disturb gender equality, so it is likely that electronic writing might cause similar problems.

Bowie, Jennifer L. Texas Tech University (2003). Presentations>Education>Web Design>Gender

Elements of Ethos in Web Design  

When designing a complex online system, thoughtful use of appropriate prose style, information architecture and interface design all play a part in establishing a useful link between the designers of an online environment and the users of that environment. To keep users interested and engaged with the information in an online system, creating an engaging ethos for the site is essential. To learn how to apply ethos not only in prose style, but also in overall design, we must look to how ethos has been put to use in the past with the written and spoken word.

Damron, V. Michele, David Gillette and Dan Jones. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Web Design

Even Excellent Sites Benefit from Expert Reviews

Get the flavor of an Expert Review as Dr. Schaffer points out the strengths and weaknesses of 11 award-winning Web sites.

Schaffer, Eric M. and Phil Goddard. Human Factors International (2006). Presentations>Web Design>Assessment

Guidelines for Accessible Web Site: Technology and Users  

Accessible design goes beyond accommodating the mentally or physically impaired. With new technologies and greater global access, accessible design now includes technological as well as user considerations.

Ward, Michele, Philip Rubens and Sherry Southard. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Accessibility>Web Design

HCI Usability: Impact of Style, Graphics, and Quality on Web-Site Effectiveness  

The rampant growth of the WWW has resulted in a very large number of web sites being produced and used before standards and guidelines for appearance and interaction could be developed and accepted. Two factors that could affect user performance and perceived quality of a web site are: surface blemishes added, and the presence of extra, gratuitous features. The effects of these two factors can be assessed through performance testing and attitudinal surveys. the approach or design criteria for each site. We chose as a basis, a classification presented by Karen Schriver of traditions that have shaped our thinking about, and approach to, document design and evaluation.

Grice, Roger A., Lenore S. Ridgway and Raymond A. Lutzky. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Human Computer Interaction>Web Design