#28345
There are several usability-related issues, methods, and procedures that require careful consideration when designing and developing Web sites. The most important of these are presented in this chapter, including 'up-front' issues such as setting clear and concise goals for a Web site, determining a correct and exhaustive set of user requirements, ensuring that the Web site meets user's expectations, setting usability goals, and providing useful content.
Usability.gov (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability
#21034
Designing a Search People Can Really Use 
The challenge of finding the right information at the right time has grown with the Web. The information superhighway is larger and more crowded than ever, and individual sites are also larger and more complex. With this explosion in the sheer volume of pages, finding the information you need is harder than ever. Search engines have always held out the promise of solving this problem, but they are often a usability disaster area. Inaccurate results, cluttered search entries, and a narrow focus on technological capabilities are only a few of the issues that make search features so difficult to use.
Quesenbery, Whitney. Intercom (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>Usability
#22850
Designing and Testing Customer Satisfaction Surveys on WWW Sites
The types of surveys being conducted on the web fall into two categories: surveys that determine who is using the WWW and surveys that determine customer satisfaction with the product or service. To the survey guidelines described by GVU, we add five guidelines for designing web customer satisfaction surveys based on reviews of recent surveys and browsing the web: (1) Begin with a clear mission statement. (2) Classlfy current users of the site. (3) Report the results online. (4) Limit the length of the questionnaire to no more than 25 multiple-part questions. (5) Limit big graphics.
Feinberg, Susan G. and Peter Y. Johnson. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Usability>Testing>Web Design
#20642
Designing Educational Booklets for the Web
We discuss here the results of usability tests on two booklets which were transferred from print to the Web. The booklets provide the public with basic information on various cancers, cancer treatment, and other cancer-related topics. The booklets were written by the National Cancer Institute's Office of Education and Special Initiatives (NCI OESI).
#20847
Designing for Real People: Additional Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design
Suggests lessons from bricks-and-mortar retailers that can be applied to web design.
Carliner, Saul. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#27407
Designing for the "Average User"
User advocacy is one of the central goals of usability. User advocacy can be defined as the process an IT professional (with an interest in user experience) goes through in re-sensitizing herself to the world of the 'average user'.
Spillers, Frank. Demystifying Usability (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#25080
Designing High Fidelity Home Pages
A high fidelity home page is one that simply and clearly communicates an accurate, complete, and favorable impression of your organization and its products. An effective home page will also display your intimate understanding of, and desire to fully accommodate, the actual needs and interests of users.
Streight, Steven. Usability Interface (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability
#18604
Designing More Usable Web Sites
This section of Designing a More Usable World is dedicated to cooperative efforts linked toward building a more usable Web for all. At the present time, there are a number of interlocking and interrelated efforts.
University of Wisconsin (2001). Resources>Usability>Accessibility>Web Design
#13357
Designing Web Ads Using Click-Through Data
Search engine ads are one type of Web advertising that can actually work. To create the best ads, do quick experiments and redesign ads based on usability principles for online writing. Doing so helped us increase ad click-through by 55 to 310 percent.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability
#22734
If you surf the Net, even just a little, it's not hard to run into a poorly designed site. These sites detract from the user’s online experience. Here are some 'strong suggestions' every Web designer should follow to avoid adding more poorly designed sites to the Web.
Gieseke, Laura. Techniques (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#20643
Creating an online form can present developers with many challenges. This case study reviews how a paper-based form was taken through the usability engineering process to develop a functional online version. We discuss the steps in planning and research, prototype development, test design, and the usability test results.
#19116
Developing Heuristics for Web Communication 
The quicklists presented here are derived from five sets of heuristics that were published in the August 2000 special issue of Technical Communication, 'Heuristics for Web Communication.' They are intended to help Web designers and developers consider crucial communicative aspects of Web site design.
van der Geest, Thea and Jan H. Spyridakis. Technical Communication Online (2000). Design>Web Design>Methods>Usability
#24079
Developing Intranets Which People Use: Making Progress When Everyone has an Opinion
The goal of an intranet site is to improve knowledge sharing and productivity. In a large company, it can be difficult to achieve consensus on how to make this happen. Knowledge management experts, information systems project managers, graphic designers, marketing leaders, HTML developers and usability engineers are used to fighting for their places, convinced that they know best. In truth, the intranet is not yet mature, and there are no definite answers. This chapter describes experiences with the intranet sites of two Fortune 500 companies. In both cases, the usability engineer was a consultant from outside the company, in one case part of a team of consultants and in the other working more closely with company employees. Both intranet projects were riddled with mishaps, bad decisions, personality conflicts, and compromises. Still, the usability engineers were able to improve the sites by becoming members of the project teams, and by tirelessly incorporating usability in everything they did.
Zukor, Lee. ACM (2001). Articles>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#13328
Developing Schemas for the Location of Common Web Objects
An essential ingredient in constructing the content of a website is knowing the typical users' mental model or 'schema' for the characteristic location of web objects on a website. Knowledge of this schema and constructing a site that reflects this should aid in the site's accessibility. This, in turn, should produce more accurate and faster information retrieval, as well as greater satisfaction with the site. However, little is known about the average users' schema for the location of web objects on a typical website.
Bernard, Michael. Usability News (2001). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#25391
Developing Your Site for Performance, Part II: Optimal Cache Control
Focuses primarily on sending that data as infrequently as possible by means of better utilization of caching on the Web. Once you start to design your sites with an eye towards effective caching control, you will dramatically reduce page load times for your users - particularly your most loyal, repeat visitors - as well as lower your overall bandwidth consumption and free up your server resources.
Powell, Thomas A. and Joe Lima. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#21018
Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce?
User success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, and most sites comply with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Given this, improving a site's usability can substantially increase both sales and a site's odds of survival.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce
#27485
Setting legal standards for making websites 'accessible' to all won't help web designers, or users.
Perks, Martyn. Spiked Online (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability
#19029
Discount Usability for the Web
The introduction of the spreadsheet turned millions of people into programmers without the benefit of a computer science degree. Because of the resulting lack of knowledge about even the simplest debugging techniques, spreadsheet formulae and macros are riddled with bugs and million-dollar business decisions are sometimes based on calculation errors. It has been estimated that at least 40 percent of spreadsheets have bugs. The introduction of the Web is causing a similar phenomenon in user interface design. My current estimate is that there will be about 10 billion Web pages on the Internet by the Year 2001. Intranets and extranets will probably hold at least 10 times that many pages. We already have two million pages on SunWeb (the intranet at Sun Microsystems). Each Web page is a user interface design problem equivalent to that of a dialogue box: you must design a task flow that brings the most important items to users' attention and design alternative options for them to click on -- all the while keeping the meaning of these options clear for novice users. Considering that the world will design more than a 100 billion of these dialog-box equivalents in the next three or four years, extremely simple and inexpensive usability methods are crucial if we are to avoid a usability meltdown on the Web.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Design>Web Design>Usability
#23187
Dix Bonnes Raisons pour ne pas Réussir Votre Intranet
Construire un intranet, cela semble simple et pourtant l'expérience nous montre que les écueils sont nombreux. Manque de cohérence, communication mal adaptée, mauvaise ergonomie, manque d'implication du management risquent de transformer l'intranet en un patchwork sans cohérence, ni ligne directrice, que les salariés finissent par ne plus utiliser.
Foliot, Catherine. Usabilis (2004). (French) Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#28699
Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI From Usability?
Although the gains don't fall into traditional profit columns, there are clear arguments for improving usability of non-commercial websites and intranets. In one example, a state agency could get an ROI of 22,000% by fixing a basic usability problem.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#27969
During our recent Virtual Seminar on home page design, several people asked about whether it makes a difference if links are underlined or not. It's a good question and one we get frequently.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>Interaction Design
#19407
Do's and Don'ts of Effective Web Design: A Summary of the UIU-2002 Research
Every year since 1983, I have reviewed and summarized much of the usability-related research literature that was published during the previous year. This has provided the basis for the popular, annual 3-day User Interface Update Course. My annual two-month 'read and outline' activity provides me with a number of research-based insights into 'what works' and 'what does not work' in usability. I have listed many of these insights in this article. What makes these 'Do's and Don'ts' unique is that they all have recent research to support them.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#27535
Does the Intrusiveness of an Online Advertisement Influence User Recall and Recognition?
This study investigated the effect of the type (banner ad, pop-up ad and floating ad) and state (animated and non-animated) of online advertisements on recall and recognition of the advertisements. It was hypothesized that floating ads, pop-up ads, and animated ads would be easier to recall due to their intrusive nature. Results showed that participants in the pop-up ad and floating ad condition had better recall of the presence of the ad as well as better recognition. Animation did not significantly influence any of these measures.
Shrestha, Sav. Usability News (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce
#28696
Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#25228
Don't Distract Readers From What They Are Doing
You’ll be on a second or third-level page, well on your way towards achieving the task you have in mind, and suddenly you’ll find your attention being distracted by links, ads and offers unrelated to that task.
Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability
