#13048
Blurbs: How to Write Them for Web Pages
On the web, a blurb is a line or short paragraph (20-50 words) that evaluates (or at least summarizes) what the reader will find at the other end of a link. A good blurb should inform, not tease. Usability testing will help you determine the best way to lay out your blurbs, but this document will help you write the content.
Jerz, Dennis G. Seton Hill University (2001). Design>Web Design>Writing>Usability
#10574
Many web sites exist primarily to create or strengthen the brand for a product or service. We’re finding that a site’s usability can dramatically affect branding. And the graphical aspects of the site — such as logos or evocative pictures — have much less effect on branding than we expected.
User Interface Engineering (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#18282
Breadcrumb Navigation: An Exploratory Study of Usage
Breadcrumbs serve two purposes: 1) they provide information to the user as to where they are located within the site, and 2) they offer shortcut links for users to “jump” to previous categories in the sequence without using the Back key, other navigation bars, or the search engine. Breadcrumb paths give location information and links in a backward linear manner. Navigation methods, such as search fields or horizontal/vertical navigation bars, serve to retrieve information for the user in a forward-seeking approach. As suggested by Marchionini, systems that support navigation by both browsing and analytical strategies are most beneficial to users since various patterns, strategies, tactics, and moves associated with both types of strategies are normally used.
Lida, Bonnie, Spring S. Hull and Katie Pilcher. Usability News (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#31914
Bridging the Designer–User Gap
Depending on how representative designers are of the target audience, a project might need more or less user testing. Still, usability concerns never go away completely.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#10238
I just can't escape those shrieking ads and articles: 'Everyone has broadband – or at least, they're getting it next week!' Because of this overwhelming hype, many Web developers and content pros currently seem preoccupied with learning how to produce broadband content....I must admit that I've been lulled into the broadband fantasy to some extent, too. I live in a very 'wired' town (Boulder, CO), and we currently have both DSL and cable modem connections at our home. So I've been sucking down a lot of broadband content lately. I've gotten very spoiled! However the vast majority of Internet users (even in the US) cannot get broadband.
Gahran, Amy. Contentious (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>Bandwidth
#28535
Budgeting for Advertising and Customer Experience
The most effective companies realize that they can't succeed on advertising alone; the customer matters.
Hurst, Mark. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Experience
#20221
Build a Cross-Platform Web Design Testing Station in Mac OS
Everybody talks about cross–platform testing, but nobody’s shown how to do it on a nuts–and–bolts level. Until now. Sciortino’s comprehensive tutorial for Mac–based web designers will set you up with the testing platform of your dreams. (’Nix and Windows users, we hope to do the same for you in a future issue.)
Sciortino, Paul. List Apart, A (2002). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#13741
If you build it, they may or may not come. But if they do come and you've built it badly, they almost certainly won't come back. While it's immensely difficult to figure out what makes a user bookmark a site, usability is a critical factor. Despite this, most Web builders spend far too little time thinking about this aspect of site design.
Shafer, Dan. Builder.com (1998). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#11907
Is the Web really the ultimate customer-empowering environment? The Web as a whole is empowering, because users have the option to click over to the competition at the slightest whim. So why do sites so often leave users feeling powerless? The Web increases accessibility and defies geographical barriers. But e-commerce sites often decrease accessibility and erect more barriers than you'd walk past in a store.
Nielsen, Jakob and Marie Tahir. WebTechniques (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability
#23284
In traditional user-centred design, focus is on users’ needs and their use of the product, while marketing is left to the marketing department. On the web, usability and marketing go hand in hand. Whether commercial or not, a web site has to meet the need of its users and at the same time convince them to take action, for the objectives behind the site to be meet.
Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2003). Design>Web Design>Marketing>Usability
#23056
Calculating the Cost of a Large-Scale Web Site
A well-designed information architecture with intuitive organization, labeling, navigation, and indexing systems can significantly reduce the amount of time that users spend blundering through the hierarchies of Web sites and intranets. How much is this time-savings worth? The case is clearest for intranets where the users are your employees.
Morville, Peter. Semantic Studios (1997). Design>Web Design>Content Management>Usability
#25775
The Canonical Intranet Homepage
In recent years, intranet homepages have become very similar in their basic layout. Intranets that look the same can nonetheless differ drastically in usability due to different features and content.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#18281
Cascading Versus Indexed Menu Design
If there is one basic truism about the Web it is that every designer has their own opinion concerning the best method for presenting menu items on a web page. Two common ways to present menus are to either hierarchically cascade the menu items upon mouse-over, or to simply place most, if not all, of the menu items in a categorical index. Cascading menus have the advantage of requiring little screen real estate. However, they have been much maligned for several reasons. First, it is sometimes difficult to use for the reason that users must precisely control their mouse movements in order to select the correct menu item. It becomes increasing difficult with the number of levels a user must navigate. Second, cascading menus hide menu information until the user positions the mouse over the menu level above it.
Bernard, Michael and Chris Hamblin. Usability News (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#22461
Case Study - Building a Usable Site
A website can be both attractive and easy to use. Usability and good looks aren't mutually exclusive and one doesn't necessarily have to negate the other.
SitePoint (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Case Studies
#28016
IBM was contracted to provide a new Air Defence Command and Control (ADCC) system for the Royal Air Force. The IBM Human Factors (HF) team was responsible for the design of the operations room, workstations and the graphical user interfaces. Because the project was safety-related, IBM had to produce a safety case. One aspect of the safety case was a demonstration of the operational effectiveness of the new system. This paper is an in-depth case study of the user testing that was carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system. Due to time constraints the HF team had to observe five participants working simultaneously. Further, to provide a realistic operational environment, up to twenty-eight operators were required for each test. The total effort for this activity was four person-years. The paper will detail the considerations, challenges and lessons learned in the creation and execution of these multi-user user tests.
Hey, Elliott. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#14184
Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites
Even small holiday decorations can increase joy of use and make websites feel more current and more connected to users' lives and physical environment. The key is to commemorate without detracting from your users' main reasons for visiting the site.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#22784
Change the Color of Visited Links
People get lost and move in circles when websites use the same link color for visited and new destinations. To reduce navigational confusion, select different colors for the two types of links.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Color
#23513
Change the Constraint, Change the Guidelines
From a usability perspective are we letting inertia stop us from going and searching for the real new issues which constrain web sites from achieving their goal, or are we moving on, forgetting the last war, and actively out looking for that new constraint and seeking to write the new rules for a world where broadband is ubiquitous?
Anderson, David J. UIdesign (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability
#28951
Change vs. Stability in Web Usability Guidelines
A remarkable 80% of findings from the Web usability studies in the 1990s continue to hold today.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Standards
#25064
Characteristics of Web Site Content
Web site content must be recrudescent, repositorial, refluent, and rectilinear. What? Here's an innovative treatment of the essential attributes of online text. Find out why great web site content generally has these 14 characteristics that start with a "R".
Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Usability
#10407
This article is intended to make Web designers more aware of the qualities of heuristics by presenting a framework for analyzing the characteristics of heuristics. The framework is meant to support Web designers in choosing among alternative heuristics. We hope that better knowledge of the backgrounds, potentials, and limitations of heuristics will contribute to the professional expertise in the field. Our second goal is to make those who develop and present heuristics more aware of the information their users need. Thus, we try to increase the usability of heuristics.
de Jong, Menno D.T. and Thea van der Geest. Technical Communication Online (2000). Design>Web Design>Assessment>Usability
#20802
Check Your Website's Usability Quickly and Cheaply
Anybody who hasn't done a usability study desperately needs to. No one knows yet how to design the perfect user interface, so even simple do-it-yourself studies often show you serious problems.
#13797
A multi-screen GUI has become a favourite amongst designers aiming at a wider and less experienced user community. It is widely held that multiple overlapping windows can be confusing and visually cluttered for the novice user. Another common motivation is that a predominantly data intensive business application must provide simple, fast and by implication 'a-modal' navigation across large sections of the problem domain. This is a common requirement when user task analysis and interviews indicate that the user is often interrupted or must frequently switch between incomplete tasks. It is also common to prefer an a-modal design when it is impossible to predict in advance what the user will prefer to view and when. Particularly true of applications for the World Wide Web where the user community can be unknown or undefined and prior research into their needs and preferences has not been done. It is proposed to provide a single (almost) full screen presentation of a single view, whilst allowing the user to quickly navigate to other related data through no more than two mouse clicks / navigation choices or selections.
UIdesign (1999). Design>Web Design>Usability
#27961
Chinese Banks Homepage Usability Research Report
The homepages of three leading Chinese retail banks are assessed for their usability.
Zhao, Ming. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce
#22001
Collecting Feedback From Users of an Archive (Reader Challenge)
The collective brainpower of the Internet is an awesome beast that used to manifest itself on Usenet newsgroups. Most of these groups have degenerated into spam, flames, and newbie ignorance. The Web has not yet evolved good ways of utilizing this power, since most so-called 'community' sites are equally degenerate.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1999). Articles>Web Design>Usability
