How Good are Designers at Predicting User Performance?

Having designers guess the best way of achieving optimal user performance is very difficult. Their design decisions can be improved by ensuring that designers are familiar with the research literature, and by effectively using performance-based usability testing.

Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Relinquish Control

How could there be a successful business model in actively sending people away from your site? Seven years and a $75 billion market capitalization later, that question has obviously been answered.

Merholz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

How Little Do Users Read?

On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design

How to Create and Promote a Blog in Eight Easy Steps

A new buzzword you should know about is 'blog' or 'web log', meaning web log, digital journal, or online diary. Blogs are the Next Big Thing to hit the Internet, after conventional Web Sites.

Streight, Steven. Usability Interface (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Blogging

How to Make URLs User-Friendly

One of the worst elements of the web from a user interface standpoint is the URL. However, if they're short, logical, and self-correcting, URLs can be acceptably usable.

Baker, Adam. Merges.net (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

HTML Wireframes and Prototypes: All Gain and No Pain

Mention the use of HTML for wireframing or prototyping, and some information architects and interaction designers frantically look for the nearest exit. In some circles, HTML has acquired the reputation of being a time-consuming, difficult undertaking best left to developers. This is very far from the truth.

Stanford, Julie. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>Methods>User Centered Design

Immersibility: What the World Needs Now?

'Immersibility' is a concept that takes a holistic approach to the quality of the Web user experience. The concept is discussed on www.immersibility.com. The site results from work by agency.com, the Nielsen Norman Group and Gomoll Research & Design. The site also offers a tool called 'the immersibility index' intended to measure, in a holistic manner, the quality of the Web user experience.

Zukor, Lee. Usability Professionals Association (2001). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

Information Architecture through Web Analytics

Is your website structured according to the needs of your users? Does it deliver on your website objectives? Use Web Analytics to redesign it.

Hurol Inan (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis

Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Search

Informational Articles Must Ask For the Order

Unless you have explicit links to product pages from article content, users who visit articles directly from search engines might never realize that you sell related products.

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

Informed Design: Understanding Your Web Audience

Although there are lots of elements to consider when designing compelling Web experiences (writing style, look and feel, information organization--to name just a few), there is one 'knowable' element that can be used to appraise the rest: audience.

Wroblewski, Luke. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Interacción y Tiempo

La interacción es un elemento clave en la adquisición de conocimiento. Depende básicamente de dos factores: tiempo y control. En este artículo consideramos la importancia del primero.

Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). (Spanish) Design>Web Design>Interactive>User Centered Design

Internal Search: Seven Ways to Ensure Your Users Can Find Your Information  

User Vision's top seven tips on how to ensure your internal search is capable of meeting the needs of your users.

Rourke, Chris. User Vision (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Search

Internet Users Visit 6 Websites Only

We now have over 75 million websites we can go to, but still we only visit six of them regularily, as we just learned from a study recently made public by Directgov. Their findings make us think of a new phase of the Internet.

Information Architects Japan (2006). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

An Introduction to Personas and How to Create Them

Before embarking on any intranet or website design project, it is important to understand the needs of your users. It is then possible to identify the features and functionality that will make the intranet or website a success, and how the design can support users with different goals and levels of skill.

Calabria, Tina. Step Two (2004). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas

An Introduction to User Journeys

User journeys are a method for conceptualising and structuring a website's content and functionality. These journeys allow us to shift away from thinking about structure in terms of hierarchies or a technical build; instead you create a narrative around your user's needs.

Hobbs, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Is the Right Column Useful?

If it is your side column on your website you want it. But does your user see or even read it? You might argue that the sidecolumn is a common standard. So we do need it. Do we?

Information Architects Japan (2006). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design

Key Steps in Creating Your Reader Persona

The Web is about self-service and self-service is about simplicity and convenience. You've got a small screen and every time you add something extra to that screen you make the world more complicated for your reader. You must make very difficult choices if you want your website to work. You can't serve everybody, and if you try to you will serve nobody.

McGovern, Gerry. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas

Lessons From Google Mobile

Basic problem solving still completely swamps any other creative concern when working on mobile sites. A refreshing blast of Spartan usability problems, mobile site design is uncluttered with your typical mamby-pamby web problems. Can a user get the information, and fast? Answer this question and you're far ahead of everyone else. The design process described was quite effective at powering through a lot of basic usability problems, but struck me as potentially ill suited to a younger project that might still be finding itself.

Lord, Max. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>Web Design>Wireless Web>User Centered Design

Lessons Learned from Building a HealthWeb Site: Implications for Technical Communicators  

The presentation reports on an iterative design process using formative evaluations to develop a user-oriented nutrition education Web site, 5-a-Day, The Rio Grande Way, for a rural multicultural population in the Upper Rio Grande River Valley in Southern Colorado and Northern NewMexico. The presentation will outline the overall project and then focus on three studies. Study One, used a card-sorting process, to generate the basic structure and labeling of the Web sites. Study Two, using verbal protocol analysis and a questionnaire evaluated the prototype for the Web site. Study Three, using verbal protocol analysis, evaluated the redesigned Web site. The presentation will share the lessons learned in developing the Web sites and the share the lessons learned for conducting usability testing and technical communications. The presentation will close by highlighting the technical communication and usability lessons learned.

Zimmerman, Donald E., Carol Akerelrea and David Buller. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Biomedical

Load List Values for Improved Efficiency

Reduce the number of database hits and improve your Web application's efficiency when you load common shared list values only once. In this code-filled article, learn to load the values for drop-down lists when your Web application starts and then to share these loaded list values among all the users of your application.

Karanam, Srinivasa Rao. IBM (2005). Design>Web Design>Forms>User Centered Design

The Long Road to Simple: Creating, Debating, and Iterating "Add an Event"

Sometimes there's a lot more to simple than meets the eye. To the customer, this is just a few obvious words in a small box. But really, that's the point.

Signal vs. Noise (2007). Design>Web Design>Forms>User Centered Design

Long Tails and Short Queries

Why haven't we figured out search yet? Amanda Spink talks with Christina Wodtke on why searchers still can't ask a useful question of a search engine, and how Google may be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Boxes and Arrows (2006). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Search

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