#10578
Developers may hesitate to start usability testing because they worry that their product poses special problems in finding, scheduling, or compensating the right users. This shouldn’t stop them. We successfully find and test hundreds of users a year and about 10% of these require special tactics for scheduling.
User Interface Engineering (1998). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing
#27968
The Science and Art of User Experience at Google
Takes you through the art and science behind Google's design process and shares examples of how design, usability and engineering are combined by Google's development teams.
Fitzpatrick, Jen. Google (2006). Design>Web Design>User Experience>Methods
#18624
Snapshots is a method where the user takes screen snapshots at different times during the execution of a task or series of tasks.
#27578
The Secret Ingredient of Every Methodology
In any software development methodology, there's a secret ingredient that doesn't get enough press. It doesn't matter whether you follow Cooper, Beck, McConnell, or anyone else on the long list of notables.
Ferlazzo, Ellen Lawson. Sprezzatura Systems (2002). Articles>Software>Methods
#28726
Seeking an Accessible and Usable Survey Tool
When we set out to survey members of the AccessAbility SIG of Society for Technical Communication (STC), we needed an accessible tool to live up to the SIG's name and charter. Free was also a nice price tag.
Mardahl, Karen and Lisa Pappas. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Usability>Methods>Surveys
#18623
Self-reporting logs are paper-and-pencil journals in which users are requested to log their actions and observations while interacting with a product. Like journaled sessions, this technique allows you to perform user evaluation at a distance. Unlike journaled sessions though, this technique requires much more work on the part of your subject user. You'd use journaled sessions when you need detailed information from the remote tests; for example, the actual mouse movements or sequence of dialog boxes and menu items accessed by the user. Obviously, requesting the user to record all of their actions in a log, down to each individual click, is out of the question. (Although if you're lucky enough to get someone who's anal enough to do that, well, just think, is that guy representative of your user population? Good luck...) Self-reporting logs, therefore, are best used when you don't have the time or resources to provide the interactive package required for journaled sessions, or when the level of detail provided by journaled sessions isn't needed. For example, you might want just general perceptions and observations from a broad section of users.
#24213
"Sell" Your Survey With Direct Marketing Design 
We think about them every day. We try to anticipate their every need, predict their every question. They are our readers, our audience, the users and consumers of our documentation.
Stelmack, Rebecca L. Intercom (1999). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Surveys
#20821
Severity Ratings for Usability Problems
Severity ratings can be used to allocate the most resources to fix the most serious problems and can also provide a rough estimate of the need for additional usability efforts. If the severity ratings indicate that several disastrous usability problems remain in an interface, it will probably be unadvisable to release it. But one might decide to go ahead with the release of a system with several usability problems if they are all judged as being cosmetic in nature.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1994). Design>Usability>Methods
#21524
Shaping Knowledge through Usability Testing
Shaping Knowledge through Usability Testing
Usability testing can make a difference in the product and and the documentation. Seeing is believing.
Barnum, Carol M. IEEE PCS (2003). Presentations>Usability>Methods>Testing
#29369
Shift Focus from Project Details to Work Processes 
Avoid looking too closely at the details when taking on a project.
Watson, Steven A. TechRepublic (2003). Careers>Project Management>Methods
#19293
The Short-Term Benefits of a Usability Strategy
Usability, and professional interface design, is often presented as a long-term strategy for those involved in software development. There is a common perception that as effective as user-centred interface design can be in terms of creating satisfied end-users, brand loyalty, and repeat business, it lacks something of the ‘wow’ factor and will not affect the bottom line in the short term. In our experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Particularly in today’s software market, many of our customers report significant and immediate improvements in terms of product sales. It doesn’t take long to figure out why. The typical software sales process could almost have been designed to favour those products that present a clear, intuitive, attractive and easy-to-use interface to the user.
Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods
#24419
Six Steps for Successful Document Downsizing
By using the following method, the Mentor Graphics system management documentation and training group was able to achieve a 40% reduction in the size of the documentation needed to install and configure Mentor Graphics software. Not only did this reduction result in an approximate savings to the company of $50,000, but also produced a verifiable increase in customer satisfaction.
Tucker, Walt. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Methods
#19928
Sorting Techniques for User-Centered Information Design 
Card, or pile, sorting has long been used in social sciences to identify how humans group words or concepts together. Can such sorting also inform information design? Can we use it to better anticipate what users are looking for when they open a book, a Help system, a library catalog, or a Web site? A review of literature and a variety of published case studies suggests how various sorting techniques are suited to different research goals. How to carry out a sorting study is discussed, and analysis methods applicable to the goals for an information design project are reviewed. We look at automation tools as a means of reducing analysis tedium, and as a means to expand a potential study audience via remote participation.
Deaton, Mary M. Techne (2003). Design>User Centered Design>Methods>Card Sorting
#21096
Speed: The Missing Link in Usability Testing
Businesses everywhere are launching internal and customer-focused applications on the World Wide Web, using them as channels to reach scores of employees and customers in a matter of seconds. Prior to launching such applications, many organizations hold a series of usability tests. Everything is tested: from the initial front-end interface, navigational structure, the information architecture, and overall ease of use. Often, though, companies forget to test the one thing that will assure them that their site or application is easy to use: speed.
Dorfman, Susan and Donald Doane. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods
#21029
Stalking the User: Practical Field Research
Describes how technical communicators can use field research--observing people in their workplaces, homes, and schools--to gain a better understanding of user behavior.
Rosenbaum, Stephanie L. Intercom (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods>User Centered Design
#26899
Sue Smith's Rhetorical Analysis Tools
Rhetorical analysis looks at writing to see how it achieves its purpose. The point of rhetorical analysis is to see not only what writing says, but how it says it. To use a rhetorical analysis chart, choose a text to analyze and look at the questions/list of ideas.
Smith, Sue. University of Arizona. Articles>Rhetoric>Methods
#21153
#30680
Survey of Ajax Tools and Techniques
Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) programming techniques are increasingly dominating the world of Web application development. New developers are stepping into the world of Ajax development every day, and they come from disparate development backgrounds. Part 1 of this multipart series gives you a cheat sheet of Ajax development resources from an expert team of Ajax developers at IBM(R). The authors draw from their own ramp-up experiences to help you with practical information that will put you on a fast track to effective Ajax development.
Shachor, Gal, Yoav Rubin, Shmulik London and Shmuel Kallner. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Ajax>Methods
#18620
Surveys are ad hoc interviews with users, where a set list of questions is asked and the users' responses recorded. Surveys differ from questionaires in that they are interactive interviews, although not structured like contextual inquiries nor formally scheduled and organized like focus groups.
#30050
System Usability Scale and Non-Native English Speakers 
The System Usability Scale (SUS) was administered verbally to native English and non-native English speakers for several internally deployed applications. It was found that a significant proportion of non-native English speakers failed to understand the word 'cumbersome' in Item 8 of the SUS (that is, 'I found the system to be very cumbersome to use.') This finding has implications for reliability and validity when the questionnaire is distributed electronically in multinational usability efforts.
Finstad, Kraig. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Assessment>Methods
#25901
Take Breaks! A Simple Way to Improve Your Heuristic Evaluation Results
As primary tools in the usability field, heuristic or expert evaluations can be rich areas for methods studies and improvement. Early results of one methods study suggest that performing evaluations in limited segments, with breaks between each segment, may increase the effectiveness of the evaluator in identifying usability problems.
Faulkner, Laura. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Usability>Methods>Heuristic Evaluation
#21252
Taking the "You" Out of User: My Experience Using Personas
Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Pyra - the company behind Blogger, shares her team's experience in the discovery of Alan Cooper and the use of personas. Through their practical application, she tells the tale of how a product cycle was turned on its ear as the team discovered they weren't anything like their user.
Hourihan, Meg. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas
#10384
Taking Usability Testing to the Field
Know your audiences, comes the repeated message for technical communicators and in response, more and more technical communicators have turned to usability testing to learn more about their readers and to improve their communications. Technical communicators produce manuals, instructions, and warnings for hand tools, medical equipment, lawn mowers, tractors, pesticide sprayers, and thousands of different products. Most manuals, instructions, and products can benefit from usability testing. This case study provides guidance for technical communicators who are novices to usability testing. The lessons we learned can be of value to technical communicators beginning their first usability testing on a wide range of technical communications and products.
Zimmerman, Donald E., Michel Lynn Muraski and Michael D. Slater. Technical Communication Online (1999). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#30445
The task-artifact cycle is in other words an iterative process of continuous, mutually dependent development between task and artifact, a process that will never reach an optimum state.
Soegaard, Mads. Interaction-Design.org. Articles>Usability>Methods
#31983
Technical Communication and Programming: Using Writing Rules
This article is about better commenting practices for the purpose of—perhaps—helping some to better their programming practices. But before beginning, let me qualify the entire thing by saying that I am not a programmer—not the professional kind anyway. I have created small programs in the past for some of my employers, but that is not how I make my living. Therefore, I am not trying to teach principles of programming. I am only a writing teacher who happens to enjoy programming as a hobby. And while I cannot provide insight into better programming principles, I can offer guidance about writing those short pieces of text programmers always embed, but sometimes neglect. Helping students write better documents is, after all, my occupation; and believe it or not the principles I teach to write better papers are not that different from the principles needed to write better code.
Lanier, Clinton R. sense and usability (2008). Articles>TC>Technical Writing>Methods
