Designing Web Pages that Work

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

Developing an Online Form

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.

Usability.gov. Articles>Web Design>Forms>Usability

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

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

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

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

Devil's Advocate

The problem with wearing the technical support hat, I discovered, is that it tends to slip over your ears. Over time, you stop hearing the shrill cries of the users you're supporting, then you stop listening so carefully, then you stop speaking the same language as they do. And since you're busy putting out fires all over the building, who has time to start listening again? Problem is, once you no longer empathize with 'them,' you forget that they've got their own unending stream of crises to deal with. But if you want to tame those devils, you're going to need to take the time to understand their needs as well as you understand your own, and find a solution that meets both sets of needs. More often than you'd suspect, the result is a win-win solution.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. TECHWR-L (1999). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

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

The Difference Between Usable and Useful

In the past, many sites were redesigned solely on the basis of the vision of a designer. Some of these sites worked well for users, most did not.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2004). Articles>Usability

Difficulties in Modeling GNU/Linux User Behaviors

Creating models of user behavior has been helpful in predicting basic outcomes of computer usability testing involving human subjects. However, models and methods have been based on a narrow view of computer use; namely, they are not compatible with behaviors resulting from using the Linux operating system. How different could Linux be from other operating systems?! This article provides a few points of comparison.

Queen, Matt. Usability Professionals Association (2004). Articles>Usability>Operating Systems>Linux

Digital Divide: The Three Stages

The 'digital divide' refers to the fact that certain parts of the population have substantially better opportunities to benefit from the new economy than other parts of the population. Most commentators view this in purely economic terms. However, two other types of divide will have much greater impact in the years to come.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Online

Dimensions of Usability: Defining the Conversation, Driving the Process

Have you ever wondered if your colleagues or clients really understand usability? Too often, standards or guidelines substitute for really engaging our business, technical and design colleagues in a discussion of what usability means. By looking at usability from five dimensions, we can create a consensus around usability goals and use that definition to provide the basis for planning user centered design activities.

Quesenbery, Whitney. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

Dimensions of Usability: Defining the Conversation, Driving the Process  

Have you ever wondered if your colleagues or clients really understand usability? Too often, standards or guidelines substitute for really engaging our business, technical and design colleagues in a discussion of what usability means. By looking at usability from five dimensions, we can create a consensus around usability goals and use that definition to provide the basis for planning user centered design activities.

Quesenbery, Whitney. WQusability (2003). Articles>Usability>Consulting>User Centered Design

Disabling Innovation

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

Disciplinary Boundaries: Where (and How) Should Usability Testing Be Taught?    

With the rapid rise of interest in usability testing, especially with the demise of a daily increasing number of dotcom companies (and the headlines resulting from the 'butterfly ballot'), the question arises as to where (and how) a course in usability testing should be taught. When I first started teaching a graduate course in technical and professional communication, I created it to focus on documentation issues and to educate future technical communicators about the role they could play in testing and inadvocating usability testing for their products. The argument went something like this: who better than the technical communicators--the user advocates–to initiate usability testing within organizations. What better place to start than with the documentation?

Barnum, Carol M. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Usability

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

Discount Usability: Time To Push Back the Clock?

Discount usability techniques are a great way to eradicate usability problems. But they can never answer the question, 'How usable is this system?' We blow the dust off some techniques commonly used in the early days of usability testing to see if they can provide an answer.

Userfocus (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing

Discovering User-Generated Metaphors Through Usability Testing

A post-hoc analysis of data collected from a usability test on the Fluke ScopeMeter 97â (a diagnostic instrument for analyzing electrical signals) revealed that subjects miss-hit certain interface keys significantly more than other keys. Comments that subjects made during the usability test through the thinking-aloud protocol led us to the hypothesis that miss-hits were caused by subjects' internal metaphors (user-generated) that were unsupported by the design of the keys. A review of literature revealed a lack of research in the area of user-generated metaphor and its effects on user performance. With further analysis we found aspects of the ScopeMeter keys and subject characteristics that provide a strong foundation for this hypothesis. We conclude that formal experiments should be set up to test this and other hypotheses that address the role user-generated metaphors play in building mental models and influencing user behavior.

Schulz, Erin Leanne, Judith A. Ramey, Maarten van Alphen and William Rasnake. City University of Hong Kong (1995). Articles>Usability>Testing>Tropes

Displaying Information

Do people learn more when they read material, only observe graphics, hear the material, or when they read, see graphics and read the material?

Bailey, Robert. Human Factors International (2002). Articles>Usability

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

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

Do Links Need Underlines?

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

Do Productivity Increases Generate Economic Gains?

Usability improvements can save time-on-task, but critics argue that this is not the same as saving money. Others worry that productivity gains cause unemployment. Neither is correct: usable design saves money and saves jobs.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability

Do Staff Make Use of Personalisation Features?

Organisations around the world have already made their first forays into personalisation, however many more organisations are questioning what to personalise and how to go about it. So who is using personalisation and how effective is it?

Grenfell, Catherine. Step Two (2007). Articles>Content Management>Personalization>Usability

Do Usability Expert Evaluation and Testing Provide Novel and Useful Data for Game Development?    

A case study was done to study whether usability expert evaluation and testing are suitable for game development. In the study, a computer game under development was first evaluated and then tested. Game developers were then asked to rate the findings and give other feedback about the methods used and the results gained. It was found that the usability expert evaluation and testing provided both novel and useful data for game development. Based on these and the other results it is argued that the usability expert evaluation and testing have considerable face validity in game development. In addition to the usefulness and face validity of the methods it was studied whether the usability experts participating in the game usability expert evaluation should be double experts. It was found that there was no significant difference in the number or the rated relevancy of the problem the gamer and non-gamer usability specialists found.

Laitinen, Sauli. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods