A Guide to Making Documents Accessible to People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

This document contains a comprehensive discussion about how to make print and electronic information available to people with visual impairments in a variety of accessible formats. Consumers who have limited vision or are totally blind have unique access needs. These needs depend on the amount of vision each person has for reading. Some people have usable vision, allowing them to read large print. Others choose to read braille on paper, while a third group prefers to use a computer with synthetic speech, or refreshable braille display, to read electronic documents.

Sutton, Jennifer. American Council of the Blind (2002). Design>Usability>Accessibility>Visual

Guided Surfing: Development and Assessment of a World Wide Web Interface for an Undergraduate Psychology Class  

Although the World Wide Web has great potential as an educational tool, and many educational practitioners have begun utilizing the Web in many ways (e.g., Dodge, 1995; Logan, 1996; Mounts, 1996; Weiler, 1996), as yet, there has not been much systematic, theory based, research aimed at examining these methods. The principal purpose of this experiment was to begin to address the issue of how best to structure an interface between learners and the vast jumble of resources at their disposal on the Web. The need for the development and investigation of such an interface is indicated by research, which has found that some degree of learner guidance is particularly important in effective web learning (Anderson & Joerg, 1996).

Hall, Richard H. University of Missouri-Rolla (1997). Articles>Web Design>Education>Usability

Guided Web Tours: Developing Comfort from a Distance  

You’ve just created a new Web-based business application, or perhaps you’ve redesigned an existing one. You need to introduce users to the site and help them become familiar and comfortable with the new organization and navigational techniques. They need the information quickly and concisely. What do you do? You give ‘em a guided Web tour….

Currie, Cynthia C. and Michael T. Yarter. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Usability

Guidelines and Checklists

Provides usability guidelines and quick fix checklists for designing usable Web sites.

Usability.gov. Resources>Usability>Accessibility

Guidelines for Authoring Comprehensible Web Pages and Evaluating Their Success    

The guidelines presented in this article should enable authors to create Web pages that their readers can understand. They should also enable evaluators to judge the comprehensibility of Web pages. The guidelines are explained and supported by an examination of relevant research and usability studies.

Spyridakis, Jan H. Technical Communication Online (2000). Design>Web Design>Writing>Usability

Guidelines for Visualizing Links

Textual links should be colored and underlined to achieve the best perceived affordance of clickability, though there are a few exceptions to these guidelines.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Color

Guidelines for Visualizing Links

Textual links should be colored and underlined to achieve the best perceived affordance of clickability, though there are a few exceptions to these guidelines.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>Color

Half Web Searchers Enter One Query, Look at One Page of Results

Over 66% of searchers examine fewer than five results with more than one in three Web searchers viewing only on one document in a given session. Users' search strategies are not those believed traditionally effective, but a close analysis reveals they work well on the Web.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Articles>Usability>Search

Hardware Heuristics - Testing Your Hardware Design

The following response to a question about heuristic usability testing techniques appeared recently on a popular mail list for usability professionals.

Wilson, Chauncey E. and Dick Miller. Usability Interface (1998). Articles>Usability

The Harmonics of Usability: A Trio of Implications for Software Interface Design  

In the world of usability, Thomas Gilbert, human performance engineer; John Bowie, information engineer; and Genichi Taguchi, quality engineer, are singing a three-part harmony. Exemplifying different generations as well as three distinct but overlapping domains, these experts converge at a vantage point from which they should be jointly capable of conducting the whole orchestra. This article explains the contributions each individual has made, directly or indirectly, to the domain of software development.

Sommers, Adele. Usability Interface (2003). Articles>Usability>User Interface

Hart’s Law: The Magical Number Three, Plus or Minus Zero

George Miller, infamous for his 'magical number seven, plus or minus two,' somehow missed an even more important principle of how the world works: no matter how clever we think we are, it still takes us three tries to get anything approximately right. Although most of us have proven beyond a shadow of doubt our ability to blunder around and take many more than three tries, the overwhelming majority of us get it nearly right on the third try.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Usability Interface (2002). Articles>Usability

HCI Commentary

Blog on all aspects of HCI, technology, design, usability, and its impact of society, users, ethics and life.

Beale, Russell and Peter Lonsdale. University of Birmingham. Resources>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>Blogs

HCI Education and CHI 97

Education always plays an important role in the annual CHI conference. The tutorial program provides a valuable opportunity for both HCI practitioners and researchers to explore new topics. Other venues, including workshops, panels, special interest group sessions, and papers are also used to explore educational issues. This year HCI Education was represented by a panel, a Special Interest Group, and several short papers discussing issues important to HCI education.

Sears, Andrew and Marian Williams. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

HCI Education and CHI 98

This year, the CHI conference placed special emphasis on three application domains: education, entertainment, and health care. The education domain included everything from pre-school for children through continuing education for working professionals. HCI education was well-represented, and was the focus of a paper and a panel.

Williams, Marian G. and Andrew Sears. SIGCHI Bulletin (1998). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

HCI Education: Past, Present and Future?

The roots of HCI came from a number of separate disciplines, including computer graphics, human factors, ergonomics etc. (Hewett et al., 1992). In higher education, HCI was also represented as separate disciplines and sub-disciplines with separate courses or modules within the various disciplines. In contrast, the 1980's began to recognize the multi-disciplinary nature of the field. Conferences such as SIGCHI and books on HCI (e.g. Baecker & Buxton, 1987; Card, Moran & Newell, 1983; Norman, 1988; Shneiderman, 1987) appeared that brought the various disciplines together in new ways.

Gasen, Jean B. SIGCHI Bulletin (1996). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

HCI Education: Where is it Headed?

As HCI continues to mature as a discipline, we must continue to question the bounds of the field. We must define what is within the realm of HCI and what is not. To begin, we can explore some of the proposed definitions for the discipline.

Sears, Andrew. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Heading Frequency and Comprehension: Studies of Print Versus Online Media  

This paper describes a study that examined the effect of heading frequency on comprehension and perceptions of information presented in print versus online text. Results indicated that heading frequency did not differentially affect the comprehension of readers of print text while it did differentially affect the comprehension of readers of online texts who had considerably lower comprehension scores with text that had high frequency versus medium frequency headings.

Spyridakis, Jan H., Laura D. Schultz and Alexandra L. Bartell. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Document Design>Writing>Usability

Helping Businesses Evaluate Their Internet Presence  

To ensure that their Web sites are conveying the intended image, a growing list of businesses, including Avis Rent A Car System, McDonald's, Staples and Holiday Inn, are turning to companies that test usability and brand opinion for help. These companies conduct surveys and focus groups and even use high-technology eye-tracking devices to uncover how customers use a Web site and how their experiences affect feelings about the parent company.

Bannan, Karen. New York Times, The (2002). Design>Usability>Assessment>Eye Tracking

Helping Low-vision and Other Users with Web Sites That Meet Their Needs: Is One Site for All Feasible?    

For this study, we recruited low-vision users with a variety of vision problems who need software to magnify computer text. Although we did not systematically recruit for specific vision problems, the fact that our users had different needs gave us one of the most critical insights in this study: The needs of low-vision users are too diverse for simple solutions to Web accessibility and usability. We show a few ways in which today’s Web sites are missing the needs of all low-vision users and provide guidelines for fixing those problems. However, the diversity of vision needs and the resulting adaptations that low-vision users require mean that there are no simple solutions to making Web sites work for everyone. In this article, therefore, you will not find many simple guidelines. Instead, we raise a critical issue and suggest a 'vision of the future' solution.

Theofanos, Mary Frances and Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish. Technical Communication Online (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Universal Usability

Helping Users Find Physical Locations

When we asked users to find a nearby store, office, dealership, or other outlet based on information provided at a parent company's website, users succeeded only 63% of the time. On average, the 10 sites we studied complied with less than half of our 21 usability guidelines for locator design.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability

Helping Web Customers Sniff Out a Deal

In Jared Spool's presentation, 'Scent of a Web Site' to the Washington DC Chapter of UPA (September 18, 2002), Spool used scent as an analogy to attract customers to the goods or services they desire online. A predator locates prey by following a scent trail. If the predator loses the scent trail, it returns to the location where the trail was strong, and tries again. Spool reports seeing a similar behavior with people looking for content on very large Web sites. Spool introduced two new vocabulary words that I plan to use. Gallery pages are used on very large Web sites to aggregate content pages. Store pages are used to aggregate gallery pages. The home page connects to stores; effective home pages also connect to galleries and content as well. These concepts aren't necessary for Web sites of one to twenty or so pages. They are essential for very large Web sites, such as Amazon or Microsoft Network, with pages numbering in the millions.

Bine, Katharyn. Usability Interface (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Helping Your Visitors: A State of Mind

Remember your site visitors won't find your website as easy to use as you do. Change your state of mind and you'll improve the user experience for all visitors.

Usborne, Nick. Webcredible (2006). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic evaluation is a form of usability inspection where usability specialists judge whether each element of a user interface follows a list of established usability heuristics. Expert evaluation is similar, but does not use specific heuristics. Usually two to three analysts evaluate the system with reference to established guidelines or principles, noting down their observations and often ranking them in order of severity. The analysts are usually experts in human factors or HCI, but others, less experienced have also been shown to report valid problems. A heuristic or expert evaluation can be conducted at various stages of the development lifecycle, although it is preferable to have already performed some form of context analysis to help the experts focus on the circumstances of actual or intended product usage.

UsabilityNet (2005). Resources>Usability>Methods>Heuristic Evaluation

Heuristic Evaluation

A usability evaluation method in which one or more reviewers, preferably experts, compare a software, documentation, or hardware product to a list of design principles and list where the product does not follow those principles.

Usability Body of Knowledge. Resources>Usability>Methods>Heuristic Evaluation