http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/Human_Factors_International A listing of works published by Human Factors International in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Human_Factors_International http://tc.eserver.org/33231.html http://tc.eserver.org/33231.html What can we conclude when users are reading prose text from monitors? Users tend to read faster if the line lengths are longer (up to 10 inches). If the line lengths are too short (2.5 inches or less) it may impede rapid reading. Finally, users tend to prefer lines that are moderately long (4 to 5 inches). http://tc.eserver.org/33232.html http://tc.eserver.org/33232.html With the rapid spread of the Internet across society, government institutions are taking advantage of digital technology to distribute materials to citizens. Is merely having a website enough, or are there certain usability considerations site creators must keep in mind to assure efficient public access to online materials? This project looked at typical people's ability to locate various types of content online, in particular, their ability to find tax forms on the web. Findings suggest that people look for content in a myriad of ways, and there is considerable variance in how long people take to complete this online task. Users are often confused by the ways in which content is presented to them. In this paper, two common sources of confusion in users' online experiences with locating tax forms online are distinguished: (1) URL confusion and (2) page design layout. Ways are also suggested to decrease these two sources of frustration, yielding less exasperating and more productive user experiences. http://tc.eserver.org/33233.html http://tc.eserver.org/33233.html It appears that about one out of five Web sites (only 20%) currently are designed using a "Fluid" layout. Unfortunately, the layout most preferred by users, the "Fluid" layout, is the one implemented least often by designers. http://tc.eserver.org/33220.html http://tc.eserver.org/33220.html One of the chronic challenges that will be highlighted by emotional design is site download speed. There are many sources of delay in Web site and application delivery. http://tc.eserver.org/30626.html http://tc.eserver.org/30626.html Presents a strategic roadmap for user experience design. Combining usability with the science of persuasion, learn how you can: impact online decision-making and user motivation; create a dashboard-based framework to measure and track user experience; integrate your customer channels and internal-facing systems; and help executives appreciate and understand the value of user-centered thinking and design. http://tc.eserver.org/30625.html http://tc.eserver.org/30625.html Explains how HFI's evolving set of user experience metrics can help you: quantify best practices in design at a site, sub-site or page level; prioritize your usability resources across a range of projects; get valuable feedback quickly, in 'design time'; track and benchmark user experience over time; learn how you score against your competitors; and synthesize your various user data streams into an integrated UX dashboard. http://tc.eserver.org/29496.html http://tc.eserver.org/29496.html Monthly articles on the latest usability research and its practical implications for user interface design. http://tc.eserver.org/27392.html http://tc.eserver.org/27392.html Get the flavor of an Expert Review as Dr. Schaffer points out the strengths and weaknesses of 11 award-winning Web sites. http://tc.eserver.org/27386.html http://tc.eserver.org/27386.html Discusses how his team of Certified Usability Analysts (CUAs) were instrumental towards making usability a routine practice at A.G. Edwards. http://tc.eserver.org/27394.html http://tc.eserver.org/27394.html Usability is more and more critical to online success, but most developers have no formal training in it and most companies have no formal program for it. http://tc.eserver.org/27387.html http://tc.eserver.org/27387.html Discusses how Anthem attained the training, standards, and resources they needed to create a sustained usability effort. http://tc.eserver.org/27384.html http://tc.eserver.org/27384.html Discusses making usability routine throughout your organization. http://tc.eserver.org/27395.html http://tc.eserver.org/27395.html Discusses practical usability, The Third Wave of the Information Age, the institutionalization of usability, developing a holistic strategy, measuring success, and getting started. http://tc.eserver.org/27380.html http://tc.eserver.org/27380.html The beauty of a product can influence the users' overall impression or general user satisfaction of the product. Think iPod. But how do you measure that? http://tc.eserver.org/27393.html http://tc.eserver.org/27393.html Discusses the effect of drop-off and how usability initiatives reduced drop-off at Staples.com by 73%. This discussion begins with a definition of drop-off and moves into an explanation of the value of drop-off data. Then we delve into the correlation between drop-off and return on investment. Finally, we highlight two examples of Staples.com initiatives that were focused on reducing drop-off by using a systematic process of customer research and redesign. http://tc.eserver.org/27383.html http://tc.eserver.org/27383.html Jerome and Giovanni explain why efficient access to knowledge is essential for global business operations. Giovanni discusses how his company realized its systems needed improvement – and why user-centered design proved to be the appropriate solution. This empirical approach to interface design/architecture enables effective business decisions. http://tc.eserver.org/27388.html http://tc.eserver.org/27388.html Discusses how you can create and utilize a 'Center of Excellence' dedicated to realizing your company's development and design projects. Learn how you can staff a sustained usability effort. http://tc.eserver.org/27390.html http://tc.eserver.org/27390.html What mentoring is, and how it is different from consulting, training, or educating. http://tc.eserver.org/27391.html http://tc.eserver.org/27391.html Discuss their initiative to make user-centered design a central part of RBC Royal Bank's Online Banking. http://tc.eserver.org/27385.html http://tc.eserver.org/27385.html Makes the business case for usability, and examines the impact of making usability routine throughout an organization. http://tc.eserver.org/27377.html http://tc.eserver.org/27377.html Whenever I hear someone making a general statement about what older people can or cannot do I think of my father-in-law. He's 80 years old and regularly runs marathons and competes in triathlons. He wins too. So I'm always suspicious about stereotypes involving technology and older users. http://tc.eserver.org/27389.html http://tc.eserver.org/27389.html The practices and processes that facilitate the organizational development needed to create a successful Web design standard. http://tc.eserver.org/27379.html http://tc.eserver.org/27379.html Interface designers today are swirling within a blizzard of data. How many types of user data does your Web team collect? http://tc.eserver.org/27378.html http://tc.eserver.org/27378.html Just as with any relationships, users' previous experiences--good or bad--will influence the expectations and hopes that they will have for their relationship with your site. And as with human relationships, this means that if you really want it to work, you need to know some of the gory details of their past to make the future smooth. That's the bad news. The good news is that we are only talking about Web sites. http://tc.eserver.org/18579.html http://tc.eserver.org/18579.html When your manager asked (told) you to write a user interface (UI) design standard, was it a no-win proposition? Apparently many developers feel that way. http://tc.eserver.org/18578.html http://tc.eserver.org/18578.html Every battle has a psy-ops component, otherwise known as psychological operations. Each side attempts to demoralize the other and re-moralize its own troops. In UI design, the battle against GUIs from hell is no different. Recall the evil influence of cryptodesign – design ideas that work for certain situations but get misapplied in other, quite different circumstances. We’ve seen a lot of developer trauma associated with icon design: cryptohyperinconitis. But hang on. This article gives you, the troops in the field, some psycho-innoculation against the cryptic IMFAP syndrome (Icon Mania, Fetish, and Phobia)! http://tc.eserver.org/18577.html http://tc.eserver.org/18577.html We interact with many developers when researching and designing GUI standards. Some of the recurring problems we find can be solved with knowledge of a few expert tips. http://tc.eserver.org/18575.html http://tc.eserver.org/18575.html Check the number of times you walk out of an office complex grasping a door handle shaped to say 'pull me' while warning you with a label that says PUSH. The unwarranted generalization of 'handle' to both sides of a one-way door shouts cryptodesign at work. You’ve see your VCR mercilessly flashing 12:00 pm into the night (and day), reminding you of your slow-witted inability to set the time. According to a consumer survey, a third of TV viewers have given up ever setting a future video recording date and time. Cryptodesign succeeds in maintaining a useless machine interface. The message is clear. Cryptodesign says 'a technique useful for one situation is probably good in all situations.' The antidote requires that we breath life back into automatic design techniques. Let’s call the antidote 'soul design'. http://tc.eserver.org/18576.html http://tc.eserver.org/18576.html This article focuses on a particularly wily cryptodesign foe: pull-down menus. Recall our definition of the developer’s eternal foe: cryptodesign. These are decisions that worked for certain situations, but are often misapplied in different, inappropriate situations. Pulldowns are the “guerilla” combatants of GUI design – so named because at one glance they look like good-guy civilians, but in another moment, they’ve wreaked havoc on ease-of-use. Let’s explore how to neutralize these design sapper bombers. http://tc.eserver.org/18572.html http://tc.eserver.org/18572.html A systematic approach to the application of human factors principles to ensure customer satisfaction. http://tc.eserver.org/18573.html http://tc.eserver.org/18573.html We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare – but could they get to the commerce section of your site? OK, maybe primates aren't your target market, but before you launch your site you had better make sure that your users can use it. Usability doesn't mean that your best friend thinks it's 'cool,' your designer calls it 'cutting-edge,' or your VC sees it as 'viable.' What it means is that you get a group of users to hammer on it, and you watch them hammer. That way, you find out what paths they follow, which graphics they click, where they get lost, and, most importantly, when they lose interest. Usability testing is crucial to your site's success and profitability. http://tc.eserver.org/14879.html http://tc.eserver.org/14879.html Is it better to have more items on a page and requiring fewer pages to be accessed (wide breadth), or to have fewer items per page and require more pages to be accessed (more depth)? Based primarily on studies reported three years ago by Larson and Czerwinski (1998) and Zaphiris and Mtei (1998), designers have been encouraged to construct broad, shallow sites. http://tc.eserver.org/14882.html http://tc.eserver.org/14882.html Do people learn more when they read material, only observe graphics, hear the material, or when they read, see graphics and read the material? http://tc.eserver.org/14881.html http://tc.eserver.org/14881.html How many of the usability problems identified in a heuristic evaluation are true usability problems? Several years ago, I published an article suggesting that many of the 'problems' identified by heuristic evaluators were not problems at all (Bailey, Allan and Raiello, 1992). Even so, many of us have continued to waste time and go to the expense of fixing many usability problems that were not problems. Recently, three research papers were published that provided some insights into the validity of heuristic evaluations (Catani and Biers, 1998; Rooden, et.al., 1999; Stanton and Stevenage, 1998). The articles discussed usability testing in three totally different domains with very similar results. http://tc.eserver.org/14880.html http://tc.eserver.org/14880.html Are scrollbars located close enough to where users typically work with a Website or list box to encourage the fastest possible use? http://tc.eserver.org/14878.html http://tc.eserver.org/14878.html Every year since 1983, I have reviewed (and summarized) most of the usability-related research literature that was published during the previous year. This has provided the basis for the popular, annual 3-day User Interface Update course. My annual two-month read and review activity provides me with a number of research-based insights into 'what works' and 'what does not work' in usability. I have listed some of these insights below. http://tc.eserver.org/10094.html http://tc.eserver.org/10094.html Probably the most well-known article in the fields of usability, user interface design and user experience is Miller’s 1956 paper entitled 'The magical number seven, plus or minus two.' It is incredible how this article has lasted for over 40 years, and still seems to influence many design decisions. More recent, better research is available, but not being used.