#19412
Age Classifications: When Considering the Age of Users, How Old is 
When considering the age of users – how old is 'old'?
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Elderly
#19431
Does the research suggest that there are differences in younger and older users? What can we do to enable older adults to interact with our Web sites at the same level as younger adults?
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2001). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Elderly
#19407
Do's and Don'ts of Effective Web Design: A Summary of the UIU-2002 Research
Every year since 1983, I have reviewed and summarized much 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 outline' activity provides me with a number of research-based insights into 'what works' and 'what does not work' in usability. I have listed many of these insights in this article. What makes these 'Do's and Don'ts' unique is that they all have recent research to support them.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#19404
The Effects of Bold Text on Visual Search: The Downside of Highlighting
Everybody knows that by making a word bold that it will ‘standout,’ be perceived more readily and (obviously) processed faster. For example, which of the following formats will elicit the fastest performance by customer service representatives -- A or B?
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Typography>Web Design
#19433
It is the nature of most engineering activities that designers never have enough time to truly perfect their products. Engineers are continuously confronted with the real-world constraints of tight schedules and limited resources. Designing websites is no exception.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Web Design
#19432
The Growing Popularity of Usability
Why is computer system usability becoming so popular? Times have changed. With most new systems being Web sites, hiding poor interfaces is no longer possible.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Articles>Usability>History
#19428
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
#19435
How Long Should Users Have to Wait?
In a well-designed website, how long should users have to wait for pages to download?
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability
#19430
How Reliable is Usability Performance Testing?
Discussion of a comparative evaluation of usability tests by having four commercial usability labs carry out tests on the same commercially available calendar program. The purpose of the comparative evaluation was to observe the different ways in which independent laboratories conducted usability tests.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2001). Articles>Usability>Assessment
#19423
If we have usability improvements with each iteration, is this evidence that 'usability testing' works? I believe the answer is 'Yes.' We have many studies showing that each iteration does help to improve the usability of a system—even if the improvements are only modest ones (which is usually the case).
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability
#19406
Linking vs. Searching: Guidelines for Use
Sanjay Koyani at the National Cancer Institute and I did a quick survey of the available literature on linking and searching. We organized our findings into a series of observations and guidelines that may be helpful to designers dealing with similar issues.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Search
#19405
Major User Interface Issues in the Near Future
A discussion of new technologies from the November 2002 COMDEX.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Usability
#19410
Making Research-Based Design Decisions: Results of Research Poll
Usability information is being published in a variety of different locations. Most of it is still paper-based, and most current, full articles are not readily available on the Internet. This makes it very difficult for many (most) practitioners to use this information in a timely way.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability
#19411
There are about 1,000 usability-related articles published each year. My guess is that less than 5% ever have any practical, long-term value to most usability practitioners. In some cases, the topics being studied are of little interest to practitioners. In many cases the research results are simply too hard for practitioners to find.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Articles>Publishing>User Centered Design>Usability
#19425
No Web page fonts should be less than 10-points, Optimal reading speed for most adults will be elicited with 12-point fonts (size=3). There is probably no reliable difference in reading speed for most adults when viewing common font styles (Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman). Most users tend to prefer sans serif fonts (Arial, Verdana). Older users will benefit from type sizes that are at least 14-points.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Typography>Web Design>Usability
#19429
Faraday and Sutcliffe (1997) conducted a series of studies that tracked eye-movement patterns during multimedia presentations. The authors identified guidelines for improving the learning of information.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2001). Articles>Multimedia>Usability
#19408
Optimal Line Length: Research Supporting How Line Length Affects Usability
What is the optimal line length when reading prose text from a monitor? Certain aspects of usability have been researched for over 120 years. One active area of investigation has been the influence of line length on the speed of reading prose text. Weber (1881) made the first research-based recommendations when he suggested that an ideal line length was 4 inches (100 millimeters). He stated further that the maximum never should exceed 6 inches (150 mm). The same year Javel (1881) reported that line lengths should be no longer than 3.6 inches (90 mm). Two years later, Cohn (1883) confirmed that 3.6 inches (90 mm) was the best length, and that 4 inches (102 mm) was the longest admissible line length.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Typography>Web Design>Usability
#19413
Readability Formulas and Writing for the Web
There is a considerable amount of information published on the Web that is intended to be read by someone. There is evidence that much of the information may be too hard to read and understand for typical readers. Baker, Wilson and Kars (1997) reported that the readability scores of most articles in the 'Health Reference Center' ranged from 10th to 14th grade levels. Another study (Graber, Roller and Kaeble, 1999) included text-based information from commercial, academic and government sites. They found that the reading material averaged the 10th grade level. In a more recent study, a group of researchers (D'Alessandro, et.al., 2001) conducted readability analyses of pediatric patient education materials on the Web, and concluded that the information was not written at an appropriate reading level for typical users.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Formulas
#18920
Using Photographs to Increase Trust in a Website
Exposure to photographs prior to an interaction does seem to increase trusting behavior.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Rhetoric>Visual Rhetoric
#19403
Using Visualization in Websites
In some websites the amount of information is so large that the context may be lost whenever it is displayed on a single computer screen. If we try to have the entire structure visible all at once (so we did not lose the context), the details may be too small to read. For example, the HypViewer product on the right below is showing over one million IP addresses. If you think that adding visualization methods to a website automatically will improve user performance in this situation, you may want to consider the results of a couple of recent studies.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2003). Design>Web Design>Graphic Design
#19402
Evidence-based information, training and tools for optimizing the usability of computer systems.
#19434
How consistent do web pages need to be in order to not degrade the performance of experienced users?
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability
#19409
Website Layout: What Works Best--Fluid, Centered, or Left-Justified?
How should you lay out your website? Michael Bernard and Laurie Larsen from Wichita State University published a study where they compared three layouts: Fluid, Centered (fixed-width) and Left-justified (fixed-width).
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2002). Design>Typography>Web Design
#19436
What Screen Resolution Should We Design For?
A website is best when it is designed for a monitor resolution that matches the monitor resolution of the majority of your users. This provides a full-screen layout for those who desire to use the full width of their monitor for web pages. For the past couple of years, most users have had their monitors set to handle 800x600 pixel resolution. However, based on the studies that are currently available to us, we may be approaching the point (in the next few months) where 800x600 will no longer be the most common resolution. The relative percent of users using each resolution could change fairly rapidly because some major computer manufacturers are now delivering their new monitors set at 1024x768.
Bailey, Robert. Web Usability (2001). Design>Web Design
