More Than Screen Deep - Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Research Council convened a steering committee to evaluate and suggest fruitful directions for progress in user interfaces to computing and communications systems. A very informative site.
Guidelines written for webmasters, communicators and marketers to assist with website design for maximum usability for seniors and older internet users.
Web site designers should think hard about how to keep users from muddling around on their sites. "Users muddle when it isn’t clear what they are supposed to do in any given situation."
This article is extracted and adapted from Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction 3rd edn., Reading, MA: Addison Wesley (forthcoming). Longman Publishers, Copyright 1998.
Provides design and usability information and advice on how to convert browsers into buyers and keep them, analysis and trends. Free fortnightly newsletter.
A forum for sharing information among a community of human factors engineers, designers, and developers who are interested in producing web sites that are more useful and usable. Site contains proceedings of the most recent (3/Jun/1999) conference and archives of all previous conferences.
Pages collected by the University of Maryland, Masters of Software Engineering. These guidelines will assist software engineers to create effective user interfaces.
Eric Schaffer of Human Factors International describes the result of his experiences of working Eric working on over 150 user interface standardization projects. [PDF]
Offering tools needed to understand usability and accessibility issues. Includes materials that can help you create user-centered applications and gain insight into accessibility challenges.
Expanding web community by offering free tips and tutorials about HTML and DHTML, graphics editing, site promotion, digital photography, and desktop publishing. Presented often with a touch of humor, and always with examples.
The key to being Lynx Friendly is to be consciously aware of the HTML which goes into creating a web page and to ensure that those using a non-graphical browser are not ignored.
A mathematics educator's view of web design. Encourages speed, accessibility, validity, and navigability. Discusses difficulties of math typesetting on the web.
1997 psychology research project by Alyson L. Hill at Stephen F. Austin State University. Participants scanned simulated websites for a target word; readability was inferred from reaction time.
Covers every area of site design as well as what not to do. Steers the user away from hype and towards more practical, user-friendly Web design. Based in Australia.
Tutorial by Andrew Pae, Technical Coordinator at the ADAPTS Office at Georgia Tech. General design principles plus resources for additional information.
"The number one activity on the Web is information retrieval." In part of his tutorial, Spool explained his findings on graphic design and users' success.
Forum to share information, resources and experiences on issues related to the usability and user-centered design. It is the home of the Usability Special Interest Group of the Society for Technical Communication.
Includes an online version of the book "Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers" by Sarah Horton, along with links to other useful resources.
From the Usability Matters Group at the Linköping University in Sweden. Their goal is to make computer systems more usable. The 1995 essay "Perspectives on Usability" by Jonas Löwgren is available for download in PDF format.
Provided by the National Cancer Institute. Includes information and resources on making web sites and other user interfaces more useful, usable, and accessible. News and current publications and additional links are provided.
Information on basic web usability principles, including hints on helping search engines find your site. Web usability assessments and content development are available.
A summary of the complete life cycle of web development: planning, analysis, design, implementation, and promotion. Key practices and online resources are given for each process. By John December, author of numerous material for web development methodology.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Special issue of WWW Usability arising from a symposium entitled "The Missing Link: Hypermedia Usability Research and The Web".
Good usability is vital to the success of any web site. This site has downloadable sets of web evaluation tools to assist in analysis of a web page based on numerous usability guidelines. Registration is required (free).
Lane Becker writes, "Rather than a validation done once before completing a product... internal, qualitative usability testing [should be] done earlier, more frequently, and as part of the design process - not separate from it." (June, 2004)
Sites are getting better at using minimalist design, maintaining archives, and offering services. However, these advances entail their own usability problems, as several prominent mistakes from 2003 show. (December, 2003)
Article by Marcia Ludkin. "Again and again... usability experts discover that real people may not understand what may be obvious to a site’s designers." (February 11, 2003)
Office buildings have wheelchair ramps and TV has closed captioning, but many Web sites are inaccessible to people with disabilities. Things don't have to be that way. (August 7, 2000)
Guidelines for businesses, developers and web designers on how to make their web sites more user-friendly and accessible for the adult community. A white paper issued by Microsoft, "Effective Web Design Considerations for Older Adults." is available for download. (May 12, 1999)
The reason why so many people lose their way on the Web, according to usability expert Jared Spool, is because they lose the scent of the information they are looking for. Jared shares his thoughts and perspectives on the Web, usability, and the user's quest for information. (May 15, 1998)
