All posts about
Usability

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. (source: Wikipedia)

Making Rich Web Application Architecture Usable

Added on 1 October 2003 Peter Bogaards
“Learning requires a cognitive investment by the user. It doesnít make sense to learn new interactions if there’s no return on the investment we must make to learn them. Using standard elements in the interface, and keeping those elements visually consistent among interactions, enables the user to learn once and then apply that knowledge anywhere ” (Viswanath Gondi – SitePoint) – courtesy of lucdesk

Usability Professionals Must Disappear

Added on 8 August 2003 Peter Bogaards
“(…) a good user experience practitioner is a facilitator – someone who quietly (having disappeared) guides the process, allowing knowledge to emerge, from users and the company alike. Instead of coming in with the answers, or the framework, or (my personal favorite) ‘the 200 rules of user experience design’, they should come in with their auditory organs turned up to eleven.” (Mark Hurst – Good Experience)

Review: A Pattern Language for Web Usability

Added on 8 August 2003 Peter Bogaards
“The notion of ‘patterns’, and of a ‘pattern language’, comes from the work of Christopher Alexander, a contemporary architect who proposed the use of collections of architectural patterns to address deficiencies in modern building design. In later works, Alexander expanded the scope of his rather fascinating concept of patterns to a broader design context. In the early 90s, computer scientists began to apply Alexander’s work to software development. The Web usability pattern language described in this book resulted from the collaborative efforts of attendees at a workshop hosted by the author in 1994.” (Carl Bedingfield – ACM Ubiquity)

The Slings of Boxes and Arrows: Persecuting Jakob

Added on 29 July 2003 Peter Bogaards
“One of the best things I’ve ever (co-)written is now up at Boxes and Arrows (…) We aimed for a New Yorker-style review — to use the subject as a jumping off point for discussing the underlying issues. So, while about half the review is an evisceration of the reports remarkably flawed methodology and lack of usefulness, the other half suggests steps that user experience professionals can take to begin to appropriately value their contribution.” (Peter Merholz)

Nielsen/Norman Group’s Usability Return on Investment

Added on 29 July 2003 Peter Bogaards
“This report seems to be directed at usability practitioners, to support their efforts in increasing their budgets. Presumably, usability practitioners will, in turn, show this to management. They will tell management that current ‘best practice’ is to devote 10 percent of a project’s budget to usability efforts. They will also tell management that, ‘on average’, usability provides measurable improvements of around 135 percent.” (Peter Merholz and Scott Hirsch – Boxes and Arrows)