Most people come to the web for information, not for a complete document. They don’t want the user manual; they want instructions for the task they are doing. They don’t want the handbook; they want the answer to specific questions. They want usable, manageable pieces. To present content on the web in the amount that most people want:
Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Published in 1954, Fitts’s Law is an effective method of modeling the relationship of a very specific, yet common situation in interface design. That situation involves a human-powered appendage at rest (whether it’s physical like your finger or virtual like a mouse cursor) and a target area that’s located somewhere else.
It turns out you do need to know some math to work in user experience. Being in UX means that sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with data on user performance or satisfaction, typically from a usability test. Even if you restrict yourself to design and leave the user research to others, you’re going to have to review the results of user research to inform your design work, so you’re going to need some concepts for evaluating that data. Specifically, you need to know a thing or two about inferential statistics, the branch of statistics that helps you determine what you can reasonably conclude about your population of users based on what you’re seeing in your sample of users.
What every user experience professional needs to know about statistics and usability tests.
When you see a heatmap for the first time, you are probably so busy saying “wow!” that you forget to critically evaluate what you are seeing. It’s easy to feel intimidated. The technology involved is phenomenal. But this doesn’t mean all research done on an eye tracker is infallible– far from it. This talk is intended to give you a heads-up on how to think critically about eye tracking.
You may also view the presentation at Harry’s website, 90 percent of everything.
This 93 page report based on usability studies reports how users actually use a broad variety of iPad applications as well as websites accessed on the iPad.
Usability of iPad Apps and Websites: First Research Findings
Thirty one usability labs from all over the world, all recently built and in active use, take you on a photographic tour and show you how they designed their rooms, what equipment they use, and which software tools are used for data collection and analysis. The usability lab photo gallery covers a wide range of application domains, organizations and technology: from desktop software to mobile applications, from healthcare to military systems, from consumer electronics to office hardware, from focus groups and qualitative testing to physiological measurements and eye tracking, from corporate to educational facilities, from stationary to portable labs. Enjoy the tours!
Summary
Although measuring usability can cost four times as much as conducting qualitative studies (which often generate better insight), metrics are sometimes worth the expense. Among other things, metrics can help managers track design progress and support decisions about when to release a product.
Abstract
Tracking the user’s eye-gaze information has been techno-logically possible for several decades. However, systems that track eye-gaze are still very expensive. The exorbitant price tag on commercial systems has resulted in limited use of eye-tracking technology. In this paper we examine the factors which contribute to the high costs of eye-tracking systems. We then propose several techniques and strategies which can be used to reduce the cost of these systems, ultimately resulting in more widespread use of the technology.
The list of questions on this page is a compilation of the questions and answers the author has heard most often about the use of questionnaires in usability engineering and includes answers to the following questions:
Abstract
Usability does not exist in any absolute sense; it can only be defined with reference to particular contexts. This, in turn, means that there are no absolute measures of usability, since, if the usability of an artifact is defined by the context in which that artifact is used, measures of usability must of necessity be defined by that context too. Despite this, there is a need for broad general measures which can be used to compare usability across a range of contexts. In addition, there is a need for ‘quick and dirty’ methods to allow low cost assessments of usability in industrial systems evaluation. This chapter describes the System Usability Scale (SUS) a reliable, low-cost usability scale that can be used for global assessments of systems usability.
The System Usability Scale (SUS) (PDF, 150 kb)
