Usability and HCI Resources
Society for Technical Communication Usability Website
A new site and growing resource; see especially info on the Usability SIG.
Usable Web: Guide to Web usability resources
Keith Instone’s collection of links on user-centered design, usability engineering, and testing.
Usability Research at Microsoft
“Finally, the participant chooses a thank you gift from a list of Microsoft products, and the Engineer escorts him/her back to the lobby.”
Judging Web Sites: Usability or Criticism?
“Usability studies are less subject than criticism to individual eccentricity or bias, but the answers they provide are limited to what can readily be observed and measured. It is easy to measure the effectiveness of an order form or a small instruction booklet, but far harder to measure the effectiveness of a hypertext on modern organic chemistry or an artistic exploration of adolescence.”
The Usability Methods Toolbox
James Hom provides background, secondary readings, and “How to” strategies for various testing approaches (Contextual Inquiry, Ethnographic Study/Field
Observation, Interviews and Focus Groups).
Examples of Accessible (and Inaccessible) Web Design
ALT text tags, frames, tables
Papers
Bravo, Ellen: “The Hazards of Leaving Out the Users” (from: Schuler &
Namioka (Eds.), Participatory Design: Principles and Practices. Hillsdale NJ:
Erlbaum: 1993.
Diani, Marco. “The Social Design of Office Automation.” Design Issues III(2);
also in V. Margolin (ed.) Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism. Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1989, 114-126. 
[password needed]
Holtzblatt, Karen and Sandra Jones. “Contextual Inquiry: A
Participatory Technique for System Design.” Schuler, D., & Namioka, A. (Eds.).
Participatory Design: Principles and Practices. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 1993.[password needed]
Woolgar. “Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trial.” from: A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. Routledge, 1991.
[password needed]
Lee, Sung Heum. “Usability Testing for Developing Effective Interactive Multimedia Software: Concepts, Dimensions, and Procedures.”
Educational Technology & Society 2(2) 1999.
Bridging the Gap: Listening Skills for Usability Professionals How to use active listening during a usability testing session
Wilson, Linda. “Assistive Technology for the Disabled Computer User.“
Sample Usability Studies and Tests
- 1995 Interface Design for Sun’s WWW Site (interesting example of iterative design and testing).
- A Usability Study of Workspace Awareness Widgets
- Report From a 1994 Web Usability Study
(follow-up: Changes in Web Usability Since 1994) - Examining World Wide Web Designs: Lessons from Pilot Studies
- Usability of “Good Documents”
- Web Site Usability: Links on the World Wide Web
- Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art: Ergonomic Evaluation of Kiosk and Visitor Software Prototype
- Bringing Treasures to the Surface: Iterative Design for the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program
Human-Computer Interaction & Ergonomics
Jastrzebowski, Wojciech. “An Outline of Ergonomics or The Science of Work Based Upon the Truths Drawn from the Science of Nature,” originally published in Nature and Industry, No 29 and No. 30 (1857); reprinted by Central Institute for Labour Protection, Warsaw, (J. Kaborowski, ed.), 1997.
Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII); see especially their Resource links on usability studies Human-Factors & Ergonomics
SIGCHI Bulletin (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction)There’s a real dearth of critical material, it seems, on the social, cultural, and ethical implications that underlie many of the practices and assumptions surrounding Human-Computer Interaction: access, cross-cultural communication, and uncritical acceptance of technology, to name a few. The SIGCHI Bulletin publishes some critical work, however. For example, see Toward an HCI Research and Practice Agenda based on Human Needs and Social Responsibility:
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