Created: 18 September 2007 | Watched by: 8 people

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  UK Usability Professionals' Association 

  http://www.ukupa.org.uk/

  The UK Chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association brings together UK professionals from the design, technology and research communities who share a vision of creating compelling technology that ... meets users' needs and abilities. Join the UK UPA Membership gives you free entry to UK UPA events enabling you to network with your peers in the industry and more. Event news Beyond "usable security": how to manage the human element in security M. Angela Sasse, Professor of Human-Centred Technology, University College London ****Please note this event was due to take place on Thursday December 13th but has been postponed until Thursday January 24th.**** Research in usable security commenced 10 years ago, when it was found that many users make mistakes using security tools, or shortcut difficult and cumbersome security procedures. But is "making it easy for users to do the right thing" sufficient to ensure that users comply with security policies? I will argue that it is not. To design   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 8 January 2008, by: Jakub Uradnik  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  design, usability

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  Common Principles: A Usable Interface Design Primer 

  http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/upa_voice/volumes/4/issue_3/common_principles.htm

  By Rick Oppedisano When users perform a transaction or action, their cognition is often split between learning and operating the system or user interface (UI) 1 . A well-designed UI allows users to focus ... the majority of their cognitive energy on learning, and offers no operational complications. This most general principle of usability is often called the "transparent interface." The transparent interface is commonly defined as one that maximizes user task completion and minimizes interfering factors , such as unnecessary interface complexity or performance. The following are some basic guidelines for minimizing user cognitive processing and maximizing interface efficiency . Consistency of Elements and Style Effective UIs are unified by a common style (layout, fonts, and design or brand elements). Consistency is one of the most important aspects of a repeatable user experience. If users know what to expect, it will be easier for them to build a conceptual map of what should happen next   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 22 November 2007, by: Suzy Pym  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  usability, user interface

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  Free Usability Advice | Free Usability Advice 

  http://www.freeusabilityadvice.com/

  October 16, 2007 User data sources We get feedback from users when we’re able to do usability tests, which is not often enough. What other sources are good for user data? Companies often fail to take advantage ... of internal sources of user data. In defining requirements for the next release, do you talk to Tech Support or Customer Service to identify the most frequent or critical usability issues they’ve heard about from users? Those teams also are on the front line for hearing about new features that users want. Technical Writers and Documentation Specialists also can be gold mines of information. If those folks are not already on your team, find them and ask their thoughts. Chances are, the things they have a hard time documenting are good issues to be explored. Marketing and Product Management might have valuable data for you from surveys, focus groups, interviews, etc. If your organization has a Training group, ask them what’s working and what the users want changed. Observe the trai   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 17 January 2008, by: Stewart Love  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  blog, usability, internet usability

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  Usability News - Feature: The Persistence of Usability Myths 

  http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article1070.asp

  Feature: The Persistence of Usability Myths Source: UN, 8 May 2003 Submitted by Ann Light Last year we researched the top 10 usability myths. A number of people, including technology pundits, had attacked ... usability. We thought the attacks were based on misconceptions. For example, one misconception was that usability is purely a matter of ensuring fast download times. We conducted an online survey to see whether web professionals agreed with the pundits. In our survey, most respondents worked in web design (97%). They included managers, webmasters, designers, programmers as well as sales and marketing professionals. (Interestingly, few respondents had the same job titles.) The largest group (57%) were involved in interface design, and of those 36% had no formal design training. Only 8% were involved solely in usability. Overall, few respondents agreed with the myths, and so the question remained: why had the pundits got such a skewed view of usability and what does the profession need   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 22 November 2007, by: Suzy Pym  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  usability, usability myths, guidelines

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  Don Norman's jnd.org / user advocacy and human-centered design 

  http://www.jnd.org/index.html

  ( Design of Future Things now finished: see " Books " below.) Northwestern University offers two programs in design: a one-year graduate program leading to and a new focus of the between Northwestern's ... Kellogg School of Management and Northwestern Engineering: Design and Operations . MMM is an existing two-year program leading to two degrees: an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a Master of Engineering Management from the McCormick School of Engineering that emphasizes Design & Operations: design cannot succeed without efficient operations behind the scenes. Operations are always in support or products or services, so the pair makes huge sense. Business Week has already recognized this program as one of the best Design + Business programs in the world. Note that neither degree is designed to produce designers. MS-EDI is designed to produce engineers who understand how to do design thinking and therefore know how to work constructively with designers (instead of the mutual u   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 22 November 2007, by: Suzy Pym  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  don norman, usability, web design

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  Usability News (news headlines) for all the latest news in usability and human-computer interaction (HCI) 

  http://www.usabilitynews.com/

  HCI Expert - Cambridge, UK Deadline: 28 January 2008 Instrata is seeking an HCI expert to lead user focused phases of research and development projects, to carry out fieldwork, design concepts and user ... test innovative online and mobile services. Deadline: 30 January 2008 Due to its continued success fhios is looking for a highly motivated Usability Consultant or Junior Usability Consultant to join the Research team in the London office, answering to the Research Director. Deadline: 14 January 2008 Workshop on Building an International Community: Designing Interactive Systems for/ with Communities in the Developing World to be held at the Designing Interactive Systems Conference 25-27 February 2008, Cape Town, South Africa Deadline: 30 January 2008 Call for papers: Special Issue of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies on The Family and Communication Technologies International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Deadline: 18 February 2008 Co-located with the Seventeenth Inte   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 14 January 2008, by: Kate Porter  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  hci, human-computer interaction, usability, news

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  Web Writing: Good Links are Crucial to Have Clear Powerful Web Prose 

  http://webdesign.about.com/od/writing/a/aa110104.htm

  Don't Write Click Here for Your Links If you get nothing more out of this article than this, please remember not to use "click here" for your links. "Click here" says nothing. In fact, most people skimming ... a Web page don't even see links that read "click here" because they have no semantic attachments. What does that mean? It means that "click here" doesn't reach out and grab your readers and make them want to click on the link. When I see the words "click here" as a link, often my first thought is "who's gonna make me?" and I move on, not clicking on it. According to the W3C Quality Assurance Team , links should: be brief and meaningful provide information even when read out of context explain what the link offers not deal with the mechanics of the site not be a verb phrase Brief and Meaningful Links One popular way of writing links is to link several sentences or paragraphs as one giant link. But this doesn't really help your readers know what the link is. In fact, sometimes it looks   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 11 July 2008, by: Nik Petrovic  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  usability, accessibility, linking, links, web , writing   [More...] [Less...]

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  InfoDesign: Understanding by Design - News 

  http://www.informationdesign.org/

  News flashes For suggestions, contact Peter J. Bogaards (pjb at BogieLand dot com). January 24, 2008 The CMS Myth "Many organizations now rushing to adopt web content management systems (CMS) to support ... their online strategies think it's the silver bullet to solve their website challenges and power content-rich applications. But web developers, online marketers and other front-line web pros speak of a fundamental disconnect in the promise of CMS vs. reality. Industry research and harsh anecdotal evidence indicate that 50% or more CMS projects 'fail' in some way: botched implementations, soaring project costs, launch delays, ruined SEO and more. Therein lays the central tenet of The CMS Myth: When it comes to web content management success, it's not just about the technology. In reality, CMS success hinges on your plan, your people, and your process behind your web content management initiative." ( About The CMS Myth ) PJB @ 02:21 PM | Classification: Weblogs | Permalink From: "The iPho   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 24 January 2008, by: Stewart Love  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  accessibility, hci, human-computer interaction, usability

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  useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design 

  http://www.useit.com/

  Mail: Dr. Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, 48105 Warm Springs Blvd., Fremont, CA 94539, USA Contact: Luice Hwang, tel. (415) 682-0688 PR agency: Darcy Provo, Antenna Group, tel. (415) 977-1920 Copyright ... © 1995-2007 by Jakob Nielsen. ISSN 1548-5552   [More...] [Less...]

  First added: 8 November 2007, by: Peter Foord  [Report as spam]

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  Tags:  information architecture, interface design, usability, clarity, good design , good practice, web usability, hci   [More...] [Less...]