Usability & Info Architecture
Student Projects (University of Texas iSchool)
- McCombs School of Business, Usability Review
- eCommerce Best Practices – a literature review (pdf format)
- iSchool website – usability review project
- Designing for the Mobile Web – a literature review (pdf format)
- Whole Foods – mobile design project
- Whole Foods Mobile Sitemap (pdf format)
- Whole Foods Mobile site design presentation (pdf format)
- Whole Foods Mobile – functional site comps (Xhtml, designed for iPhone 320×480)
General Usability & Information Architecture
- Usability.gov: Usability Methods List & A Step-by-Step Visual Map
- Dana Chisnell
- Caroline Jarrett – forms
- Steve Krug – Advanced Common Sense
- Peter Merholz
- Peter Morville & Semantic Studios
- Don Norman
- Steve Portical
- Lou Rosenfeld
- Dan Saffer
- Kathy Sierra – Creating Passionate Users
- Luke Wroblewski
- Chauncey Wilson
- Jared Spool
- Bill Buxton
- Bill Moggridge
- Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar
- Jakob Nielsen – Useit.com
- Usability & User Experience Community
- Usability Principles and Techniques – Webcontent.com
- IxDA – Interaction Design Association
- The Usability Professionals’ Association – Guidelines & Methods
- UX Magazine
- UX Matters
- Interactions Magazine
- 9 Common Usability Blunders (Smashing Magazine)
- 10 Principles of Effective Web Design (Smashing Magazine)
- UX Week 2008 – Videos
Explaining Information Architecture
- Flexible Fuel: Educating the Client on IA. by Keith LaFerriere
- Technology’s Untanglers: They Make It Really Work (New York Times)
Heuristics
Templates for Usability Testing
- Usability.gov Templates
- Usability Toolkit
- Evaluation Toolbox for Aviation Technical Writers – Heuristic Review (great examples of voice)
Software for Usability Testing
- Morae (for PCs)
- Silverback (for Macs)
Flow Chart Programs
- Lovely Charts – http://www.lovelycharts.com/
- Gliffy – http://www.gliffy.com/
- OmniGraffle (Mac)
- Visio (PC)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Usability & Return on Investment (ROI)
- Cost-Justifying Usability, by Bias & Mayhew, 2nd Ed., 2005
- Cost-justifying usability engineering for cross-cultural user interface design, by Mayhew & Bias, 2005
- Handbook of Human Factors in Web Design, by Robert W. Proctor, Kim-Phuong L. Vu, 2005
- Usability is Next to Profitability, Business Week, 2002
- Users Begin to Demand Software Usability Tests, Computerworld, 2002
- Recap/commentary: Selling user experience work, by Abe Crystal, 2005
- The Value of Design. Design Council
- Usability Is Good Business, by Donahue, Weinschenk, Nowicki, 1999, PDF format
- Designing for the Bottom Line. The Selling Points of Hard and Soft ROI, in Dr. Dobbs, 2002
- Is ROI an Effective Approach for Persuading Decision-Makers of the Value of User-Centered Design? by Dray, Susan, Clare-Marie Karat, Daniel Rosenberg, David Siegel, and Dennis Wixon, 2005
- All Those Opposed: Making the case for user experience in a budget-conscious climate, by Jesse James Garrett
- The Business of UX Metrics: How to measure and manage the user experience, by Phil Goddard, HFI, 2007
- How can the effectiveness of intranets be measured? by Nancy Goebel, 2009
- An Analysis of ROI Measurement and Metrics across Usability Professionals (.doc format), Rich Gunther
- Leveraging Business Value: How ROI Changes User Experience, by Scott Hirsch, Janice Fraser, Sara Beckman
- ROI Is Not a Silver Bullet: Five Actionable Steps for Valuing User Experience Design, by Scott Hirsch, 2004
- The Red Herring of Usability ROI, by Scott Hirsch, 2003
- ROI Calculators, from HFI
- The infoDev e-Government Toolkit and Portal | Analytic Models for Measuring Costs and Benefits | Planning and Designing e-Government Projects – Costs And Financing
- High Payoff in Electronic Government: Measuring the Return on e-Government Investments, by the Intergovernmental Advisory Board, 2003
- E-Government Won’t Succeed Without Some Marketing, by Eric Chabrow, 2003
- E-Gov Delivers Benefits on Many Fronts, GSA #10016, by Eleni Martin, 2003
- Traditional ROI Measures Will Fail in Government, by Andrea Di Maio, Gartner, 2003
- An Accountant’s Advice in Making the Business Case for Enterprise 2.0. by Bill Ives, 2009
- When ROI Isn’t Enough: Making Persuasive Cases for User-Centered Design, by Colleen Jones, 2007
- Assessing the value of human factors initiatives. by Kerr, M.P., Knott, D.S., Moss, M.A., Clegg, C.W., & Horton, R.P. (2008). Applied Ergonomics, 39, 305-315.
- Cost-Benefit Analysis of E-Government Investments, by Sorin Kertesz, E-Democratie, Harvard University, JF Kennedy School of Government (how to apply NPV valuation tools to an e-Government application)
- The Return on Investment (ROI) for Personas, Ann Light, 2006
- Return on Investment for Usable User – Interface Design: Examples and Statistics , by Aaron Marcus, 2002. PDF format
- Professional usability testing and return on investment as it applies to user interface design for web-based products and services, by Charles Mauro, 2002
- Report Review: Nielsen/Norman Group’s Usability Return on Investment, by Peter Merholz and Scott Hirsch, 2003
- Jakob Jumps the Shark, by Peter Merholz, 2007
- Net Now – Valuing UX Design, The Red Herring of Usability ROI, October 17, 2003
- Usability ROI Declining, But Still Strong, Nielsen Alertbox, Jan 22, 2008
- Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI From Usability? , Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, February 12, 2007
- Usability Can Save Your Company, by John S. Rhodes, 2000
- 25 reasons why saving time on your intranet is a bad metric. by James Robertson, 2008
- Intranets: measuring before and after. by James Robertson, 2008
- Beyond enthusiasm: making the business case for your organization’s use of Web 2.0. by Louise Ross, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
- Institutionalization of Usability: A Step-by-Step Guide, by Eric Schaffer, 2004
- Get ROI From Design, by Randy Souza, Forrester, 2001
- Usability ROI, by Usability First, 2005
- Cost and Return on Investment, Usability.gov
- Making the Case for Usability in Government, Usability.gov
- Final Presentation (ppt format) - The Business of Usability: Developing Metrics to Justify our Existence and Budgets. A summation from the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) 2006 Workshop
- Business Benefits of Usability (UPA resource)
- Selling Usability (UPA resource)
- Resources: Usability in the Real World: The ROI of Usability, in Usability Professionals’ Association, originally published in the Winter 2002 User Experience Magazine as part of “Return on Investment for Usable UI Design” by Aaron Marcus
- Case Study: Intranets, Usability, and Value, by Jeffery Veen
- UX in the Boardroom: A Solid Case for Investing in UX, by Kate Walser, 2009
- Web Manager University recently commissioned these new Howcast videos on Usability and Plain Language: How to Increase Usability of Government Websites and Boost Your ROI & How to Use Plain Language on a Government Website
- Usability: A Business Case, by Susan Weinschenk, HFI, 2005.
Personas, Getting to know your audience
- Personas.(an annotated resource list) by Dey Alexander Consulting
- Long Live the User (Persona): Talking with Steve Mulder. by Liz Danzico and Steve Mulder
- The User is Always Right. A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web. by Steve Mulder with Ziv Yaar
- Create and Satisfy Demand: Two Tools to Complete the Marketing Loop. by Steve Mulder
- Bringing More Science to Persona Creation (ppt presentation). by Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar
- Podcasts: The User is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web. by Steve Mulder
- Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research. by Mike Kuniavsky
- The inmates are running the asylum. by Alan Cooper
- About Face 2.0. by Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann
- The Persona Lifecycle. Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design. by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin
- Communicating Design. by Dan Brown
- A Designer’s Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need. by Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady
- Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Third Edition. Designing Large-Scale Web Sites. by Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld
- Look at it Another Wayby Indi Young
- Research Paper – Real or Imaginary: The effectiveness of using personas in product design. by Frank Long
- Extending a Technique: Group Personas. by Mike Kuniavsky
- Personas: Matching a Design to the Users’ Goals. by Christine Perfetti
- Personas and the Role of Design Documentation How it’s less about deliverables, and more about design. by Andrew Hinton
- The Best Way to Understand Your Customers. by Peter Merholz
- Personas 99% Bad? by Peter Merholz
- Personas and the Advantage of Designing for Yourself. by Joshua Porter
- Persona non grata. by Steve Portigal
- Making Personas Work for Your Web Site: An Interview with Steve Mulder. by Jared Spool
- Three Important Benefits of Personas. by Jared Spool
- Personas are NOT a Document. by Jared Spool
- Crappy Personas vs. Robust Personas. by Jared Spool
- Putting Context nto Context. by Jared Spool
- Focus Questions for Site Visits. by Jared Spool
- SpoolCast: An Interview with Kate Gomoll on Field Studies. by Jared Spool
- Field Research Fundamentals: An Interview with Kate Gomoll. by Ashley McKee
- An introduction to personas and how to create them. by Tina Calabria
- How personas and scenarios can change your website for the better – Part 1. by John Wood
- How personas and scenarios can change your website for the better – Part 2. by John Wood
- Does your persona eat twinkies? by Steve Calde
- Building a Data-Backed Persona. by Andrea Wiggins
- Goal-Directed Design: An Interview with Kim Goodwin. by Christine Perfetti
- Perfecting Your Personas. By Kim Goodwin
- Taking Personas Too Far. by Kim Goodwin
- Getting from Research to Personas: Harnessing the Power of Data. by Kim Goodwin
- Ignore that designer behind the persona. by Chris Noessel
- Using Personas to Create User Documentation. by Steve Calde
- The Origin of Personas. by Alan Cooper
- Reconciling Market Segments and Personas. by Elaine Brechin
- User Research for Personas and Other Audience Models. by Steve Baty
- Personas: Setting the Stage for Building Usable Information Sites. by Alison J. Head
- Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design Accessibility in User-Centered Design: Personas. by Shawn Lawton Henry
- Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design Accessibility in User-Centered Design: Example Personas. by Shawn Lawton Henry
- Making Personas Sparkle Like Diamonds, Part 1. by Bryan Eisenberg
- Making Personas Sparkle Like Diamonds, Part 2. by Bryan Eisenberg
- Feature: The Return on Investment (ROI) for Personas. by John Pruitt and Tamara Adlin
- Beyond Fake Personas. by Angela Quail
- Squiggles help find personas. By Patrick Kennedy
- Persona Examples. (pdf format) by Razorfish
- Persona Builder (web application)
eCommerce
- Ecommerce User Intefrace Design for the Web. By Lawrence Najjar
- Reducing shopping cart abandonment: How to minimize orphaned carts. By Michael Bloch
- 5 Universal Principles For Successful eCommerce-Sites. By Jeff Olson, March 23rd, 2009
- Argus Whitepaper: Retail Ecologies, E-Commerce and Information Architecture
- Argus Whitepaper: Information Architecture of the Shopping Cart
- Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design Revisited: A Survey of 500 Top E-Commerce Websites
by Shivashankar Naidu and Barbara S. Chaparro - Online Shopping. by John Horrigan, Pew Internet & American Life Project. Feb 13, 2008
- Ten Usability Heuristics by Jakob Nielsen
- First Principles of Interaction Design by Bruce Tognazzini
- Web Form Design. by Luke Wroblewski. See his blog: Functioning Form
- Robert Barnett – on Information Design, Business Forms, Procedure Manuals, Usability and other subjects
- Jessica Enders on form design
- Accessible Forms by Marla Erwin
- 8 Characteristics Of Successful User Interfaces by Dmitry
- Software Usability Research Laboratory
- Shopping cart abandonment benchmarks by Chris Baker
- The art of the cart: Why people abandon shopping carts By Craig Goldwyn
- eCommerce & Shopping Cart Usability: 21 Best Practices
- Shopping Carts Gallery: Examples and Good Practices
- Study Data: Absolutely Pitiful Ecommerce Shopping Cart Abandonment Stats — 4 Ways to Improve Yours By Anne Holland
- Economic concerns haven’t had much effect on results, but it’s going to take something “monumental” to push e-commerce to the next level. By Jessica Tsai Posted Mar 10, 2008
- E-Stats – the U.S. Census Bureau’s Internet site devoted exclusively to “Measuring the Electronic Economy.”
- E-Stats, Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales
- Improve Online Check-Out Functionality. by Marta Baigorri, Forrester. December 22, 2008
- Shopping Cart Usability
- Best Practices for Online Checkout Process. By Ruth Boyd.
- 8 Best Practices for Reducing Shopping Cart Abandonment. By Terry Jukes. February 12, 2009