Usability

From Stephanie's Wiki

Contents 1 Readings 2 Blogs & Web Sites 3 Not Directly About Web Usability, but Definitely User-focused 4 Stephanie's Material @ Usability

Readings

• Byerly, Greg. "Look in their eyes--eye tracking, usability, and children." School Library Media Activities Monthly, 23.8 (2007): 30-32.
• Cobus, Laura, Valeda Frances Dent, and Anita Ondrusek. "How Twenty-Eight Users Helped Redesign an Academic Library Web Site." Information Technology & Libraries 44.3 (2005): 232-46.
• Hawley, Michael. Preparing for User Research Interviews: Seven Things to Remember UX Matters. July 7, 2008.
• Krug, Steve. Don't Make Me Think! 2d ed, 2006. Indianapolis, Ind. : Que. Three chapters on usability testing available at Steve's site, sensible.com.
• Marty, Paul F. and Michael Twidale, Usability@90mph: Presenting and Evaluating a New, High-Speed Method for Demonstrating User Testing in Front of an Audience. FirstMonday. July, 2005.
• Morville, Peter. Ambient Findability, 2005. O'Reilly.
• Nielsen, Jakob. "10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities" Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability.
• ---. "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design." Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability.
• ---. "Usability 101." Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability.
• Nielsen, Jakob, and Marie Tahir. Homepage Usability : 50 Websites Deconstructed. New Riders, 2002.
• Porter, Leslie. "Library Applications of Business Usability Testing Strategies." Library Hi Tech 25.1 (2007): 126-135.
• Resnick, Marc L. and Misha W. Vaughan. Best practices and future visions for search user interfaces Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 57.6 (2006): 781-787. See especially pages 783-784.
• Reynolds, Erica. "Secret to Patron-Centered Web Design: Cheap, Easy, and Powerful Usability Techniques." Computers in Libraries, 28.6 (2008): 6+.
• Shneiderman, Ben. Designing for Fun: How Can We Design User Interfaces to be More Fun? (pdf) Interactions, 11.5 (2004): 48-50.
• Yi, Kwanm, Jamshid Beheshti, Charles Cole, John E. Leide, Andrew Large. User search behavior of domain-specific information retrieval systems: An analysis of the query logs from PsycINFO and ABC-Clio's Historical Abstracts/America: History and Life. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 57.9 (2006): 1208-1220.

Blogs & Web Sites

• Alertbox (Jakob Nielsen)
• Designing Better Libraries
• Experience design and information architecture resources (Jesse James Garrett)
• UIE Brain Sparks (Jared Spool)
• Usability.gov Terrific source for all kinds of information about usability, following this outline: plan, analyze, design, test & refine.
• Five Second Test on UConn's library database locator. See five second test to create your own.

Not Directly About Web Usability, but Definitely User-focused

• Morville, Peter. Ambient Findability. Sebastopol, Calif: O'Reilly, 2005.
• Norman, Donald A. The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1998.

Stephanie's Material @ Usability

Usability Testing: Worth the Effort?

• Fuller, Kate, Livingston, J., Brown, Stephanie Willen, Cowan, Susanna, Wood, Thomas, & Porter, Leslie. (2009). "Making Unmediated Access to E-resources a Reality: Creating a Usable ERM Interface." Reference & User Services Quarterly. 48(3), 287-301.
• Brown, Stephanie Willen. Test, Edit, Repeat: Steps to Improve Your Web Site Computers in Libraries 22.10 (2002): 14+.
• Usability Testing: Worth the Effort? (pdf); for UMass July 12, 2007
• Usability: Worth the Effort? (pdf); for Simmons GSLIS, March 24, 2007
  • FAQ for ERM public interface redesign, from UConn.

Usability @ 90 mph & variations

• Usability & the Connecticut State Library Web Site, Dec. 2008.
  • State library web sites
  • Library Terms that Users Understand (John Kupersmith's bibliography)
• Live Web Usability Lab, presentation at Connecticut Library Association, April 2008.
• Live Usability Lab, presentation at Ex Libris User Group of North America Annual Meeting, July 2008.
• Live Usability Lab: See One, Do One, Take One Home, workshop for Connecticut State Library, Sept. 11, 2008
  • Questions for a sample usability test of the Conn. State Library web site, developed by workshop participants.
  • Questions for a sample usability test, developed by workshop participants.