Usability

Real world usability testing examples

Heather Solomon — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 17:40:00 GMT

Web Marketing Resources has posted a brief 3.5 minute video that highlights the benefits of doing usability testing on your sites and applications and includes several real world examples of usability testing of sites. Yes, it is a plug for their services, but it does give you some food for thought and a glimpse into something you can do for your site to improve it, user test it!

WMR Web Site Usability Video Download Page

Thanks to Todd Follansbee for sharing this with me.

Quality is Usability

Heather Solomon — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 13:49:00 GMT

Oh, I just love this post. Jensen has posted about some usability testing they did with Office 12, but you can easily strip out the Office 12 bits and apply this case study to any situation. Usability testing is highly, highly useful and can really provide some great data on how well your development is going. My favorite line is “When the quality sucks, the usability sucks”. Amen brother!

Quality Is Usability

Weblog Usability: Top Ten Mistakes

Heather Solomon — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 16:05:00 GMT

I have a lot of respect for Jakob Nielsen, and he has posted his top ten design mistakes for weblogs. While sometimes I think he is a little on the extreme or impractical side, I really like these usability tips for weblogs and I think he is dead on for every one. His article runs a little long, so here is a condensed list for those of you who just want to check to see if your blog is in line Jakob style:

Have an “About Me“ page with a photo of yourself.
Use descriptive posting titles - name topic and in our case, the technology.
Don't add links that are “read more here and here“. Tell users what you are linking to since no one likes to click into the unkown.
Don't let your good stuff get buried by time. Keep a running link list in a good place on your blog to your golden posts that provide value so any old or new blog visitor can benefit from past posts.
Use categorization for your posts, but don't assign too many categories to one post. Try to keep your posts neatly organized and minimize post overlap in categories.
Blog frequently. Daily, weekly or monthly.... pick a schedule and stick to it.
Minimize mixing topics.
Not only do you need to worry about current bosses and workplaces, but think about future ones too. Watch what you flame.
Get your own domain name.