At first, usability testing seems fairly straightforward; watch someone using your system and infer something helpful from it. However, once you start to look into the details of doing a proper test, all sorts of questions begin to appear. What type of data are you going to collect? Are you going to have a post-test [...]
Reading is something most of us do all the time, more than walking, eating or writing. Text is everywhere, on signs and computer screens, in books and brochures. Consuming and processing all this language happens so quickly and so frequently that you barely even notice. It’s something we do automatically, something you’re doing right now, [...]
When Mark Boulton published A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web as a PDF book earlier this year, I was intrigued, but not convinced enough to buy it. As convenient as e-books are, to me they’re no match for the reading experience a proper paper book offers. So when he announced a limited print [...]
These days, I hardly do any of my shopping in real, brick and mortar shops. All of my books, music, films and software come from either Amazon or iTunes. Our groceries and household goods are ordered online from Sainsbury’s and I get Time magazine delivered. If there’s a choice between ordering online and buying from [...]
As you’re reading this, you’re probably overlooking the reason why you’re using a mouse. Who invented it? What about the toolbar and drop-down menus? Copy and paste? The desktop and icons? All of these things make up the computer systems we use today, but how did we get to this point and why do we [...]
Along with Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think!, few usability books come as highly recommended as The Design of Everyday Things. Originally written twenty years ago, Donald Norman’s book analyses the reasons why people interact with objects and systems in the way that they do and what can be done to make this process easier. [...]