Category Archives: Application Usability

Healthcare IT News: Health 2.0 2010 Developer Challenge

This is a wonderful community effort! The Health 2.0 2010 Developer Challenge was launched on June 2nd, 2010 at the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI) meeting at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), with support from the Department of Health and … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Healthcare Usability, Real-World Usability, Social Networking, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD), Web 2.0, Web Usability | Leave a comment

Smashing Magazine: 40+ Helpful Resources On User Interface Design Patterns

User interface design patterns are common researched and reusable solutions to frequent user interface problems. There are a number of user interface pattern repositories. This article in Smashing Magazine lists over 40 resources for user interface design patterns. Here’s what they … Continue reading

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“Mad Libs” Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40%

UI designers are always looking for new ways to do common tasks better and faster. This new style of filling in forms may prove to be one of those new twists that makes people think, “Why didn’t I think of … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Marketing Usability, User Centered Design (UCD), Users, Web 2.0, Web Content, Web Usability | Leave a comment

Usability Guidelines for Heuristic Evaluation

Very nice overview of heuristic evaluation guidelines for websites. >

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UX Problems at American Airlines

Dustin Curtis wrote a blog article about American Airlines’ poor website design. He received an e-mail from an Interaction Designer within the company explaining the corporate culture at American Airlines with regard to the website. The designer was promptly fired … Continue reading

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Classic “This is Broken” Seth Godin Video

Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change in his Gel 2006 video. Why are so many things broken? In this entertaining talk – one of the favorites of Gel 2006 – Seth Godin gives a tour of things … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Marketing Usability, Real-World Usability, Usability Bloopers, Usability Humor, User Centered Design (UCD), Web Usability | Leave a comment

Usability of Electronic Medical Records

CHICAGO (July 1, 2009) A new white paper, Defining and Testing EMR Usability: Principles and Proposed Methods of EMR Usability Evaluation and Rating, identifies usability of clinical software systems for the electronic medical record as one of the major … Continue reading

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Designers Who Wireframe: Pros and Cons

Most UI/usability/information designers/architects create various types of wireframes when we design. This article discusses the different types of wireframes and their pros and cons. The article also shows good examples of diffferent types of wireframes and the final website design. … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Prototyping, User Centered Design (UCD), Web Usability | 1 Comment

12 steps to stellar software design

Practitioners can always use good advice. David Crow, usability adviser at Microsoft Canada, and Jay Goldman, president of Radiant Core in Toronto, speaking at the Free Software and Open Source Symposium at Seneca College in Toronto last month, offered a … Continue reading

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Business-Software Vendor Finds Business Software Impossible to Use

The Business Technology Blog in Wall Street Journal describes a software vendor’s study: IFS, a business-software vendor, sent us a report titled The Increasing Importance of Usability in Enterprise Software the results of a survey earlier this year of … Continue reading

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Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

I conducted eye-movement research on reading comprehension in my graduate work on my M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology back in the early 80′s. Eye-tracking hardware and software have come a long way since then and they provide very interesting … Continue reading

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Computer Usability – Need we say more?

Police excuse angry computer user for outburst Reuters, Tuesday July 17, 2007 2:35pm EDT (View article) BERLIN (Reuters) – A German man who startled his neighbors when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Technology, Usability Humor | 2 Comments

History of GUIs: Interview with Larry Tesler

Good interview with Larry Tesler, one of the innovators from Xerox PARC who created the early GUIs with icons and folders on the desktop. After the Xerox PARC years, he worked at Apple on the early GUI products, the Apple … Continue reading

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So You Want to Be a Rock Star (Usability Consultant) – UPA 2007 Panel

Usability Professionals’ Association 2007 Conference: Patterns: Blueprints for Usability, June 11-15, Austin, Texas I am participating on an exciting panel of expert consultants at the 2007 UPA conference. It should be a great time. Please check out the Advance Program. … Continue reading

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Articles/Videos: Steve Krug (Web Usability) and Jakob Nielsen (Application Usability)

Read and view interviews with two colleagues and well-known UI authors and gurus, Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug. Great Minds in Development: Steve Krug talks about Web usability Article Video Great Minds in Development: Jakob Nielsen – Designing Your Applications … Continue reading

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New! Two Forrester Research Reports on Usability Testing

Forrester Research has just published two studies on usability testing in their new series, “Usability Testing for Managers.” I participated as one of the experts in the field Forrester surveyed for the studies. These studies are usually not publicly distributed, … Continue reading

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Prototyping Tips

A major aspect in user interface and interaction design is prototyping. Typically, prototypes are either low-fidelity prototypes (flip-charts, drawings, PowerPoint, etc.) to evaluate conceptual designs or high-fidelity prototypes (HTML/JavaScript, Flash, application code, etc.) for design, evaluation and development. Learn more … Continue reading

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