Web Usability Resources
Ragnvald Sannes, assistant professor
Norwegian School of Management BI,
| Background | Readings | Resources
|
Background
In my research on Internet-based self-service (particularly e-banking)
we have found that usability is vital to adoption and use of self-service
solutions. In my view, usability is to technology the same as value creation
is to business processes (and that is my angle on the topic). A fascinating
observation (as a user and researcher of Internet-based self-service)
is that companies with a long experience and expertise in information systems
development seem to have forgotten usability basics when it comes to self-service
solutions.
Readings
If you are going to read only one book on usability
this is my recommendation:
Krug, Steve. 2000. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense
Approach to Web Usability. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing
Cognition
Readings that emphasize design of the human-computer
interface (HCI) based on individual information processing (i.e. cognition)
-
Adler, Paul S. & Winograd, Terry. 1992. Usability:
Turning Technologies into Tools. New York: Oxford University Press.
Noter: Bidrag fra en konferanse avholdt
i Stanford i mars 1990.
-
Shneiderman, Ben. 1998. Designing the user interface:
strategies for effective human-computer interaction. 3rd ed. Reading,
Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
-
Winograd, Terry, and Fernando Flores. 1986. Understanding
Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Norwood, NJ.:
Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Design centred readings
This is a cateogry with 13 books on every dozen.
- Cato, John. 2001. User-Centered Web Design. London, UK: Addision-Wesley
- Graham, Ian. 2003. A Pattern Language for Web
Usability. London, UK: Addison-Wesley
- Krug, Steve. 2000. Don't Make Me Think: A Common
Sense Approach to Web Usability. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing
- Nielsen, Jakob. 2000. Designing Web Usability:
The Practice of Simplicity. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing.
- Pearrow, Mark. 2001. Web Site Usability Handbook.
Rockland, Mass.: Charles River Media
Perrow emphasizes usability in terms of web-design and
focus group testing. A CD-rom with a usability toolbox is included with the
book
- Spool, Jared M., Scanlon, Tara, Schroeider, Will,
Snyder, Carolyn & DeAngelo, Terri. 1999. Web Site Usability: A Designers
Guide. San Francisco, CA.: Morgan Kaufmann
and quite a few articles
- Albert, T. C., Goes, P. B., & Gupta, A. (2004). GIST: A Model for Design
and Management of Content and Interactivity of Customer-Centric Web Sites.
MIS Quarterly, 28(2), 161-181.
Evaluation centred readings
A few books concentrate on evaluation. Quite a few of the
design oriented books include chapters on evaluation and use of focus groups.
- Alexander, Jan & Tate, Marsha Ann. 1999. Web
Wisdom: How to Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web. Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates
- Dumas, Joseph S. & Redish, Janice C. 1999. A
Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Exeter, UK: Intellect
An increasing number of articles provides useful information
about evaluation and evaluation methods:
- Benbunan-Finch, R. (2001). Using protocol analysis to evaluate the usability
of a commercial web site. Information & Management, 39(2), 151-163.
- Lightner, N. J. (2004). Evaluating E-Commerce Functionality with a Focus
on Customer Service. Communications of the ACM, 47(10), 88-93.
Resources
Last updated: 10. April 2007.
Comments to Ragnvald.Sannes@bi.no
Home page: http://infomgt.bi.no/sannes/