How to do a Software usability evaluation
Most of the guidelines and checklists available on the internet are for "web usability" is there any checklist for "software usability"? ...
usability
Usability Tests of Widely-Used Software
Does anyone know where I can go to find the results of usability testing of widely used software? I want to be able to make informed decisions about: which bits of existing packages to copy in my software how to choose between multiple packages (programs, components, etc). Really, I would be grateful for anything here. I'm int...
How would you pitch Usability to your manager?
Hey Everyone, For a little background, I work for a firm that develops web-based enterprise social media platforms. We have a diverse clientele and our mantra is that we bring our clients closer to their clients. Basically, usability should be a very, very important consideration for us throughout the product lifecycle. However, my ...
Best Practice for Cross-Platform Browser Testing for Intranet site for small team?
Hi, in my team usually one web developer creates the web app then does some alpha testing himself before passing the fuller testing to the only tester in the company. So you probably can guess that we don't have a lot of free pcs or resources available so we can't do the wmware or virtual pc thingy :( So based on the resources on this ...
Morae Screen Text search not capturing screen text in WPF app
When I try to use Morae Manager 3.0 to run a Screen Text search on a recording of our prototype (coded in WPF, .NET version 3.5 SP1), the only things that come up are the window titles. We are using Windows XP. Even when I search for something that is editable, like text typed into a text box, it does not come up. Screen text for thing...
How does your organization approach usability?
I have a good friend (my old college roommate, actually), who critiques my personal projects every once in awhile. He is a usability engineer at a large bank, and I'm constantly amazed at what kinds of things he catches/suggestions he makes. Back when I was in college, I always knew usability was important on some level, but I didn't rea...
Are there any alternatives to recaptcha.net, for stopping spam?
A member of my company in greater ranking than myself refuses to use recaptcha.net on his website to thwart spam off of a public form. He thinks it would be difficult for anyone coming to our site to enter their information since the Turing Tests are "so darn hard to read". Is there an alternative to using this method? That doesn't co...
Slow response-time cheat sheet
Does anyone have links to current and historical papers and authoritative links (statistics and blog posts) regarding response-time for user interfaces? Naturally the authoritative link is Human factors design criteria in man-computer interaction Some key quotes include: [Regarding] response to request for next page. […] Delays...
Web Usability - Background Music
I personally loathe background music on a website. My client has opposite feelings on the subject. I added music because the customer is always right, though I'd like to revisit the subject with them. Almost everyone would agree that it is annoying and wastes precious bandwidth but are there any usability studies or a recommendation for...
Explicit API methods vs. generalised parameter-based API methods
When defining a customer-accessible API, what is the preferred industry practice between the following: a) Defining a set of explicit API methods, each with a very narrow and specific purpose, for example: SetUserName <name> SetUserAge <age> SetUserAddress <address> b) Defining a set of more generalised parameter-based API met...
Web usability - datalists and operations on rows of data
Where you have a databound list of items and for each item you may want to provide users the ability to (for example): Delete Download View Detail or 'mark' in some way You have a few options: Provide buttons or links within the row itself to complete the operation on the row item Provide a checkbox select within the row and then a...
Usability Solutions to Displaying Denormalized Data
I've got a typical impedance mismatch where the data is stored in a normalized fashion: Client | Year | Value -------------------------- Foo 2007 9000000 Foo 2008 10000000 Bar 2008 20000000 Foo 2009 12000000 Bar 2009 15000000 But the users consume, visualize and comprehend it in a denormalized fash...
What's the best tradeoff between text and icons on buttons?
In a discussion with co-workers today, I lamented that I can't ever remember what an icon means, and have to hover over them to see the tooltips, and thus to find the button I need. On their side, they were saying that when the text needs to be translated, it might not fit (German vs English for example), and that every place where the...
Is there a KDE systray epplet for Enlightment?
Enlightenment DR16 is packaged with openSUSE 11.1 but it's a bit painful to use with KDE apps as there's no obvious (on the Enlightenment site, google etc.) way to provide a systray for KDE apps that require one (e.g., ktorrent). Anyone know of a way around this? I'm not using e for the eye-candy - I'm running on a 2.6GHz Celeron and K...
How do you deal with temporary useless controls in Winforms (hiding vs disabling) ?
It's quite common to have a form with a checkbox stating "Use foo" immediately followed by a textbox where the user can input the "foo value" he want's to use. Of course, this textbox is useful only if "Use foo" is checked I don't know the best way to deal with this situation : Disable the textbox (ie textboxfoo.Enabled=false;) Hide i...
Html label tag and ASP.NET
What is the best way to use the <label> tag within an ASP.NET application? I want it to be XHTML valid, accessible and usable. I understand the optimal way is this: <label for="Username">Username:</label> <input type="text" id="Username" runat="server" /> But if the above code is in an ASP.NET user control, the input ID will change, ...
Is it possible to make Outlook to remember allowed programs?
This is somewhat related to How to avoid Outlook security alert when reading outlook message from C# program. I use MyPhoneExplorer to manage my cell phone, but whenever it syncs with Outlook I get that pesky message box every time. I am getting tired of both hunting down that checkbox / button combo and to answer the same thing over an...
What is the best way of formally expressing usability requirements?
Hi, I am writing a system requirements document and need to include non-functional requirements relating to the usability of the system, but am not sure of the best way to express this. "The system shall be easy to use" seems a bit vague to me, and not testable. Are there any 'official' standards/guidelines that can be adhered to relat...
Designing Adobe AIR applications - Which Usability Guidelines to follow?
Adobe AIR has enabled us push the boundary for creating Rich Internet Applications(RIA) outside the browser fence. Some companies have differentiated such applications as Rich Desktop Application (RDA). We have usability guidelines for Web, Desktop and RIA applications separately. But since, Adobe AIR has enabled us to create desktop ap...
Completely keyboard driven UI
After reading the inspiring article We are typists first by Jeff, I decided to use the keyboard and stay away from the pointer as much as possible. But I observed that for many applications especially on the WEB it is not easy. I also tried to incorporate this feature in my own pet projects and realize that there is huge UI design ef...