Quicktest Center - Usability

Hi all,

today I want inform you about the new Quicktest Center developed by TechTalk. With this tool it's possible to check the quality of your requirements analysis document or the usability of your software.


The Usability QuickCheck consists of 10 questions and is only a small excerpt of a larger criteria catalog (about 60 questions). At the moment the Tool is only available in german and if you don't want to install Silverlight you can find more information about the test here.

Br, Claudia

What can we learn from Game Design?

Microsoft Office Labs hosted a few weeks ago the Seattle’s Interaction Design Association meeting and they were talking about the concepts of games and how they can be used for interaction design for ordinary applications or websites.

The videos of the presentations are available here.

Br Claudia

World Usability Day 2008: Transportation

So.. today is the World Usabiltiy Day (Making life easy!) with the theme "Transportation: Understand how your use of transportation impacts our environment" ...

.. and now celebrate .. probably with a Häferl Punch :-)

Br, Claudia

IxDA & Interaction 08

Hi,

today I want introduce to you the IxDA - Interaction Design Association. They describe themselfs as follows:

The Interaction Design Association is a member-supported organization committed to serving the needs of the international interaction design community.
The forum and mailing lists are really interesting.

They are also hosting the IxDA Interaction conferences.The videos of the Interaction 08 are available on the web and I already downloaded 10 of them (internally available).

Have fun,
Claudia

Introduction to Good Usability

Hi,

today I want to show you a PDF called "Introduction to Good Usability" (by peterpixel).

It only has 20 pages (and a lot of images) and it gives information about interface design guidelines and principles of good usability focusing on websites.
(You also can find a printed version in my room).

Most of the principles are really obvious and if you read the book "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug you will recognize a lot.

So if you want to read more ... read the book - It is available @ TT and I really recommend this book (only 200 pages and very easy and entertaining to read).

Br, Claudia

I want to introduce you to ... Jakob Nielsen

Hi.....

today I want to introduce you to Jakob Nielsen if you don't know him by now. Jakob Nielsen is a very popular web usability expert.. also often called a web design/usability guru.

Mainly in the 90s he wrote a lot of interesting books/articles/etc. and influenced many usability and web design principles. For example if I talk about heuristic evaluation, the heuristics that I normally use were defined by Nielsen. So.. he is a usability guru, but he has one problem.. his website: http://www.useit.com

And here is a intersting article about this topic:
Guardian: "The web design guru that web designers love to hate"

Br, Claudia

Agile 2008: Developers, Interaction designers & agile

Alan Cooper is a famous interaction designer and this year he gave the closing keynote at the Agile 2008 conference. I recommend to view his presentation but it is only the presentation with detailed comments (no video).

His blog entry:
http://www.cooper.com/journal/2008/08/alans_keynote_at_agile_2008.html

The presentation itself:
http://www.cooper.com/journal/agile2008/

He also wrote the book "About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design" (available @ TT, the green book) and "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity".

Br, Claudia

Welcome to the World of Usability!

At irregular intervals you will find in this blog information and news about usability in general, some book recommendations, links to interesting sites, conferences and videos.

I think in the beginning phase there will be more posts, because I have so much in mind that I want to share with you :-).

Feel free to leave comments.