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Articles - Usability

Our continuous work on enterprise application design projects has allowed us to encounter, ponder, and solve many user interface problems. Here is a selection of some of the articles that we have written on the subject over the years.

A Pattern for Selecting Dates - [June 2003] Allowing users to enter dates into a form can be more confusing then it should be. Jim, takes a look at establishing a consistent pattern for solving this issue.
Leveraging UI Design with Agile Development - [February 2003] Jim and Matt take a look at an approach to shorten development time, and create synergy between project cycles, by incorporating business intelligence and technical expertise into the user interface (UI) design process.
Using Tab Patterns with Web Applications - [January 2003] Jim and Andrew establish a consistent pattern for selecting a single item from a list of categorized items using a file folder metaphor.
Implementing Visual Design Patterns - [August 2002] Countless designs have been deployed to very large user communities only to result in poor usability. Jim looks at visual design patterns (VDP) as a way of telling the developer when, why, and how the design solution can be applied successfully.
Managing Risk with Usability Testing - [September 2001] Aviva responds to the question: "Why should I pay attention to usability test results based on the observations of only a few users? Shouldn't the tests be based on a random sample of the whole population of users, and be statistically valid?"
What is Section 508, and why do you need to know about it? - [July 2001] Section 508 is poised to have an immense impact on all vendors of information technology, as well as on nearly all government agencies. Aviva takes a comprehensive look at it, and the information technology affected by Section 508.
Beating the Odds and Delivering Truly Usable Systems - [June 2001] How many times have you heard someone say, "GUI guidelines are mostly common sense"? If that's the case, then why do we struggle with designing usable systems so much? Andrew demonstrates how to delivery usable solutions.
What Kind of Users Use Your GUI? - [May 2001] In Part 2 in a series on Getting to Know the "U" in GUI, Aviva looks at getting accurate and specific details about the characteristics of your target user base for setting the usability requirements of a graphical user interface.
Do You Know Who Your Users Are? - [April 2001] In Part 1 in a series on Getting to Know the "U" in GUI, Aviva looks at how to understand your users -- their ways of working, the environments they work in, and the way they conceptualize the tasks automated by your system, to design a truly usable GUI.
Designing Successful Mobile Applications - [March 2001] As the wireless Internet becomes a reality, the end users strive to be more productive on this new breed of user interface. Jim sheds some light on the process of creating successful mobile interfaces.
Effective Icon Design - [May 1998] Since people comprehend images faster than words, icons can make it easier and faster to perform a task. Good icons convey their function rapidly and are easy to remember. Bad icons can actually reduce the usability of an application.
Menu Design for Complex Applications - [May 1997] Jim looks at the three types of menus in the traditional application window and how they enhances usability by defining the appropriate user interface as the user activates or deactivates an object.
Principles of Good GUI Design - [October 1995] Despite the GUI's popularity, surprisingly few programs exhibit good interface design. Jim describes the basic rules for all good interfaces -- the cardinal do's and don'ts.

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