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Topic: Usability engineering

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	Guerrilla HCI
		I recently had a meeting to discuss usability engineering with the head of computer science for one of the world's most famous laboratories, and when discussing the needed number of subjects for various tests, he immediately referred to the need for test results to be statistically significant to be worth collecting.
		Those usability parameters that have no goals set for improvement risk being left behind as the attention of the usability engineer is concentrated on the official goals.
		Forty of these problems are denoted "core" usability problems and were found in the part of the interface that was subjected to intensive evaluation, whereas the remaining four problems were discovered in parts of the interface that we had not planned to study as part of the heuristic evaluation.
	www.useit.com /papers/guerrilla_hci.html (8250 words)

	UsabilityNet: Usability Planning
		Usability planning provides an important means of managing individual usability activities as well as the overall role played by usability input within a software engineering programme.
		Usability planning should be carried out for all development projects, but in particular development projects purporting a high degree of user-centred design.
		As a part of the usability planning exercise a cost-benefit analysis may be required to indicate that it is worth making an investment in further user-centred design activities.
	www.usabilitynet.org /tools/planning.htm (569 words)

	Usability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.
		Usability can also refer to the methods of measuring usability and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance.
		Usability testing is the measurement of ease of use of a product or piece of software.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Usability (1045 words)

	TaskZ.com \| ViewPointz by Carol Righi, Ph.D.
		Practitioners in the field of usability engineering refer to the demonstration of the value of usability engineering as the "Holy Grail" of the field.
		Until the time that usability engineering is as well accepted as architecture and other established fields, it is the responsibility of the usability professional to provide the data that will lead it to be so.
		In addition to usability professionals striving to become empiricists and seeking training in the requisite skills, clients should also be aware of the need to demonstrate empirically the value of usability.
	www.taskz.com /ucd_righi2_indepth.php (2005 words)

	Usability Engineering
		As noted in Remington's report, usability research is one facet of usability engineering.
		Those working in a variety of fields may find that usability engineering and a study of usability is critical.
		Usability research and user research is a fertile and diverse field that may integrate a variety of specialized content areas.
	www.bsu.edu /web/jcflowers1/rlo/usabilityengineering.htm (726 words)

	Corporate Solutions Consulting (UK) Limited - Usability Engineering
		Usability can then be removed from the realms of marketing ploy, and elevated to the status of design aid.
		In chemical engineering the quality of chemicals are judged in terms of their entropy or catalytic qualities at certain temperatures and pressures.
		To effectively engineer a system and ensure that expensive development resources are not squandered in producing deliverables of poor usability, design must be informed and guided by a knowledge of the prospective user’s tasks, usability criteria and user attributes.
	www.consult-me.co.uk /csc-usability-engineering-page.htm (1673 words)

	Software Design Smorgasbord: Usability Engineering Page
		Usability engineering is a systematic approach to making software easier to use for the individuals who actually use it to get their work done.
		When many people hear the term "usability," they immediately think of labs where software is tested, where developers quietly gnash their teeth behind one-way mirrors as they watch users fumble over simple functions that they thought were well-designed.
		Usability Interface, their quarterly newsletter, is substantial and their usability resources section is excellent.
	mysite.verizon.net /resnx4g7/Academic/UseEng.html (2692 words)

	UsabilityNet: International Standards
		Usability: the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
		Usability: a set of attributes that bear on the effort needed for use, and on the individual assessment of such use, by a stated or implied set of users.
		Usability: the capability of the software product to be understood, learned, used and attractive to the user, when used under specified conditions.
	www.usabilitynet.org /tools/r_international.htm (3912 words)

	TaskZ.com \| Professional usability engineering
		Individuals who offer usability engineering expertise that are more "art" based, as is quite common in web development firms, do not have the expertise to address the most important cognitive aspects of creating usable products and services.
		The first step in determining the benefits of professional usability engineering is to know what to ask and where to look for such expertise.
		When obtaining usability engineering expertise from either a headhunter or a placement firm, it is absolutely essential that each candidate have a formal degree in human factors or ergonomics.
	www.taskz.com /usability_indepth.php (525 words)

	Software Usability Engineering
		Software usability engineering is a structured approach to building software systems that meet the needs of users in various environments with varying levels of computer experience.
		The three principal activities of software usability engineering are on-site observations of and interviews with system users, usability specification development, and evolutionary delivery of the system.
		As we have gained experience with usability engineering, we have moved from laboratory tests to field visits as the main source of usability data.
	www.recordare.com /good/dtj.html (4903 words)

	"usability engineering consultant PTS - websites, usability, documentation
		Usability studies both ease of use and usefulness of Web sites and software interfaces, measured against a set of standard rules, or "heuristics," that were developed from research with actual users.
		Usability testing measures a user interface's ability to accomplish the goals of a user and focuses on the tasks actual users will try to accomplish with the interface.
		Usability training is for those clients who wish to learn usability skills for initiating usability engineering programs in their own companies.
	www.techwrite.net /usability.htm (408 words)

	Usability engineering: Systematic methods to improve your user interface (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Usability is not simply a matter of making users like your product, even though subjective satisfaction is important and usually increases substantially when you design a system to better match users' needs.
		Mainly, usability is a matter of how easy a system is to learn and how efficient it is to use after you have learned it.
		Usability follows from integrating usability methods into the development process and from running user tests as soon as you have a prototype design.
	www-128.ibm.com /developerworks/ibm/library/it-nielsen2 (1482 words)

	World Usability Day 2006 About
		World Usability Day 2006 promotes the value of usability engineering and user-centered design and the belief that every user has the responsibility to ask for things that work better.
		The Usability Professionals' Association is doing that by encouraging, organizing, and sponsoring 36 hours of activities at the local level around the globe, all occurring on November 14, 2006.
		The importance of usability is not trivial; it is connected to important everyday things such as education, healthcare and safety.
	worldusabilityday.org /about (306 words)

	Usability, Usability Testing, and Usability Consultant
		Usability is a general term that encompasses everything having to do with "ease of use." That is, how easily people can use any product's controls or displays such as a: tool, computer display, automobile, aircraft, etc. Usability also refers to the study of methods, measurement, and principles of a product's efficiency, elegance, and usefulness.
		Questionnaires in Usability Engineering a compilation of the questions I have heard most often and the answers I gave, should have given, or would have given if I had thought of it first.
		KDE Usability Project is an initiative to apply usability principles and practices to the K Desktop Environment.
	www.usernomics.com /usability.html (2630 words)

	Usability Resources
		Usability Engineering is the discipline of supporting the entire development process of electronic information applications with user-centred design and user validation activities, in order to create applications which are fit for their intended use and are of added value to the intended users.
		The best time to begin is when you are planning a development project, so you can make a reasonable allocation of resources to the usability engineering process, using principles of user-centred design.
		The European Usability Support Centres network can offer consultancy services for usability engineering activities - a limited amount of free consultancy is still available to EU Telematics Applications Programme projects - contact the INUSE Project Manager.
	www.elpub.org /jzus1.htm (998 words)

	Usability Engineering Lifecycle : Book Review : uidesign.net
		The former promised to demostrate how to integrate usability engineering with OOSE (the established software development methodology from Ivar Jacobson); the later, was said to provide the hints, tips and alternatives needed in order to adopt the methodology to the web site design.
		I felt that the Roles and Responsibilities was a little lightweight as it concentrates on whether the UI Designer or Usability Engineer are leading the team.
		Overall I failed to be convinced by this integration of Use Cases and Usability Engineering for Requirements Analysis.
	www.uidesign.net /1999/books/jul_books1.html (2417 words)

	Usability Engineering (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Usability Engineering: Industry-Government Collaboration for System Effectiveness and Efficiency was the first symposium on usability sponsored by NIST.
		He demonstrated that usability engineering is the route to usable interfaces.
		William Hefley, a Senior Member of the Technical Staff of the Software Engineering Institute, spoke on "Usability Trends in Government." He urged government to learn a lesson now acknowledged in the commercial sector: usability engineering is cost justifiable.
	www.asis.org /SIG/SIGHCI/articles/nistconf.html (558 words)

	How can I show that usability engineering saves money? - Usability Basics \| Usability.gov
		You can use usability testing to show that the benefits of usability engineering outweigh the costs.
		In that case, spending $60,000 on usability engineering throughout development resulted in savings of $6,000,000 in the first year alone.
		Simply put, it's a way to determine if usability is worth the investment, by comparing the money spent on usability activities with the savings that result from the process.
	www.usability.gov /basics/usasaves.html (748 words)

	An Invitation to Usability
		We choose the term “usability engineering” as a deliberate challenge to the all-too-prevalent notion that designing for usability demands special insight into areas like psychology or visual arts that are outside the scope of what programmers can do.
		We think the belief that usability engineering is a form of arcane magic best left to the exclusive province of specialists is both false and harmful, and is a passive but potent encouragement to slovenly interface design.
		Just as damaging is the opposite assumption that usability engineering is trivial, and that usability can be sprayed on to a project after the design phase as though it were a coat of lacquer.
	www.catb.org /~esr/writings/taouu/html/pr01.html (1417 words)

	Usability Engineering Methods
		Usability Context Analysis) intended to facilitate such early focus and commitment (Thomas and Bevan, 1996).
		When usability inspection, or testing, is first carried out at the end of the design cycle, changes to the interface can be costly and difficult to implement, which in turn leads to mere usability recommendations.
		Observation focuses on major usability catastrophes that tend to be so glaring that they are obvious the first time they are observed and thus do not require repeated perusal of a recorded test session.
	user.meduni-graz.at /andreas.holzinger/holzinger/usability.html (3934 words)

	The Usability Consortium (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		In recognition of the growing need for Usability Engineering expertise, fourteen world-class Usability consulting firms from around the country have joined forces to form this consortium.
		Usability Engineering is devoted to maximizing efficient, effective interactions between people and software or products.
		The field of Usability Engineering has grown by leaps and bounds because the leaders of large companies have learned - sometimes through painful experience and lost revenue - the dangers of creating multimillion dollar systems or products which ultimately prove impractical and difficult to use.
	www.usabilityconsortium.com /index.html (150 words)

	ESRI Usability Engineering
		ESRI is committed to ensuring that you are productive and satisfied with our software products through Usability Testing.
		Usability Testing is the process where representative users are involved in evaluating a product.
		Usability Specialists are interested in the amount of time it takes to complete a task, the number and severity of errors made and their cause, and how satisfied the user is with the product's design.
	www.esri.com /software/usability (155 words)

	Amazon.com: Usability Engineering (Interactive Technologies): Books: Jakob Nielsen (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		"Usability engineering" is the formal study of usability.
		Both are eminently efficient and usable, but are also wonderful examples of visual blandness -- nearly devoid of the human and aesthetic factors that contributes to a depth of personality and a richness of sensory stimulation.
		Nielsen's observations, conclusions and suggestions continue to be very valuable in helping to pull interface design towards much needed greater usability and functionality, his mistake seems to be that this is all he sees as being important.
	www.amazon.com /Usability-Engineering-Interactive-Technologies-Nielsen/dp/0125184069 (2132 words)

	Developing Usability: An Engineering Process (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Virtually everyone recognizes the need for software to be usable but standard software development practice usually does not follow a process which promotes the design and engineering of usability into a product.
		If usability is a real concern, then it must be specified as a requirement and designed/engineered into a product.
		The objectives of this workshop are (1) to provide an understanding of the process required for specifying and engineering usability into a product and for evaluating a product's usability and (2) to enable the workshop participants to become knowledgeable champions of usability within their organization.
	www.usability-architects.com /devusab.html (176 words)

	Usability First: Usability Books
		These are some highly-recommended books related to usability, from graphic design to user testing.
		Offers structured techniques for usability engineers and project managers to quantify the costs and benefits of a new product.
		This book presents the techniques of usability engineering as a series of product lifecycle tasks.
	www.usabilityfirst.com /resources/bibliography.txl (433 words)

	Usability Engineering Center (UEC) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The Usability Engineering Center has developed several products to assist in usability engineering activities.
		This is not an exhaustive guide on running usability tests, but describes a low-cost method that has been used successfully by the Usability Engineering Center.
		Ensuring Customer Satisfaction provides an overview of the Usability Engineering and describes the techniques that are used to ensure a system is designed to be highly usable.
	usability.gsfc.nasa.gov /use (220 words)

	austin usability - engineering and testing
		Usability Engineering is best achieved by knowing your users.
		Usability engineering and testing provides companies with knowledge of where their users will experience problems BEFORE the product is shipped or the web site goes live.
		“Usability is critical throughout the design cycle,” says Jamie Rhodes, in the article “Austin Firm’s Define What is Friendly,” from the July 11, 2003 issue of the Austin Business Journal.
	www.austinusability.com (198 words)

	Cognizant Technology Solutions : Solutions : Usability Engineering
		Cognizant Usability designs high-performance user interfaces for enterprise software and transaction-intensive portals, and brings Process Efficient Technology expertise to every engagement.
		Usability Testing: Usability testing is performed on the application/prototype and UI metrics like User productivity and ROI projection are measured.
		Usability Testing Lab Cognizant's usability lab is state-of-the-art, supporting the systematic observation and analysis of human-computer interaction.
	www.cognizant.com /html/solutions/services/usability/services.asp (326 words)

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