Usability Assessment is a concise volume for anyone requiring knowledge and practice in assessing the usability of any type of product, tool, or system before it is launched. It provides a brief history and rationale for conducting usability assessments and examples of how usability assessment methods have been applied, takes readers step by step through the process, highlights challenges and special cases, and offers real-life examples. By the end of the book, readers will have the knowledge and skills they need to conduct their own usability assessments without requiring that they read textbooks or attend workshops. This book will be valuable for undergraduate and graduate students; practitioners; usability professionals; human-computer interaction professionals; researchers in fields such as industrial design, industrial/organizational psychology, and computer science; and those working in a wide range of content domains, such as health care, transportation, product design, aerospace, and manufacturing.

Usability Testing for Survey Research provides researchers with a guide to the tools necessary to evaluate, test, and modify surveys in an iterative method during the survey pretesting process. It includes examples that apply usability to any type of survey during any stage of development, along with tactics on how to tailor usability testing to meet budget and scheduling constraints. The book's authors distill their experience to provide tips on how usability testing can be applied to paper surveys, mixed-mode surveys, interviewer-administered tools, and additional products. Readers will gain an understanding of usability and usability testing and why it is needed for survey research, along with guidance on how to design and conduct usability tests, analyze and report findings, ideas for how to tailor usability testing to meet budget and schedule constraints, and new knowledge on how to apply usability testing to other survey-related products, such as project websites and interviewer administered tools. - Explains how to design and conduct usability tests and analyze and report the findings - Includes examples on how to conduct usability testing on any type of survey, from a simple three-question survey on a mobile device, to a complex, multi-page establishment survey - Presents real-world examples from leading usability and survey professionals, including a diverse collection of case studies and considerations for using and combining other methods - Discusses the facilities, materials, and software needed for usability testing, including in-lab testing, remote testing, and eye tracking

This report offers a survey of the methods that are being deployed at leading digital libraries to assess the use and usability of their online collections and services. Focusing on 24 Digital Library Federation member libraries, the study's author, Distinguished DLF Fellow Denise Troll Covey, conducted numerous interviews with library professionals who are engaged in assessment. The report describes the application, strengths, and weaknesses of assessment techniques that include surveys, focus groups, user protocols, and transaction log analysis. Covey's work is also an essential methodological guidebook. For each method that she covers, she is careful to supply a definition, explain why and how libraries use the method, what they do with the results, and what problems they encounter. The report includes an extensive bibliography on more detailed methodological information, and descriptions of assessment instruments that have proved particularly effective.

Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design. Three New Chapters! Usability as common courtesy -- Why people really leave Web sites Web Accessibility, CSS, and you -- Making sites usable and accessible Help! My boss wants me to ______. -- Surviving executive design whims "I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book. In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards

It's been known for years that usability testing can dramatically improve products. But with a typical price tag of $5,000 to $10,000 for a usability consultant to conduct each round of tests, it rarely happens. In this how-to companion to Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug spells out a streamlined approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to their own Web site, application, or other product. (As he said in Don't Make Me Think, "It's not rocket surgery".) Using practical advice, plenty of illustrations, and his trademark humor, Steve explains how to: Test any design, from a sketch on a napkin to a fully-functioning Web site or application Keep your focus on finding the most important problems (because no one has the time or resources to fix them all) Fix the problems that you find, using his "The least you can do" approach By paring the process of testing and fixing products down to its essentials ("A morning a month, that's all we ask"), Rocket Surgery makes it realistic for teams to test early and often, catching problems while it's still easy to fix them. Rocket Surgery Made Easy adds demonstration videos to the proven mix of clear writing, before-and-after examples, witty illustrations, and practical advice that made Don't Make Me Think so popular.

Do you want to improve the usability of your library website, but feel that it is too difficult, time-consuming, or expensive? In this book, you will learn that in-house usability testing on a budget is not only feasible, but it is practical, sustainable, and has the potential to lead to remarkable improvements of the content, design, and layout of your website. Usability Testing: A Practical Guide for Librarians will teach you how to: Make the case for usability testing Define your audience and their goals Select a usability testing method appropriate for your particular context Plan for an in-house usability test Conduct an effective in-house usability test Analyze usability test results and make decisions based on those results Create and implement a plan for ongoing, systematic usability testing Step-by-step instructions, along with a myriad of examples, allow you to use this book as a practical guide, and adapt the techniques for your own context. Techniques are appropriate for libraries of all types, including academic, public, and special libraries.

This book provides a variety of answers in its description and discussion of new, sometimes radical approaches to `usability evaluation', now an increasingly common business tool. It contains new thinking of the subject of usability evaluation in industry. Contributions come from those involved in the practice of industry-based usability evaluation