More Research Reports (1999 and earlier)How Much Is Too Much?
The State of the Web study for 1999 found that "...nearly 30% of all pages present dead hyperlinks to their visitors, and the average page size remains, as it always has, at least twice the upper limit suggested by human factors research" (1999-12-20)Software Hell
According to this Business Week article "...most big companies depend on layer upon layer of hand-built, poorly documented computer code, which may conceal a variety of ticking time bombs--Y2K being just the most famous. According to the U.S. Defense Dept. and the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, there are typically 5 to 15 flaws in every 1,000 lines of code... Just tracking down each bug eats up about 75 minutes, according to a five-year Pentagon study. And fixing them takes two to nine hours each. On the outside, that's 150 hours, or roughly $30,000, to cleanse every 1,000 lines. (1999-12-05)Optimum Time of Day for Optimum Performance
This Human Factors International newsletter answers the question: "How can we ensure that older users perform as well as younger users in systems? Do younger and older users perform better at different times of the day?" (1999-12-05)AMODEUS
AMODEUS seeks to develop interdisciplinary approaches to studying interactions between users and systems and to establish routes through which such approaches might best be transferred to, and applied by, interface designers. Almost all of the documents that the project produces are available electronically in rtf file format. (1999-11-28)Students’ Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education Course
This article presents a qualitative case study of a web-based distance education course at a major U.S. university. The case data reveal a taboo topic: students' persistent frustrations in a web-based distance education course. In this study, students’ frustrations were found in three interrelated sources: lack of prompt feedback, ambiguous instructions on the web, and technical problems. It is concluded that the students' frustrations in this web-based course inhibited their educational opportunities. (1999-10-10)IT Excellence
This Information Week article reports on a survey of the top 500 IT (Information Technology) departments. The survey found that: "E-commerce applications and intranet or enterprise portals were at the top of the list of key strategic technology priorities. On average, InformationWeek 500 companies now draw 21% of their total revenue from E-business transactions." (1999-10-10)Online Shoppers Frustrated By Confusing Sites
According to this TechWeb news article "A research company estimates online retailers could lose as much revenue as the entire retail industry is set to earn during the upcoming holiday shopping season. In a consumer research study conducted on a dozen of the largest online retailers, 39 percent of customer buying attempts online and 56 percent of product searches failed." (1999-10-03)Gartner says 75 percent of e-business will fail
According to this Information World report "A full 75 percent of all e-business projects will fail due to poor planning and unrealistic expectations of new technology, according to a study released Thursday by research firm Gartner Group. Most companies implementing e-business strategies don't fully understand the new technologies behind e-business, the study said. At the same time, they become so dazzled by those very technologies and turn away from old-fashioned business planning and strategies." (1999-09-25)Web Site Availability: Pay Now Or Pay Later
According to this InternetWeek article: "Zona Research ... estimates that Web sites are losing $362 million per month-more than $4 billion annually-because of unacceptable download speeds. "Today's users have little patience for sites that simply do not get the basics right," Zona reports. Those basics include fast clickthrough, a dependable product fulfillment mechanism and responsive customer service." (1999-09-25)Report: Half of Net users mistrust sites
According to this CNet new article a study by Juniper communications found that "..about 64 percent of those surveyed mistrust online privacy policies. In light of recent privacy issues faced by America Online, United Airlines, and other online companies, the high percentage of wary users is understandable, analysts say. But their worries can be costly. Jupiter projects that privacy issues could potentially put an $18 billion dent in the $40 billion e-commerce revenue it projects by 2002." (1999-09-18)Wanted: Better Job Listings
The Business Week article reports on a usability study of 6 corporate web sites in which "...job seekers called up a company's recruitment site and tried to find and apply for a job that suited their interests and talents. They succeed in completing an application just 26% of the time." (1999-09-18)We have computers. Why aren't we more productive?
According to this Salon Magazine article ".. new research shows that technology rarely saves businesses time or money. In fact, innovations often come at considerable expense. But they do help companies do new things that would otherwise be impossible."(1999-09-05)Captology - Computers as Persuasive Technology
Like human persuaders, persuasive computing technologies can bring about positive changes in many domains, including health, safety, and education. With such ends in mind, we are creating a body of expertise in the design, theory, and analysis of persuasive technologies. We call this area "captology." (1999-09-05)Text Width and Margin Width Influences on Readability of GUIs
This study found ".. that, by itself, text width does not influence readability; however, there was a significant interaction between text width and margin width. The most efficiently read conditions were those with small text width (4-inch) and large margins, or the largest text width (8-inch) and no border. (1999-08-15)Readability Of Websites
"The effects of 6 foreground/background color combinations (color), 3 font types (Arial, Courier New, & Times New Roman), and 2 word styles (Italicized & Plain) on readability of websites were investigated. ... In general these results suggest that there is no one foreground/background combination, font, or word style which leads to the fastest RT (i.e. best readability), but rather a designer must consider how each variable affects the other(s)."(1999-08-15)Computer Stupidities
This site contains many stories and anecdotes about the kind of difficulties people encounter when they are first trying to learn how to use computers. Unfortunately the webmaster of this site views these people as stupid, rather than accepting the notion that perhaps the software is stupid. This site sadly reflects an all too common arrogant attitude towards the capabilities of users and the difficulties they encounter when learning to use a computer. These stories should not be treated as funny, but instructive and insightful. (1999-07-03)Factors and Principles Affecting the Usability of Four E-commerce Sites
" This paper documents the results of the initial study in which sixteen participants used and compared two sites that sold clothing, and two sites that sold computer products. The primary purpose of this first study was to pinpoint factors that affect the usability of four e-commerce sites". (Mar-07-99)Web Page Design: Implications of Memory, Structure and Scent
This paper describes "...an experiment to see if large breadth and decreased depth is preferable, both subjectively and via performance data, while attempting to design for optimal scent throughout different structures of a website. Results showed that, while increased depth did harm search performance on the web, a medium condition of depth and breadth outperformed the broadest, shallow web structure overall. (Sep-04-98)Maxmizing Windows This very interesting online article, by Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini describes the design and usability testing of a web page that contained instructions for maximizing the browser window. The design went through seven iterations before all the various types of users were able to successfully maximize the window. (May-15-98)
Building a Better Interface This builder.com article contains the opinions of several web site usability specialists. The experts include Jared Spool and Jakob Nielsen. (Jul-26-98)
Buttons vs. menus This exploratory study compares three command selection methods: pull-down menus, button bars, and user choice of pull-down menus or button bars. Results show that in frequently used functions, such as character attribute selection (bold, italic, underline, etc.), button bars are faster. There were no statistically significant differences in error rates between the three interaction methods. (Jul-05-98)
Helping and Hindering User Involvement - A Tale of Everyday Design This online article presents a case study of a software development project that involved users in the interface design. The case study documents that factors that both facilitated and hinder user involvement. (Aug -04-97)
Do Metaphors Make Web Browsers Easier to Use? This online research paper by Elissa D Smilowitz concludes that "Good metaphors facilitate performance, and poor metaphors are no more effective than non-metaphoric interfaces. Interestingly, the metaphor advantage appears to be carried in the language or terminology (i.e., function labels)...not through the graphics." (Feb-09-97)