Designing Web usability

cover image

Where to find it

Information & Library Science Library

Call Number
TK5105.888 .N55 2000 c. 6
Status
Available
Call Number
TK5105.888 .N55 2000 c. 4
Status
Available

Park Library (School of Media & Journalism)

Call Number
TK5105.888 .N55 2000
Status
Available

Kenan Science Library — Remote Storage

Call Number
TK5105.888 .N55 2000 c. 5
Status
Available

Authors, etc.

Names:

Summary

Deals with content and page design, designing for ease of navigation and users with disabilities. This book presents a series of principles which show: that web users want to find what they're after quickly; and, that if they don't know what they're after, they want to browse quickly and access information they come across in a logical manner.

Contents

  • Preface p. 2
  • Errata p. 4
  • Book Layout p. 5
  • Guide to This Book p. 5
  • 1 Introduction: Why Web Usability? p. 8
  • Art Versus Engineering p. 11
  • The Competitive Bar Is High p. 11
  • About the Examples p. 12
  • A Call for Action p. 13
  • What This Book Is Not p. 13
  • Bad Usability Equals No Customers p. 14
  • Why Everybody Designs Websites Incorrectly p. 14
  • 2 Page Design p. 16
  • Screen Real Estate p. 18
  • Cross-Platform Design p. 25
  • Where Are Users Coming From? p. 27
  • Data Ink and Chart Junk p. 27
  • The Car as a Web Browser p. 28
  • Resolution-Independent Design p. 29
  • Color Depth Getting Deeper p. 29
  • Get a Big Screen p. 31
  • Using Non-Standard Content p. 31
  • Installation Inertia p. 33
  • When Is It Safe to Upgrade? p. 33
  • Helpful Super-Users p. 35
  • Collect Browsers p. 36
  • Separating Meaning and Presentation p. 36
  • Platform Transition p. 37
  • Response Times p. 42
  • Data Lives Forever p. 43
  • Predictable Response Times p. 44
  • Server Response Time p. 45
  • Speedy Downloads, Speedy Connections p. 46
  • The Best Sites Are Fast p. 46
  • Users Like Fast Pages p. 47
  • Understanding Page Size p. 48
  • You Need Your Own T1 Line p. 48
  • Faster URLs p. 50
  • Glimpsing the First Screenful p. 50
  • Taking Advantage of HTTP keep-Alive p. 53
  • Linking p. 53
  • Link Descriptions p. 55
  • Link Titles p. 60
  • Use Link Titles Without Waiting p. 60
  • Coloring Your Links p. 62
  • Link Expectations p. 64
  • The Physiology of Blue p. 64
  • Outbound Links p. 66
  • Peoplelinks p. 66
  • Incoming Links p. 74
  • Linking to Subscriptions and Registrations p. 76
  • Advertising Links p. 77
  • Style Sheets p. 81
  • Standardizing Design Through Style Sheets p. 82
  • WYSIWYG p. 82
  • Style Sheet Examples for Intranets p. 83
  • Making Sure Style Sheets Work p. 84
  • Frames p. 85
  • [NOFRAMES] p. 85
  • Frames in Netscape 2.0 p. 86
  • Borderless Frames p. 87
  • Is It Ever OK to Use Frames? p. 91
  • Frames as Copyright Violation p. 91
  • Credibility p. 92
  • Printing p. 94
  • Conclusion p. 97
  • 3 Content Design p. 98
  • Writing for the Web p. 100
  • The Value of an Editor p. 100
  • Keep Your Texts Short p. 101
  • Web Attitude p. 101
  • Copy Editing p. 103
  • Scannability p. 104
  • Why Users Scan p. 106
  • Plain Language p. 111
  • Page Chunking p. 112
  • Limit Use of Within-Page Links p. 115
  • Page Titles p. 123
  • Writing Headlines p. 124
  • Legibility p. 125
  • Online Documentation p. 129
  • Page Screenshots p. 129
  • Multimedia p. 131
  • Auto-Installing Plug-Ins p. 131
  • Client-Side Multimedia p. 132
  • Waiting for Software to Evolve p. 134
  • Response Time p. 134
  • Images and Photographs p. 134
  • Image Reduction p. 135
  • Animation p. 143
  • Showing Continuity in Transitions p. 145
  • Indicating Dimensionality in Transitions p. 145
  • Illustrating Change over Time p. 145
  • Multiplexing the Display p. 146
  • Enriching Graphical Representations p. 146
  • Animation Backfires p. 146
  • Visualizing Three-Dimensional Structures p. 146
  • Attracting Attention p. 147
  • Video p. 149
  • Streaming Video Versus Downloadable Video p. 150
  • Audio p. 154
  • Enabling Users with Disabilities to Use Multimedia Content p. 155
  • Three-Dimensional Graphics p. 156
  • Bad Use of 3D p. 156
  • When to Use 3D p. 159
  • Conclusion p. 160
  • The Attention Economy p. 160
  • 4 Site Design p. 162
  • The Home Page p. 166
  • How Wide Should the Page Be? p. 174
  • Home Page Width p. 174
  • Splash Screens Must Die p. 176
  • The Home Page Versus Interior Pages p. 178
  • Deep Linking p. 179
  • Affiliates Programs p. 179
  • Metaphor p. 180
  • Shopping Carts as Interface Standard p. 188
  • Alternative Terminology p. 188
  • Navigation p. 188
  • Where Am I? p. 188
  • Navigation Support in Browsers p. 189
  • Where Have I Been? p. 191
  • Where Can I Go? p. 191
  • Site Structure p. 198
  • The Vice-Presidential Button p. 198
  • Importance of User-Centered Structure p. 202
  • Breadth Versus Depth p. 203
  • The User Controls Navigation p. 214
  • Help Users Manage Large Amounts of Information p. 217
  • Design Creationism Versus Design Darwinism p. 218
  • Reducing Navigational Clutter p. 221
  • Future Navigation p. 221
  • Avoid 3D for Navigation p. 222
  • Subsites p. 222
  • Search Capabilities p. 224
  • Don't Search the Web p. 224
  • Micro-Navigation p. 225
  • Advanced Search p. 227
  • Global Search p. 227
  • The Search Results Page p. 230
  • Page Descriptions and Keywords p. 231
  • Use a Wide Search Box p. 233
  • See What People Search For p. 237
  • Search Destination Design p. 238
  • Integrating Sites and Search Engines p. 238
  • URL Design p. 246
  • Compound Domain Names p. 246
  • Fully Specify URLs in HTML Code p. 247
  • URL Guessing p. 248
  • Archival URLs p. 249
  • Beware of the Os and Os p. 249
  • Advertising a URL p. 250
  • Supporting Old URLs p. 251
  • Y2K URL p. 251
  • User-Contributed Content p. 256
  • Applet Navigation p. 256
  • Double-Click p. 258
  • Slow Operations p. 259
  • Conclusion p. 259
  • 5 Intranet Design p. 262
  • Differentiating Intranet Design from Internet Design p. 265
  • Extranet Design p. 266
  • Improving the Bottom Line Through Employee Productivity p. 270
  • Average Versus Marginal Costs p. 276
  • Intranet Portals: The Corporate Information Infrastructure p. 276
  • Get Rid of Email p. 277
  • Intranet Maintenance p. 279
  • The Big Three Infrastructure Components: Directory, Search, and News p. 279
  • Intranet Design Standards p. 280
  • Guidelines for Standards p. 281
  • Outsourcing Your Intranet Design p. 284
  • Managing Employees' Web Access p. 284
  • Hardware Standards p. 285
  • Browser Defaults p. 286
  • Search Engine Defaults p. 288
  • Intranet User Testing p. 289
  • Field Studies p. 290
  • Don't Videotape in the Field p. 292
  • Conclusion p. 293
  • 6 Accessibility for Users with Disabilities p. 296
  • Disabilities Associated with Aging p. 298
  • Web Accessibility Initiative p. 298
  • Assistive Technology p. 299
  • Visual Disabilities p. 302
  • ALT Attributes p. 303
  • Auditory Disabilities p. 308
  • Speech Disabilities p. 308
  • Motor Disabilities p. 309
  • Cognitive Disabilities p. 309
  • Search Without Spelling p. 310
  • Conclusion: Pragmatic Accessibility p. 311
  • 7 International Use: Serving a Global Audience p. 312
  • Internationalization Versus Localization p. 315
  • Designing for Internationalization p. 315
  • International Inspection p. 319
  • Should Domains End in .com? p. 319
  • Translated and Multilingual Sites p. 320
  • Language Choice p. 324
  • Multilingual Search p. 331
  • Make Translations Bookmarkable p. 331
  • Regional Differences p. 332
  • International User Testing p. 333
  • Overcoming the Language Gap p. 333
  • How Many Countries Should You Test? p. 335
  • Thanking Your Participants p. 335
  • Methods of Testing p. 336
  • Travel Yourself p. 336
  • Add a Few Days to Your Stay p. 336
  • Remote User Testing p. 337
  • Usability Labs for International Testing p. 338
  • Self-Administered Tests p. 341
  • Conclusion p. 344
  • 8 Future Predictions: The Only Web Constant Is Change p. 346
  • Long-Term Trends p. 348
  • The Internet Is Hard p. 348
  • The Anti-Mac User Interface p. 351
  • The Invisible Computer p. 352
  • Information Appliances p. 353
  • Drawing a Computer p. 353
  • WebTV p. 354
  • Designing for WebTV p. 356
  • Death of Web Browsers p. 362
  • Slowly Increasing Bandwidth p. 363
  • Metaphors for the Web p. 365
  • The Telephone p. 366
  • Different Media, Different Strengths p. 366
  • Telephone Usability Problems p. 368
  • Contact Tokens p. 369
  • The Television p. 370
  • Restructuring Media Space: Good-Bye, Newspapers p. 372
  • Media Distinctions Caused by Technology p. 373
  • Conclusion p. 376
  • 9 Conclusion: Simplicity in Web Design p. 378
  • Home-Run Websites p. 380
  • Half-Minute Baseball Lesson p. 380
  • User Survey: What Causes Repeat Traffic? p. 382
  • Better Than Reality p. 383
  • Best of Times or Worst of Times? p. 388
  • Mouseclicks Vote p. 390
  • Recommended Readings p. 392
  • Books p. 394
  • Usability p. 395
  • Hypertext p. 395
  • Web Technology p. 396
  • Read My Next Book p. 396
  • Index p. 398

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