Showcase: Articles

Usability, Interface Design, and Information Architecture Resources

The literature in these fields is extensive, and so knowing where to begin can be a challenge. The following list of books, articles, and sites is intended to help you get started.

Accessibility

Clark, Joe. Building Accessible Web Sites. 2003. To get a taste of Clark’s point of view, read his access manifesto.

Clark, Joe. “Big, Stark, and Chunky.” January 11, 2005.

Heilmann, Christian. 10 Reason Clients Don’t Care about Accessibility. September 12, 2005.

IBM Systems Journal. Special Accessibility Issue. Vol.44, Number 3, 2005.

Section 508: The Road to Accessibility

Skills for Access—Guide to Creating Accessible Multimedia eLearning

University of Minnesota - Accessibility of Information Technology (AIT)

Design—General

Info Design—Understanding by Design

Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. 1988, 2002.

Norman, Donald. Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. 2003.

Norman, Donald. jnd.org
A good place to keep up with Norman’s current interests and research.

Schneiderman, Ben. Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies. 2003.

Poole, Alex. “Literature Review: Which Are More Legible: Serif or Sans Serif Typefaces?” 2005.

Shaikh, D.A. “The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News” 2005. Usability News 7.2.

Handheld Device Usability

Weiss, Scott. Handheld Usability. 2002.

Human Factors

Michael J. Darnell. Bad Human Factors Design.

FAA Human Factors

Vicente, Kim. The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology. 2004.

Information Architecture

Boxes and Arrows

Rosenfeld, Lou and Peter Morville. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (2nd edition). 2002.

Return on Investment

Donaghue, Karen. Built for Use: Driving Profitability Through the User Experience. 2002.

Marcus, Aaron. "Return on Investment for Usable User Interface Design: Examples and Statistics." February 28, 2002.

Usability Testing/ Web Usability

Dumas, Joseph S. and Janice C. Redish. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. 1993.

Fogg, B.J. "How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?" Oct. 29, 2002.

Krug, Steve. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. 2000.

Nielsen, Jakob. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. 2000.

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability Engineering. 1993.

Nielsen, Jakob. useit.com.

Rubin, Jeffrey. Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. 1994.

User-Centered Design

Garrett, Jesse James. The Elements of User Experience. 2002.

IBM Ease of Use

Vrendenburg, Karen, Scott Isensee, and Carol Righi. User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach. 2002.

User Interface Design Standards and Guidelines

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, Second Edition

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Usability.gov

User Interface Design, Interaction Design—Theory and Practice

Digital Web Magazine.

Fowler, Susan and Victor Stanwick. Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices for Web-Based Software. 2004.

GUUUI: The Interaction Designer’s Coffee Break.

Preece, Jennifer, Yvonne Rogers, and Helen Sharp. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. 2002.
See the companion site to the book.

Scharff, Dr. Lauren. Color Test Results.

Schneiderman, Ben. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (4th edition). 2004.

Toganazzini, Bruce, asktog.com

Zeldman, Jeffrey. A List Apart Magazine.

For more information, here is an annotated PDF version of this page.