Global Usability

The concept of usability has become an increasingly important consideration in the design of all kinds of technology. As more products are aimed at global markets and developed through internationally distributed teams, usability design needs to be addressed in global terms. Interest in usability as a design issue and specialist area of research and education has developed steadily in North America and Europe since the 1980’s. However, it is only over the last ten years that it has emerged as a global concern. Global Usability provides an introduction to the important issues in globalizing design and an insight into the development of usability expertise around the world. The book is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the general issues in cross-cultural design and the methods for conducting usability design and evaluation across geographical boundaries. The second section describes the state of usability development in fifteen countries. The descriptions include a history and review of activities and include some unique perspectives that have developed in relation to usability work. Researchers and practitioners from a variety of design-related disciplines will find the book a useful guide for understanding the issues and an excellent reference source for working in any of the countries covered.

This is the second of a two-volume set that constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Usability and Internationalization, UIHCII 2007, held in Beijing, China in July 2007. The papers of this second volume cover global and local user interfaces and are organized in topical sections on designing global and local products and services, as well as enhancing and personalizing the user experience.

In 2000, Jakob Nielsen, the world’s leading expert on Web usability, published a book that changed how people think about the Web— Designing Web Usability (New Riders). Many applauded. A few jeered. But everyone listened. The best-selling usability guru is back and has revisited his classic guide, joined forces with Web usability consultant Hoa Loranger, and created an updated companion book that covers the essential changes to the Web and usability today. Prioritizing Web Usability is the guide for anyone who wants to take their Web site(s) to next level and make usability a priority! Through the authors’ wisdom, experience, and hundreds of real-world user tests and contemporary Web site critiques, you’ll learn about site design, user experience and usability testing, navigation and search capabilities, old guidelines and prioritizing usability issues, page design and layout, content design, and more!

The concept of usability has become an increasingly important consideration in the design of all kinds of technology. As more products are aimed at global markets and developed through internationally distributed teams, usability design needs to be addressed in global terms. Interest in usability as a design issue and specialist area of research and education has developed steadily in North America and Europe since the 1980’s. However, it is only over the last ten years that it has emerged as a global concern. Global Usability provides an introduction to the important issues in globalizing design and an insight into the development of usability expertise around the world. The book is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the general issues in cross-cultural design and the methods for conducting usability design and evaluation across geographical boundaries. The second section describes the state of usability development in fifteen countries. The descriptions include a history and review of activities and include some unique perspectives that have developed in relation to usability work. Researchers and practitioners from a variety of design-related disciplines will find the book a useful guide for understanding the issues and an excellent reference source for working in any of the countries covered.

As a usability specialist or interaction designer working with the government, or as a government or contractor professional involved in specifying, procuring, or managing system development, you need this book. Editors Elizabeth Buie and Dianne Murray have brought together over 30 experts to outline practical advice to both usability specialists and government technology professionals and managers. Working with internal and external government systems is a unique and difficult task because of of the sheer magnitude of the audience for external systems (the entire population of a country, and sometimes more), and because of the need to achieve government transparency while protecting citizens' privacy.. Open government, plain language, accessibility, biometrics, service design, internal vs. external systems, and cross-cultural issues, as well as working with the government, are all covered in this book. Covers both public-facing systems and internal systems run by governments Details usability and user experience approaches specific to government websites, intranets, complex systems, and applications Provides practical material that allows you to take the information and immediately use it to make a difference in your projects

You just know that an improvement of the user interface will reap rewards, but how do you justify the expense and the labor and the time—guarantee a robust ROI!—ahead of time? How do you decide how much of an investment should be funded? And what is the best way to sell usability to others? In this completely revised and new edition of Cost-Justifying Usability, Randolph G. Bias (University of Texas at Austin, with 25 years’ experience as a usability practitioner and manager) and Deborah J. Mayhew (internationally recognized usability consultant and author of two other seminal books including The Usability Engineering Lifecycle) tackle these and many other problems. It has been updated to cover cost-justifying usability for Web sites and intranets, for the complex applications we have today, and for a host of products—offering techniques, examples, and cases that are unavailable elsewhere. No matter what type of product you build, whether or not you are a cost-benefit expert or a born salesperson, this book has the tools that will enable you to cost-justify the appropriate usability investment. Includes contributions by a host of experts involved in this work, including Aaron Marcus, Janice Rohn, Chauncey Wilson, Nigel Bevan, Dennis Wixon, Clare-Marie Karat, Susan Dray, Charles Mauro, and many others Includes actionable ideas for every phase of the software development process Includes case studies from inside a variety of companies Includes ideas from "the other side of the table," software executives who hold the purse strings, who offer thoughts on which proposals for usability support they've funded, and which ones they've declined

Whether it's software, a cell phone, or a refrigerator, your customer wants - no, expects - your product to be easy to use. This fully revised handbook provides clear, step-by-step guidelines to help you test your product for usability. Completely updated with current industry best practices, it can give you that all-important marketplace advantage: products that perform the way users expect. You'll learn to recognize factors that limit usability, decide where testing should occur, set up a test plan to assess goals for your product's usability, and more.