Usability im Unternehmen

Das Kapitel 4 "Usability im Unternehmen" aus "Usability praktisch umsetzen" (Hanser 2003) ist nun online.

Gabriele Fischer im NDR Interview

Gabriele Fischer, Chefredakteurin und Herausgeberin des Wirtschaftmagazins brand eins im Interview auf NDR 4, Der Talk (mp3)

Ivan Sutherland on "Research and Fun"

An Evening with Ivan Sutherland at the Computer History Museum

Requirements Engineering - MuC 2004

Auf der Mensch und Computer 2004 gab es von mir den Workshop-Beitrag "Requirements- und Usability-Engineering für Standard-Software: Beispiel StarOffice/OpenOffice.org".

Später haben Frieder Strauß, Petra Kowallik und ich die Workshop-Ergebnisse für die i-com zusammengefasst: "Requirements-Engineering im Spannungsfeld von Individual- und Produktsoftware".

Mind the Gap!

"Mind the Gap! Software Engineers and Interaction Architects" is a position paper for a workshop at Interact 2003 in Zürich.

Software engineers and interaction architects need to cooperate with each other in order to create software products that work, and that are usable and useful for the target audience. A look at reality shows that the cooperation does not function as smoothly as it should. The cause for this can be on the engineer's side, or on the designer's -- or on both sides. This paper identifies some differences in the mentalities that make it difficult to work together in one product team.

It needs to be said that successful product teams have many more components than just engineering and user interface design. To use Don Norman's metaphor: it is technology, marketing, and user experience that make up the three legs of a solid product. We also have to add product management, quality management, documentation, customer support, and upper management to the picture. Nevertheless, this paper focuses only on the relation between developers and HCI professionals. [continue]

Summary of design rules by Jef Raskin

In 2002 Jef Raskin wrote to Tom Gilb "A nearly one page summary of design rules".

The first principle. When using a product to help you do a task, the product should only help and never distract you from the task.

The second principle: An interface should be reliable.

The third princple: An interface should be efficient and as simple as possible.

The fourth principle: The suitability of an interface can only be determined by testing.

The fifth principle: An interface should be pleasant in tone and visually attractive.

Then Jef Raskin concludes:

An interface should be effective, habituating, reliable, efficient, and tested. To the extend that doing so does not conflict with these essentials, an interface should also be attractive.

[read Jef's nearly one page summary of Raskin's design rules]

The Maryland Way

Ben Shneiderman explains what makes the HCIL so successful. It is 7 (simple) ideas that foster innovation and team spirit:

1. Choose a good driving problem
2. Become immersed in related work
3. Clarify short-term and long-term goals
4. Balance individual and group interests
5. Work hard
6. Communicate with internal and external stakeholders
7. Get past failures. Celebrate success!

Read the complete Maryland Way.