Linda Urban Communications Home
Join STC (Society for Technical Communication). Even if you can't—or don't—go to meetings, you'll get two great journals with lots of information and ideas. And if you join a special interest group or two, you'll have access to specialized websites, newsletters, and online discussion groups.
Explore the STC Usability SIG Website (www.stcsig.org/usability), especially the sections for special interest groups and publications.
http://www.techcomm-online.org (Technical Communication - online version of the STC journal - you need to be a member to access.)
Christina Wodtke, Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web. New Riders, 2002. (Excellent introductory book on IA, although focus is for the web, can be applied to other technical writing.)
Rosenfeld, Louis, and Morville, Peter Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition. O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., 2002. (The first edition was good - the 2nd is much enhanced - get it if at all possible.)
“The Discipline and the Role,”
By Jesse Garret, 6 part article
http://www.jjg.net/ia/recon/
“Information
Architecture,” by R. E. Wyllis
Summarizes concepts from the Rosenfeld/Morville book and other sources
http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/%7El38613dw/website_fall_01/readings/InfoArchitecture.html
The Information Architect’s Wiki: Discussion of “Big IA versus Little IA” http://www.iawiki.net/BigIAvsLittleIA
“Defining
the Damn Thing” - at The Elegant Hack - Christine Wodke http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/archives/00000069.html
A few of my favorites...there are lots more out there!
The Information Architecture Institute http://iainstitute.org/
(great collection of tools at http://iainstitute.org/tools/)
Boxes and Arrows http://www.boxesandarrows.com
IA Wiki http://www.iawiki.net/IAwiki
Argus Center for Information Architecture http://argus-acia.com/ (Now defunct, but still has good info and links)
Information Architecture Resources http://www.jjg.net/ia/ Jesse Garrett's site
Semantic Studios http://semanticstudios.com/ Peter Morville's site
Elegant Hack http://eleganthack.com/articles/index.html Christina Wodtke's site
User and Task Analysis for Interface Design, by Joann Hackos and Ginny Redish
Contextual Design, by Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyer
Observing the User Experience, by Mike Kuniavsky
Task-Centered User Interface Design, a Practical Introduction, an online shareware book, by Clayton Lewis and John Reiman http://hcibib.org/tcuid/
“Giving people what they want: How to involve users in site design,” by Jeannette Fucella and Jack Pizzolato http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/design-by-feedback/expectations.html
Cooper's Newsletters on Personas: http://www.cooper.com/content/insights/newsletters_personas.asp
“What is Card Sorting,” by Gerry Gaffney http://www.infodesign.com.au/usability/cardsorting.html
Boxes and Arrows: "A Definitive Guide to Card Sorting"
Gerry McGovern: 13-step approach
Jacob Nielsen: How many users to test
Robertsen: Information Design Using Card Sorting
Breadcrumbs: Article from Keith Instone:
http://keith.instone.org/breadcrumbs/Instone-Breadcrumbs-IASummit.pdf
Very useful slideshow about use of breadcrumbs
In use, at this site: http://keith.instone.org/measureia/proposal.html
Unraveling the mysteries of metadata and taxonomies, interview of
Samantha Bailey by Christina Wodke) http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/002570.php?page=2
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/002570.php?page=3
Metadata Creation, Down and Dirty (James Weinheimer, Princeton) - Talks about Metadata as a method to “bring things together” http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ejamesw/mdata/MetadataCreation.html
Defining Metadata - http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/intrometadata/2_articles/index.html
Very long, in-depth article exploring the term
Overview of Metadata - Wyllys http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~l38613dw/readings/Metadata.html
Metadata in library and information science
Managing taxonomies strategically - http://www.montague.com/review/taxonomy3.html
Search tools - http://www.searchtools.com/info/classifiers.html
Classification, taxonomies, and categories for searching and browsing (Search tools) - http://www.searchtools.com/info/classifiers.html
Controlled Vocabularies - http://sky.fit.qut.edu.au/~middletm/cont_voc.html
http://www.metatorial.com/ (Content Management – Boiko)
A List Apart: Simple Content Management http://www.alistapart.com/stories/simplecontentmanagement/
Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery, Joann Hackos, John Wiley & Sons, 2001
Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, Ann Rockley, New Riders, 2003
There are oodles! Here are a few of my favorites.
Krug, Steven, Don't Make Me Think , New Riders, 2000, 2005
Coe, Marlana, Human Factors for Technical Communicators . John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996.
Rubin, Jeffrey, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests . John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994.
Barnum, Carol M., Usability Testing and Research , Longman Publishers, 2002
Kuniavsky, Mike, Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research , Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003.
Stone, Jarrett, Woodroffe, Minocha, User Interface Design and Evaluation , Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2005.
Pearrow, Mark , Web Site Usability Handbook . “Chapter 3, Usability Toolbox” has a good summary of techniques Card sort, heuristics, interview, ethnography, etc.
Preece, Rogers , Sharp, Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction , John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Dumas, Joseph S and Redish, Janice C, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing . Revised Edition, Intellect Books, 1999.
Nielsen, J. Usability Engineering , Academic Press: Boston , MA , 1993
Hackos, Joann and Redish, Janice C, User and Task Analysis for Interface Design , John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.
Snyder, Carolyn, Paper Prototyping , Morgan Kaufman Publishers, 2003.
Lewis, Clayton and Reiman, John, Task-Centered User Interface Design, a Practical Introduction , an online shareware book, http://hcibib.org/tcuid/
Here are a few articles to start with. The sites listed under Web Resources provide access to dozens more.
“The Best of Both Worlds: Combining Usability Testing and Documentation Projects,” (PDF) by Kantner, Rosenbaum, Leas. In the Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC) http://www.teced.com/PDFs/ipcc97.pdf
“Why
You Only Need to Test with 5 Users” by Jakob Nielsen (Alertbox: 3/19/2000),
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html
“Paper Prototypes: Still Our Favorites” by Jared Spool and UIE, http://www.uie.com/prototyp.htm
“Six Slick Tests for Docs and Help” by Jared Spool and UIE, http://www.uie.com/sixslick.htm
“Making Online Information Usable” by Jared Spool and UIE, http://www.uie.com/online.htm
“The Usability Lifecycle,” by Jakob Nielson http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/it-nielsen3/
Papers and Presentations by Tec-Ed, Inc: http://www.teced.com/c_and_p.html
(“Best of Both Worlds” is one of their papers)
STC Usability SIG Website: http://www.stcsig.org/usability/index.html
ID Information & Design web site: http://www.infodesign.com.au/usability/default.html
Good summary definitions and descriptions of usability techniques, plus some files and other things
James Thom’s Usability Testing Toolbox: http://jthom.best.vwh.net/usability
Another set of definitions and examples of usability techniques, with links to lots more information
Keith Instone’s site: http://usableweb.com/
Huge collection of links
Usability First Glossary http://www.usabilityfirst.com/index.txl
Both have lots of good stuff (and lots of attitude :-> )
Jakob Nielsen’s site: http://www.useit.com/
Jared Spool’s site: www.uie.com
Usability Professionals Association: www.upassoc.org
BayChi (Bay Area Computer Human Interaction): www.baychi.org
CHI (Computer Human Interaction): www.acm.org/sigchi
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society http://www.hfes.org/
The fields of Information architecture and Usability incorporate user-centered design (UCD) practices. When reading about IA and Usability, it's sometimes hard to see a line of distinction between them and UCD. But there is a larger context for user-centered design. You can think of UCD as an approach that can be followed in developing information products, software products, eCommerce websites, and so forth. Here's a link to a set of discussions specific to UCD:
IBM's User-Centered Design resources: http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/570
EPSS Central http://www.pcd-innovations.com/
Has great set of links to many different, inter-related disciplines.
Contact: lurban@earthlink.net ©2002-2003, Linda Urban