HCI, usability and web design info

A collection of information covering usability and design for web use

Topics

The What's New Page gives a quick overview of the hundreds of pages of articles and picture on this site.

Northlight Images prides itself on its independence when giving advice. We do not sell hardware or software and have no direct commercial links with any of the software or hardware vendors that may be mentioned here. See our Review Policy for more information.

This page is part of our Info and Resources feature

Keith's 'Quick tips' on how to annoy your visitors:

Splash screen that says 'click to enter'.

Using flash to hide navigation controls in unusual places.

Thinking you have a revolutionary approach to site navigation and not trying it on real users.

Requiring people to register just to collect information on them.

Selling usability as a concept to the 'suits'

This quote is from an interview with Jared Spool (well worth reading) and sums up why you never mention usability straight out when trying to influence the people with the money

"I learned quickly that business executives didn't care about usability testing or information design. Explaining the importance of these areas didn't get us any more work. Instead, when we're in front of executives, we quickly learned to talk about only five things:

How do we increase revenue?
How do we reduce expenses?
How do we bring in more customers?
How do we get more business out of each existing customer?
How do we increase shareholder value? "

Articles/notes on usability issues

Keith's usability thoughts are in a short article.

'The best usability tips'
Heuristics and rules of thumb in design.

Usability Info

If you would like to discuss any of the issues on this page, please feel free to contact us.

Contact details :

Northlight Images, 86 Harrow Road

Leicester, Leicestershire, UK. LE3 0JW (Maps)

Telephone +44 116 291 9092

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HCI and usability

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
The title says it all...

http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/AHTutorials/interface.html
Web design guidelines from Cornell University

http://www.iarchitect.com/
A guide to usability from Isys (check out the hall of shame!)

http://www.interfacemafia.org/
Good collection of interface design articles and info

http://www.hcibib.org/
The HCI bibliography- very large collection of resources

http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/cat_0.txl
Usability glossary, from Usability First

http://www.hcirn.com/
The HCI resource network

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Human-Computer_Interaction/
The open directory (DMOZ) HCI collection

http://www.websitetips.com/color/
Lots of info about the use of colour on sites. Includes important web design information about colour blindness

http://www.uie.com/
Useful articles and info - challenging some of the usability myths you may hear.

Web design

http://www.creativemac.com/index.jsp
The Creative Mac site

http://spade.ncl.ac.uk/ucs/web/design.html
Basic web design guidelines

http://cybermed.ucsd.edu/Web_design/SMA.html
Some basic guidelines for Web design

http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/
A guide to writing styles, for web use

http://www.cwd.dk/
'Cool Web design' - links for inspiration

http://www.wpdfd.com/
Web pages for designers - tips/tricks

Web browsing by Photographers
A short survey of the web browsing habits of some pro photographers - in our articles section

http://www.uie.com/browse/design_strategies/
Articles on web design straegies - with a good emphasis on usability

Using images on sites

Saving photos for the web
Some tips on compression, sharpening and colour management for web photos from Keith.

Using CSS / standards

http://www.nypl.org/styleguide/
Style guide from the New York Public Library. A good starting point for your next web project using XHTML and CSS - very well written

http://www.uie.com/browse/web_standards/
Articles on the use of web standards

http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/
Lots of useful CSS related info from Eric Meyer.

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Validate your CSS at the W3C

http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/propindex/all.htm
CSS property index - good quick reference

Other areas of our site that may be of interest...

NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.

Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.

As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.

New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.

Visiting Leicester or wondering where it is? We have views from the Leicester traffic cameras.