Software usability: courses?

Subject: Software usability: courses?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 08:40:45 -0500

Bryan Johnson documents <<...software products and have been asked by my
manager to take a more active role in giving usability feedback to our
developers. I thought I'd put some feelers out and see if there are seminars
our college courses that would help me meet this objective.>>

If you're looking for formal courses, try the ones given by Jared Spool and
the gang at User Interface Engineering (www.uie.com). UIE studies have
occasionally been criticized for a lack of scientific rigor, but their
results nonetheless make a great deal of sense to me; even where I have
quibbles with their methodology or results, they still hit the mark more
often than most. If you're looking for a parallel approach, Jakob Nielsen
(www.useit.com) does excellent work, and I'm confident his partners meet
similarly high standards. Jakob's also published a variety of books on the
subject, which should turn up in any Web based search (e.g.,
www.amazon.com). William Horton's books on designing online information also
have much to say about interface design.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html

"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding
what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often
idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make
sense."--Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Develop HTML-Based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 ($100 STC Discount)
**WEST COAST LOCATIONS** San Jose (Mar 1-2), San Francisco (Apr 16-17)
http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.

Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001
Conference East, June 4-5, Baltimore/Washington D.C. area.
http://www.pdfconference.com or toll-free 877/278-2131.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Previous by Author: Quality assurance procedures for technical writing?
Next by Author: Translation software?
Previous by Thread: Re: Quality assurance procedures for technical writing?
Next by Thread: Help for XML


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads