Useful links
Blogs/websites
- Boxes and Arrows is primarily about
information architecture and design, but has some great tips on methods. Try
searching for "card sorting" or "interviews."
- Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox -- One-stop
shopping for Nielsen's view of the world. Increasingly dedicated to advertising
for their (expensive) reports, but still has useful info.
- AskTog.com -- Bruce Tognazzini's columns on
design.
- User Interface engineering - Jared
Spool's organization. They hype their own training but have good short articles, too
Mailing lists
- Ethnography/Interviewing: Anthrodesign
- Usability: UPA mailing list
- Association of Internet Researchers
Usability in general
Remote user experience research tools
- Ethnio: remote usability software
- MindCanvas "online surveys
meet online games"
- Cardsorting: OptimalSort is a free
online cardsorting service that looks pretty well-designed, with help from
Donna Maurer, card sort guru. And it's free! Websort
also looks useful, but it is not free. However, it has a 50% off deal for
educational use - which might make it somewhat affordable for a group project.
- Diary studies with Revelation.
Don't know what the pricing is for students, but it looks like they might
be willing to negotiate.
Video resources
Usability testing
Heuristics
Surveys
Sample Surveys
web-surveys.net sample surveys
http://www.perseusdevelopment.com/surveytips/samplesurveys.html
http://www.hostedsurvey.com/Samples.asp
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=1246999657
(a web survey -- worth *answering*, given that we've just been talking
about these things -- you may or may not want to submit your survey, but try it
out to get a user's perspective on the questions. Normally, you would hear
about this survey either because you were on their mailing list or because you
were visiting their site.)
http://surveymonkey.com/ (a site that is
running the utne survey; follow their "types of questions" link for
examples of ways of formatting questions)
Web Survey Tools
Performative methods
Accessibility/Universal Usability
Accessibility testing
Statistical Tools
Data analysis tools and methods
Reports
These sample reports may suggest some useful tactics and techniques for structuring
your own reports.
Organizations
- Marcus, A. (2003). When
is a user not a user?: Who are we? What do we do? interactions, 10, 28-34.
Useful for his list of conferences and organizations.
- ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
- AIGA:American Institute of Graphic Arts
- HFES:Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
- ICOGRADA: International Council of Graphic Design Associations
- ICSID: International Council of Societies of Industrial Design
- IEEE: Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers
- IDSA: Industrial Designers Society of America
- IIID: International Institute for Information Design
- SIGCHI: Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction, a unit of ACM
- SIGGRAPH: Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interaction, a unit of ACM
- STC: Society for Technical Communication
- UPA: Usability Professionals Association
Journals
Conferences