The websites associated with chapters 14-16 provide additional examples of HCI evaluations to help introduce you to the topic, techniques and overviews developed by practitioners and educators. Some contain examples, others provide descriptions of methods or links to case studies, and some contain discussions about topical issues. Reading them will help you to gain an appreciation of what experts in the field are thinking about.

Overview of design and usability and usability testing

For early work and studies up to 2016 see www.hcibib.org Gary Perlman’s HCI Bibliography, which provides a selection of links to journal and conference publications, weblogs, developer resources and a variety of other articles that discuss HCI evaluation.

You can check definitions of frequently used terms on www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary. Several of the sites mentioned below have also been active for a number of years but they will be helpful for those new to the field. As well as reading reports about the usability of new devices and applications such as the latest smartphones and apps that run on them, virtual reality devices such as Occulus VR headsets, Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram and other social networking sites, the pros and cons of cloud computing, crowd sourcing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), accessibility, ethics and responsibility, you can also check back to see what was hot 10 or 15 years ago. Jakob Nielsen’s site, Bruce Tognazzini’s site and those of some Universities, e.g., HCIL at the University of Maryland - www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/, and the HCII at Carnegie Mellon University - www.hcii.cmu.edu - provide interesting examples of developments in HCI and interaction design and the technology trends that helped to encourage these developments. The Interaction Design Organization has videos and other information about usability and its relationship to interaction design https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/usability. This blog provides summary of main terms and some examples of redesign to improve usability that describe some of the tasks that were examined https://blog.icons8.com/articles/usability-practical-definition-ux-design/.

The Nielsen Norman group's site, www.nngroup.com, contains FAQs, interviews with practitioners and trainers, and discussions of many topical issues. This site is updated frequently and we have referenced frequently in the book. The Nielsen Norman Group also reports about usability issues for specific populations and other topics. For example, www.nngroup.com/reports/kids/ discusses usability for kids ages 3-12; www.nngroup.com/reports/teens/ discusses UX design for teens age 13-17; www.nngroup.com/reports/seniors/ deals with the needs of older adults, aged 65 and older; and accessibility which is important for everyone but particularly for those who are physically and cognitively challenged www.nngroup.com/search/?q=accessibility. There are also articles that are designed to be fun and to provoke you such as www.nngroup.com/articles/movies-usability-top-10-bloopers/, in which they present an analysis of the top 10 bloopers that appear in movies in which technology is used. Take a look and see if you agree with them?

Many sites present recent trends in UX design. www.humanfactors.com is a site that contains articles and general information about meetings and usability issues. It shows how professionals think and talk about design and usability testing. It is particularly relevant to professionals and those aspiring to work in software development and other companies such as how to make complex systems easy and compelling: www.humanfactors.com/project/index.asp A nice feature of this site is that it is international. Bruce Tognazzini's site www.asktog.com provides thoughtful commentary on an eclectic range of topics. Read it to broaden your understanding of key issues. There is a particularly useful section on first principles for interaction design: asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/ Take a look and see if you agree? This site usableweb.com was created by Keith Instone. It provides links to sites that deal with different aspects of web usability usableweb.com/topics/000862-0-0.html. This company’s website describes some different kinds of usability testing methods www.usabilitysciences.com/.

Usability across the world

To gain a perspective on usability issues across the world see the work of the following researchers and their colleagues. As you look at these sites examine their designs and look for explanations about the decisions that they made. Also look for their evaluation reports. This site www.cs4fn.org/mobile/gadgetchangeworld.php accompanies Matt Jones’ book “Gadgets that change the world” and it provides examples of apps and gadgets that have been successful in different parts of the world. Design for all, www.designforall.in, seeks to promote principles of universal design that are used in India. The Semiotic Engineering Group at PUC-Rio site describes methods that are widely used in Brazil, http://www.serg.inf.puc-rio.br/ “Access by Design: A guide to universal usability for web designers”, by Sarah Horton (2005) is available online and it contains usual information about this topic www.universalusability.com/access_by_design/index.html Ron Baecker’s website https://ronbaecker.com/ provides recent reviews of new books in about design. The Neilsen/Norman Group website provides useful information about designing for international usage including when bandwidth is a scarce resource. Key Lime Interactive aalso discusses usability for a global market https://info.keylimeinteractive.com/what-to-know-about-global-usability.

Other important topics: analytics, crowdsourcing, privacy, AI and more

There are tools for analyzing web. One of the best known examples for doing web analytics is provided by Google – Google analytics – www.google.com/analytics/ and learning analytics iet.open.ac.uk/themes/learning-analytics-and-learning-design.

We also discuss techniques for crowdsourcing usability testing using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome Web Performance Matters.

Privacy has become increasingly important as more apps and systems are developed that monitor and collect people’s personal information. This site by https://privacyrights.org/ provides an overview of different topics concerned with perople’s privacy rights including those related to facial recognition, privacyrights.org/blog/facial-recognition-threat-your-privacy and

AI and design to make it human-centered is an important new topic discussed in a recent book by Ben Shneiderman (2022) published by Oxford University Press, parts of which are available online, https://books.google.ca/books?id=mSRXEAAAQBAJ. There is also a google group that discusses current topics of interest. The website for the Center for AI and Digital Policy www.caidp.org/ discusses digital privacy and other topics of current interest.

Jakob Nielsen video https://www.nngroup.com/videos/usability-physical-world-vs-web/ discusses usability in the physical world vs. on the web. Scroll down and you will also find links to one-hour talks on: inclusive design https://www.nngroup.com/1-hour-talks/inclusive-design-expands-business-value/?lm=usability-physical-world-vs-web&pt=youtubevideo and how accessibility lawsuits are driving better web design https://www.nngroup.com/1-hour-talks/accessibility-lawsuits-web-design/?lm=usability-physical-world-vs-web&pt=youtubevideo and others.

Some links provided in the book are included here for your convenience:

www.nngroup.com

www.ucl.ac.uk/person-environment-activity-research-laboratory

www.iet.open.ac.uk/themes/learning-analytics-and-learning-design