Introduction to Good Usability
Over the past year I have written a few posts about design guidelines. They have also proven to be the most successful ones. I have therefor decided to put a few of them together, add some more and bundle it as an ebook. So without much further ado, I present:
Introduction to Good Usability (pdf)
Licensing:
Introduction to Good Usability by Peter Conradie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Date Posted
Monday, January 21st, 2008Category
Design Guidelines, Interaction, Usability.Trackback
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sw Says:
tank you a lot!
Joel Laumans Says:
Good job man, nice to see you’ve been busy with something.
I could you some inspiration to get back to work, haven’t done anything really productive in ages. =(
Peter Says:
Thanks for the comment sw and Joel.
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[...] Introduction to Good UsabilityPeter Conradie offers his Introduction to Good Usability as .pdf-file for free download. The .pdf covers interface design guides (breadcrumbs, tabs, linking, overlays, drop down menu, scroll etc.) as well as author’s principles of good usability. [...]
im suden Says:
It’s great to see more and more accessible guides to good design for beginners/intermediates; hopefully a new, sensible set of conventions will develop as a result of texts like this.
To nitpick: you need to proof read the document (your ‘a’ and ‘s’ keys appear to be making mischief), and I’d disagree with a few of the recommendations, e.g. you suggest a leading of 120% of the font size – which is most browser’s default value – but I would suggest at least 140% for optimal readability. You also neglect to mention font size, a pretty fundamental aspect of legibility and accessibility.
Surely useit.com should get a mention in the reading list?
Oh – and congratulations on getting linked to by Smashing Magazine!
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Dennis Koks Says:
Good job man. Good to see you working on stuff like this. Besides a good reference for beginners/intermediates, it also spreads some inspiration among colleauges and fellowstudents
Peter Says:
Thanks for the comments and trackbacks everyone.
@im suden: Yeah, I suppose 140% could also work.
@Dennis: Thanks mate!
Dr. Pete Says:
Nice work, Peter; it’s been on my to-do list for a couple of days, and I finally got around to reading through it all. I think you achieved a good balance of having a document long enough to be comprehensive and useful while still a relatively easy read. Some really solid content.
Dan Brazil Says:
A great resource – nice and succinct with some good examples. Thanks.
Robin Says:
Nice list, but you should know that pdf breaks the user’s flow, so there should be a link to a html-version.
Peter Says:
Thanks Dr Pete. I did have to cut some content, at some point it became far too long.
@Dan: Thanks a lot.
@Robin: Yeah, it is true that it breaks the user’s flow but in html form it is just simply too large to be read comfortably. I might put up a html version online though.
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[...] Introduction to Good Usability Peter Conradie offers his Introduction to Good Usability as .pdf-file for free download. The .pdf covers interface design guides (breadcrumbs, tabs, linking, overlays, drop down menu, scroll etc.) as well as author’s principles of good usability. [...]
Teppo Says:
Hi there, just wanted to say that I enjoyed your ebook. Lots of good points there for beginners and us who’ve done way too many no-thinking-allowed jobs lately. Just a little bit of critique ahead, though. Isn’t that what comments are for?
About tabs you say that “color indication works best”. I agree, but you could also mention that it shouldn’t be used alone. Consider color blindness and some other vision deficiencies.
I’d also like to see a chapter about images, alt tags, accessible flash usage and stuff like that. The little things that make big difference when it comes to accessibility (and if it’s not accessible, it certainly isn’t usable either).
Vimalprasath Says:
Very useful, thnks a lot.
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It’s great that you’ve done this. I’m not in total agreement with everything in here but I loved page 5.
Peter Says:
Hi David, thanks for the comment!
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Good words.
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I think tabs and breadcrumbs are the most important parts of a site. I hate it when I don’t know where I am and how to get back to where I was. It’s annoying to have to go all the way back to a homepage and track my steps again. Usability is such an important topic – thanks for the quick overview and good resources at the end.
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Muchas Gracias.
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