User Studies at NCSU

Recording Sessions
   - Morae software
   - Remote observing

Conducting a Study

Recommended Resources

Sample Documents

Recommended Resources

User Studies Testing Methods

• Card Sorting
• Focus Groups
• Usability Testing

General reference, guidelines, and style guides

• Research-Based Web Design and Usability Guidelines from Usability.gov
• Usability First from Diamond Bullet Design. Includes a useful list of books.
• Useit.com:Jakob Nielsen's website
• The Usability Methods Toolbox. An overview of testing methods. Has handy lists of further reading for each method.
• Web Style Guide (originally the Yale Web Style Guide)
• HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) Bibliography
• Jesse James Garrett's information architecture resources page

Tools

• Usability Test Data Logger (spreadsheet for recording usability test data)
• Morae Software (application for capturing users' experience during testing)

Discussion lists and newsletters

• CHI-WEB (searchable). Sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction, CHI-WEB is a moderated discussion list on the human factor aspects of the World Wide Web
• SIGIA-L (searchable, with summaries of selected threads). E-mail list of the Information Architecture Special Interest Group of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
• The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability
• Boxes and Arrows
• STC (Society for Technical Communication) Usability Interface - a newsletter
• A List Apart. Explores design, development, content for Web design, as well as all elements of user science

Books and print journals

• Brinck, Tom et al., Designing Web sites that work: usability for the Web. [view catalog record]
• Courage, Catherine, and Kathy Baxter. 2005. Understanding Your Users: A practical guide to user requirements. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers: Elsevier Inc.
• Krug, Steve, Don't Make Me Think!. [view catalog record]
• Kuniavsky, Mike. 2003. Observing the User Experience. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers: Elsevier.
• Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 53, number 10: special topic issue on information architecture. [view catalog record]
• Koyani, Sanjay, and Robert Bailey, and Janice Nall, et al. (2003). Research-based web design and usability guidelines. National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.
• Mayhew, Deborah. The usability engineering lifecycle: A practitioner's handbook for user interface design. [view catalog record]
• Nielsen, Jakob. Usability engineering. [view catalog record]
• Rosenfeld, Louis and Peter Morville, Information architecture for the world wide web. [view catalog record]
• Rubin, Jeffrey. Handbook of usability testing: How to plan, design, and conduct effective tests. [view catalog record]
• Shneiderman, Ben. Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction. [view catalog record]
• Spool, Jared et al., Web site usability: A designer's guide. [view catalog record]

Associations and people

• ACM/SIGCHI: Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction
• STC Usability Special Interest Group
• Usability Professionals Association
• Campbell, Nicole, Washington State University
• Instone, Keith, Information Architect, ibm.com
• Mehlenbacher, Brad, NCSU Training and Development Program
• Nielsen, Jakob, Nielsen Norman Group
• Norman, Don, Nielsen Norman Group
• St. Amant, Robert, NCSU Department of Computer Science
• Tognazzini, Bruce, Nielsen Norman Group

Usability labs and centers

• User Research at UC Berkeley Library
• Bentley College Design and Usability Testing Center
• GVU Center @ Georgia Tech
• OCLC Human-Computer Interaction
• University of Washington Human-Centered Design & Engineering Department research
• Usability @ MIT
• Usability Consulting Services, Indiana University-Bloomington

Last updated: October 2009.