540310 Human Factors in Information Seeking and Use

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540-310 Human Factors in Information Seeking and
Use

• Wooseob Jeong

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Notice

• Final Project Phase III by 5/19
• Presentation on 5/12 almost
• Implementation of the revision
• Final Exam on 5/19
• Physics 147, 1000 AM
• Extra Credit Activities
• PS2 experiment and Lindows experience
• Review of Krug - Due on 5/12

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Top Ten Guidelines

• For Homepage Usability
• Jakob Nielsen
• www.useit.com
• http//www.useit.com/alertbox/20020512.html
• Homepages are the most valuable real estate in
  the world.
• The homepage is your companys face to the world.
  
• The homepage is the most important page on most
  websites, and gets more page views than any other
  page.

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Make the Sites Purpose Clear(Explain Who You
Are and What You Do)

• 1. Include a One-Sentence Tagline
• Summarizes what the site does. (www.baby.com)
• 2. Write a Window Title with Good Visibility in
  Search Engines and Bookmark Lists
• Dont start with words like The or Welcome
  to.
• 3. Group all Corporate Information in One
  Distinct Area
• Ex) About UWM

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Help Users Find What They Need

• 4. Emphasize the Sites Top High-Priority Tasks
• Offer users a clear starting point
• 5. Include a Search Input Box
• Make your search box at least 25 characters wide,
  so it can accommodate multiple words without
  obscuring parts of the users query.

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Reveal Site Content

• 6. Show Examples of Real Site Content
• - Show some of your best or most recent content.
• 7. Begin Link Names with the Most Important
  Keyword
• - Links are the action items
• - Dont start all the links with the company name
• 8. Offer Easy Access to Recent Homepage Features
• Ex) www.amazon.com

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Use Visual Design to Enhance, not Define,
Interaction Design

• 9. Dont Over-Format Critical Content, Such as
  Navigation Areas
• Users often dismiss graphics as ads.
• Ex) http//www.haribon.org.ph/
• 10. Use Meaningful Graphics
• Photos of real people actually connected to the
  topic are better than pictures of models.

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Screen Real Estate

• Web pages should be dominated by content of
  interest to the users.
• Content 80, Navigation 20, but
• Advertisement in newspaper sites
• Screen size which one is the most?
• Resolution-independent design
• Printing
• Paper letter vs. A4

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Response Times

• 0.1 second
• The limit for having the user feel that the
  system is reacting instantaneously.
• 1.0 second
• The limit for the users flow of thought to
  remain uninterrupted.
• 10.0 seconds
• The limit for keeping the users attention
  focused on the dialogue.

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The best sites are fast.

• The sites that get the most traffic are more than
  twice as fast as the sites built by big, famous
  companies from the old economy.
• Arrival of Broadband?
• The Pew Internet American Life Project has
  revealed that almost 70m people in the US now
  have high-speed Internet access. Other results
  show that 55 of adult Internet users in the US -
  34 of all US adults - have access to broadband
  at home or at work. Almost 48m adults have
  broadband access at home, 42 of which have a DSL
  connection. (Broadband survey shows increase in
  DSL adoption in the US. Telecomworldwire,
  Published 04/26/04) 

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Users Like Fast Pages

• www.arup-lab.com
• Almost no graphics
• Of 201 comments, 45 praised the fast speed and
  only one customer complained that the site was
  not very visually stimulating.
• Thats why www.useit.com has no graphics!

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Linking (1)

• Avoid using Click Here. hardly
  information-carrying
• We have additional background information about
  the blue-nosed honeybee.
• is better than
• For background information on the blue-nosed
  honeybee, click here.

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Linking (2)

• Link Titles pop-ups
• BiographyJakob Nielsen
• Coloring your links
• Blue, purple, white,

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Style Sheets

• Separate of presentation and content
• HTML CSS
• XML XSL
• Online Exercises
• Do not use more than two fonts.
• Do not use absolute font size.
• Still, standardization problem.
• Ex) table displays not supported in IE

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Frames

• Just Say No.
• Navigation Doesnt work bookmark
• URLs stop working.
• Printing
• Difficult to learn
• Search engine problem

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What do you think?

• http//www.uwm.edu/wjj8612/script/wooseob.html