Usability Overview

http://usability.gov/guidelines/index.html

This excellent set of Web design and usability guidelines, published by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), includes very nice examples and references to the research each guideline is based on. If you have a usability question, it’s always worth checking here first to see if they’ve covered it.

www.useit.com

Beginning with Usability Engineering in 1984, Jakob Nielsen has long been usability's most articulate and thought-provoking advocate.

Also check out his Neilsen Norman Group reports(http://www.nngroup.com/reports/).

http://www.webword.com/ John Rhodes

UsabilityViews.com http://www.usabilityviews.com/

Chris McEvoy

These sites are currently the two best ways to keep up to date on everything that’s being published online about usability. John Rhodes’ WebWord is more of a true blog in that he comments on the articles he links to, but Chris McEvoy is dogged in tracking down everything worth looking at. Between the two of them, you won’t miss anything.

http://www.sensible.com/

• Don't Make Me Think(A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability)
• Rocket Surgery Made Easy : The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems

Peter Morville (Author), Louis Rosenfeld (Author)

Paco Underhill (Author)

Gary Klein (Author)

George M. Prince (Author), Steve Krug (Foreword)

Jakob Nielsen (Author), Marie Tahir (Author)

Susan Fowler (Author), Victor Stanwick (Author)

Matthew Linderman (Author), Jason Fried (Author)

Joseph S. Dumas (Author), Janice C. Redish (Author)

In the same vein, Caroline Jarrett (www.formsthatwork.com/), whom I consider the authority on designing Web forms, is writing the definitive book on, well…designing Web forms. If it hasn’t appeared by 2006, send her an email and pester her about it.

• The Design of Everyday Things Donald A. Norman (Author)
• Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things Donald A. Norman (Author)

Jeffrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell, John Wileong one of the best on the subject, and the new edition with co-author Dana Chisnell has made a very good thing even better.

Joseph Dumas and Janice (Ginny) Redish, Intellect, 1999.Between them, Joe and Ginny probably know more about usability testing than the rest of us put together, and they both make a wonderful habit of sharing what they know.

Carol Barnum, Longman, 2010.As I write this, Carol is still working on this major revision of her excellent 2002 book, but I know it will be well worth reading, with new topics like accessibility and international usability testing.

Carolyn Snyder, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.As Johnny Carson would have said, “Every single thing you need to know about paper prototyping is in this book.” And a very good book on testing in general, too.

Joseph Dumas and Beth Loring, Morgan Kaufmann, 2008.An entire book—based on 40 years of combined experience—about the process of facilitating a test. A very quick and very informative read.

Thomas Tullis and William Albert, Morgan Kaufmann, 2008.If you need to do some quantitative testing (for instance, if your boss insists on a benchmark test so you can “prove” your site has improved later), you must read this book.

Will Schroeder, David Brittan, and Jared Spool. Usability Interface Engineering, 43-page downloadable PDF, $49.99 http://www.uie.com/reportsJared Spool’s company has been recruiting test participants since 1988, and this white paper explains how they do it.

Deborah Sova and Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, 144-page downloadable PDF, $79.95 http://www.nngroup.com/reportsCo-author Deborah Sova draws on years of experience as a recruiter to offer plenty of sound advice.

Janice (Ginny) Redish, Morgan Kaufmann, 2007.Ginny’s book is the best advice available on fixing usability problems that are the result of less-than-perfect writing or editing—and avoiding them in the first place. One Web writer described it to me as “life-altering” and I think she’s right.

Caroline Jarrett and Gerry Gaffney, Morgan Kaufmann, 2008.Almost every Web site has some forms, and almost every Web form has usability problems. This book is to forms what Ginny’s book is to writing.

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl

This newsletter is my favorite source of usability research. Published twice a year by the Wichita State University Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL), it always contains several very nice, bite-sized pieces of well-thoughtout research. The full archives are available online.