What Professionals Need to Know
About Interface Design


A Design Evaluation Approach

6/08/99


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Table of Contents

What Professionals Need to Know About Interface Design A Design Evaluation Approach

Who am I? What will I cover?

When I went to library school...

And we didn't call ourselves...

But then...things began to change

And customers changed, too

Our profession

The old question: Can you get this article online from the New York Times?

The new question: Out of all of the places where I can get this New York Times' article, which one is the easiest to use?

Three things had always mattered:

But increasingly, design became important.

What is interface design anyway?

Is there such a thing as good design?

Good design matters because well-designed tools:

But how do you sort out good design from bad?

Three central questions to ask about design...

Question One: What does the interface look like?

Sizing up the aesthetics...

Aesthetics and DialogWeb 2.0.1

Aesthetics: Subject Search Layout

Question Two:Is there an ease of use?

Judging an interface's user-friendliness...

Usability and InSite2

Usability: The Search Query

Usability: The Results Page

Question Three:How well are tasks supported?

Getting at the job at hand...

Task Support and DialogWeb

Task Support: Round Hole-Square Peg Syndrome

Task Support: This Takes Time!

Task Support: Results Page

Beyond evaluation, how about developing your own information retrieval tools?

Apply design basics and conduct usability testing

Usability testing in a nutshell

A lesson from the books:Hewlett-Packard's intranet

What usability testing told us...

In closing, a few words of wisdom...

Nothing is done by accident

Good design is about users and their needs...it's not only aboutthe technology”

What Professionals Need to Know About Interface Design Contact Information:

Author: Alison J. Head

Email: alison@sonic.net

1999 News Division Program Schedule: http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/conferences/sla1999/

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