Articles & Discussion

Usability and Accessibility: Looking at User Experience through Two Lenses

January

Evaluating your website with both usability and accessibility in mind gives all users the best possible user experience.  Learn more about tying accessibility into usability.

IA Your Way: Participate in Our Card Sort

January

Help us develop the information architecture of Usability.gov by participating in our online card sort.  Tell us how you would like to see that content organized and labeled.

Tell Us What You Really Think

December

Provide your feedback on our survey and help make Usability.gov the leading resource for user experience guidelines and best practices.

Recreating the Home of User Experience

November

HHS is redesigning Usability.gov and we want your input to make the site better.  Find out how you can join the conversation and contribute to the site.

Mobile Usability, Testing Testers

November

Usability testing equipment for mobile devices is improving. Read the results of a study HHS conducted on two mobile user-testing tools, the usability platter and usability clip.

Usability and Mobile Devices

May

As the prevalence of PDA and other smart devices with Internet connectivity increase, so does the need for attention to the usability of these devices.

Eyetracking and Web site Design

March

Eye tracking technology has been used many areas including visual systems, cognitive linguistics, and product design.

Color Blindness

February

Color blindness is the inability to perceive differences between some of the colors that non-colored impaired users can distinguish. Color blindness affects about five to eight percent of males (approximately 10.5 million) and less than one percent of females

Adaptive Learning Environments

January

Adaptive Learning Environments - It is not surprising, given the advances in technology, that there has been a significant increase in Web-based learning programs. Opinions of acceptance and effectiveness of e-learning vary, but a well-designed and appropriately used program has great potential.

Credibility

October

Credibility - There is some evidence to suggest that Web users are becoming more skeptical of the information they find online. As a result, designers face increasing pressure to enhance the credibility of their Web sites.

Building Trust

September

Building Trust - Online trust is important whether you are trying to distribute information or initiating online business transactions. Users decide whether they are going to ‘buy’ your information or your goods and services based on trust.

Organizing Content on Web Sites

August

Organizing Content on Web Sites - As many of you well know, designing a Web site can be very difficult. Part of that difficulty is in creating an information architecture that represents your content and labeling the links to make that content easy to find.

Aesthetics & Perceptions

July

The Impact of Aesthetics on Attitudes Towards Web sites - A user’s perception of a Web site can evoke a wide range of emotions and attitudes. These emotions and perceptions impact the user’s attitude towards the Web site’s content, advertised products, company, credibility and site usability.

Aging

December

Web Usability and Aging - people over the age of 65 represent the fastest growing demographic. Knowing limitations due to the aging process should be taken into user design consideration.

Forms

April

Creating Usable Online Forms - forms can be frustrating for everyone and creating user-friendly forms can be a real challenge.