Robert J. Torres

Usability Engineering: A Consultant's View of Best Practices and Proven Results:

(Part 1 of this three-part series on Best Practices appeared in the winter 2007 issue.) The IBM Global Services Usability Engineering National Practice (UENP) group has focused on the application of industry-based, user-centered design (UCD) best practice techniques and principles to solve user interface and usability problems in a variety of industry contexts. UCD techniques and principles have been applied across different industries, application domains, and user interface styles. We have learned valuable lessons with regard to consistent and effective use of a rigorous, proven, and repeatable design process in system and Internet projects. The use of our design process results in cost-effective solutions for satisfied customer users. Although the findings generally apply to many styles of user interfaces and systems, this article shares some of our lessons, experiences, best practices, and results with a focus on recent Web-based projects.

Best Practices Applied to Web-Based Projects

User-centered design must be the foundation of all Web sites to ensure that visitors (and shoppers) keep coming back.

A User Centered Design Based Approach to Style Guides

The majority of style guide development efforts do not follow User Centered Design (UCD) practices for any phases of development. What is proposed is a UCD-based approach to planning, design, construction, testing, and deployment of UI Style Guides. Experience based UCD techniques that improve communication of desired user interface style content are provided with specific examples generated following this approach.

Usability Engineering: “Best of the Best” Best Practices

In the first two articles of this series, we focused on key challenges and a process for approaching user-centered design (UCD). In this third article, we describe and summarize the “best of the best” best practices for UCD activities and a case study in which the best practices were leveraged. We conclude with strategic recommendations for making UCD a more effective and efficient methodology in the software engineering life cycle.