usability characteristics

Play Snakes While YouTube Is Loading…

by Vishal Mehta July 30, 2011 Just One Other Thing

Next time you’re watching a video on YouTube and waiting for it to buffer/load, you should PRESS and HOLD two keyboard keys – LEFT ARROW and UP ARROW. Voila! Enjoy the ’70′s arcade game of Snake – right within the YouTube window.  

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Usability Characteristic: “Easy To Learn”

by Vishal Mehta February 3, 2011 Usability Characteristics

The last feature in Usability Characteristics. An easy to learn site/product is one that supports both the initial orientation and continued learning throughout the complete lifetime of use. Most usability exercises applied to sites and products achieve an end result that assures low entry barrier, i.e., initially easy to learn. However, very few result in [...]

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Usability Characteristic: “Error Tolerant”

by Vishal Mehta February 1, 2011 Usability Characteristics

Error Tolerant User Interface. Your site/application ideally needs to prevent user errors and provide easy means to recover from them if they occur. This characteristic is also far too critical to be ignored or taken lightly. For achieving this, your current site or application may need a strong revamp, focusing on all critical tasks and [...]

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Usability Characteristic: “Engaging”

by Vishal Mehta January 31, 2011 Usability Characteristics

The previous two posts saw examples of effective and efficient sites. This feature focuses on the “engaging” characteristic of a user interface. An interface that’s confusing or difficult to read; that fails to draw users into their tasks – generally fail in the “engaging” department from a functional aspect. Apart from this, an interface should [...]

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Usability Characteristic: “Efficient”

by Vishal Mehta January 24, 2011 Usability Characteristics

Of the usability characteristics, effectiveness is often confused with efficiency; but they are not the same. Efficiency is concerned primarily with how quickly a task can be completed. Whereas effectiveness, as we saw in the last feature, concerns itself with completeness and accuracy of a task. ISO 9241 defines efficiency as: The total resources expended [...]

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Usability Characteristic: “Effective”

by Vishal Mehta January 21, 2011 Usability Characteristics

The first of the five usability characteristics – EFFECTIVE. Effectiveness is measured by the completeness and the accuracy with which the intended users achieve their specific goals. The typical characteristics of an effective user interface are: clear terminology – in the user’s language and appropriate to the task good, comprehensible choices on screen easy navigation; alternate [...]

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