Studies

An analysis of regional and demographic differences in United States Internet usage

Summary: The Pew Internet and American Life Project collects data on overall Internet usage in the United States. This study reviews data gathered by Pew in December 2002 and tests the overall premise that regional differences exist in Internet usage in the U.S. today. Through Chi–square analysis this report tests whether observed regional and demographic differences in Internet usage are statistically significant. The report first reviews regional and demographic differences separately and finds significant variation across twelve defined regions and ten separate demographic categories. It then reviews demographic differences within regions and tests a series of null hypotheses proposing no significant differences between regions based on the demographic factors. Most of these hypotheses are rejected with noted difference. The report explores other limited hypotheses on the data and concludes with a call for further study to refine the impact of regional and demographic differences in Internet usage in U.S. society. From First Monday - a peer reviewed journal on the Internet.

An Integrated Approach to Software Process Improvement at Wipro Technologies: veloci-Q

Abstract: This report captures the details of Wipro's quality journey through continuous process improvement. This journey towards excellence has led to the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society Award for Software Process Achievement in 2003. This award is for achieving high software process capability and establishing a basis for moving to a broad improvement program that concerns people and products, rather than just the processes.

Deriving Enterprise-Based Measures Using the Balanced Scorecard and Goal-Driven Measurement Techniques

Abstract: Change is a natural, although not always welcome, part of product line development. The changes may be initiated to correct, improve, or extend assets or products. Since no asset is independent of all other assets, changes to one asset often require corresponding changes in other assets. And changes to assets propagate to affect all the products using those assets. Many of the practices of a successful product line initiate, manage, or consume these changes. Both conceptual techniques and software tools are available to assist in the management of these changes. The focus of this technical report is how evolutionary changes affect the various types of assets in a software product line. Change can be anticipated and managed, or it can be unanticipated and potentially disruptive. This technical report defines a few basic evolution concepts and then discusses those product line practices that initiate, anticipate, control, and direct the evolution. Conceptual and automated techniques that support these practices are also presented.

Demonstrating the Impact and Benefits of CMMI®:

There is a widespread demand for evidence about the impact and benefits of process improvement based on Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI®) models. Much has been documented about the practice of CMM®-based process improvement and its value for the development and maintenance of software and software-intensive systems; however, the existing information is sometimes outdated and there are increasing calls for evidence directly based on CMMI experience. This special report presents selected results from 12 case studies drawn from 11 organizations. While still limited, the case studies provide credible evidence that CMMI-based process improvement can help organizations achieve better project performance and produce higher quality products. The report also describes plans for gathering further evidence from organizations using CMMI models.

Do Metaphors Make Web Browsers Easier to Use?

This online research paper by Elissa D Smilowitz concludes that "Good metaphors facilitate performance, and poor metaphors are no more effective than non-metaphoric interfaces. Interestingly, the metaphor advantage appears to be carried in the language or terminology (i.e., function labels)...not through the graphics." (Feb-09-97)

The gentoo.org redesign

IBM DeveloperWorks: In this series, Daniel Robbins shares his experiences as he redesigns the www.gentoo.org Web site using technologies like XML, XSLT, and Python. Along the way, you may find some excellent approaches to use for your next Web site redesign. In this installment, Daniel creates a new look for the site as a whole. (2001-07-08)

Redesigning the Microsoft Corporate Intranet

This case study presents the recent redesign of MSWeb, the primary portal to the content and services of Microsoft's corporate intranet. First launched in 1995, MSWeb experienced a content explosion, growing to include more than 2 million pages by 1998 and forcing a major redesign. (2001-04-22)

Rx for Learning

CIO Magazine: Tufts received the CIO's 2001 Enterprise Value Award because it "...is the only health sciences school in the country that has integrated its curricula so that students can transcend course-, discipline- and profession-specific boundaries. "The interdisciplinary implications of this system are very powerful," Schwartz says. For example, medical students studying salmonella in humans can link to veterinary school material to learn about the source of the bacteria, its effect on chickens and cattle, ways it is transmitted to humans, prevention and treatment. "These kinds of concepts can be taught not by new courses, but by cross-disciplinary linkages so that students have a direct understanding," (2001-02-04)

The Right Tool

Content Magazine: This article describes how Ace Hardware used an online dealer community to increase sales so much that it achieved a 500% return on its investment in the first six months. The company estimates that fully one-third of its dealers use the site at least weekly. Some check in every day. The Ace Hardware dealers use the online community to discuss and post questions about hardware and Tools. (2001-01-01)

Web Design Case Study

According to this case study "When Egreetings first launched, they displayed only a few of their most popular top level hierarchies visible, the rest in a pulldown. We saw a severe drop in visits the the catalog pages. (2000-09-30)

Knowledge: Bashful Partner or Leader of the Dance?

This article, by Stan Malcolm, appeared in the August 99 Performance Improvement special edition on EPSS. It "..is the story of a recent project to support several customer service call centers that were being merged into one. Simultaneously, Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) were being asked to support a broader range of calls (i.e., various service plans, each with slightly different terms and conditions). As a case study, the project's evolution raises some issues critical to achieving the full potential of knowledge management in support of business performance." (1999-08-15)

Study: Computers Don't Help Kids

Wired News: "Billions of dollars spent on school computers and Internet connections deliver little long-term benefit and could be better spent on more teachers and other improvements, a group critical of technology in the classroom said Tuesday." (2000-09-17)

Report: Online Training 'Boring'

This Wired News article of a study of e-learning reports that: "Many of the managers who responded to Forrester's survey said they were struggling to convince employees to utilize "boring, text-heavy content," and were meeting real resistance from employees who preferred traditional person-to-person training methods." (2000-09-04)

Workflow Patterns

The workflow patterns initiative started at the Fourth IFCIS International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS) in Edinburgh in 1999 when Wil van der Aalst and Arthur ter Hofstede started working on workflow patterns. This site triggered both researchers and practitioners to apply workflow patterns in product development and product evaluations. Moreover, several reports on the patterns appeared in Dutch IT journals around the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002. As a result, many Dutch organizations started to use the workflow patterns in selection processes. This triggered the interest of workflow vendors. The success of the site becomes clear when looking at the number of visitors. Over the last two years, the site was visited more than 35000 times and today about 100 people visit the workflow patterns site on a typical working day.

Assumptions Management in Software Development

Abstract: Software developers constantly make assumptions about the interpretation of requirements, design decisions, operational domain, environment, characteristics of input data, and other factors during system implementation. These assumptions are seldom documented and less frequently validated by the people who have the knowledge to verify their appropriateness. Additionally, the business, legal, and operating environments are always changing, as well as the software itself, rendering previously valid assumptions invalid. This technical note explores assumptions management as a method for improving software quality. This exploration covers assumptions management concepts, results of work on a prototype Assumptions Management System, conclusions, lessons learned, and potential work in this area.

ASTD Competency Study

Discussions regarding the ASTD competency model.

Search: Visible and Simple

Alertbox, Jakob Nielsen: Search is the user's lifeline for mastering complex websites. The best designs offer a simple search box on the home page and play down advanced search and scoping. We recently studied a large group of people as they shopped on various e-commerce sites. Their search success rate was: 1st query 51%, 2nd 32% and 3rd 18%. In other words, if users don't find the result with their first query, they are progressively less and less likely to succeed with additional searches. Many users don't even bother: In our study, almost half the users whose first search failed gave up immediately. Users almost never look beyond the second page of search results. It is thus essential that your search prioritize results in a useful way and that all the most important hits appear on the first page. (2001-05-27)

Stanford Web Credibility Project

Our goal is to understand what leads people to believe what they find on the Web. We hope this knowledge will enhance Web site design and promote future research on Web credibility. The site contains several research reports on Web site credibility. (2001-05-27)

Making the case for IT

InfoWorld: The core question in our survey asked respondents simply how valuable IT was to their company. The majority of respondents (70 percent) said IT was absolutely essential to their company's business objectives, whereas only one person in 200 said that IT didn't affect the company's business objectives at all. (2001-05-27)

Rendering Effective Route Maps: Improving Usability Through Generalization

Route maps, which depict a path from one location to another, have emerged as one of the most popular applications on the Web. Current computer-generated route maps, however, are often very difficult to use. In this paper we present a set of cartographic generalization techniques specifically designed to improve the usability of route maps. Our generalization techniques are based both on cognitive psychology research studying how route maps are used and on an analysis of the generalizations commonly found in handdrawn route maps. We describe algorithmic implementations of these generalization techniques within LineDrive, a real-time system for automatically designing and rendering route maps. Feedback from over 2200 users indicates that almost all believe LineDrive maps are preferable to using standard computer-generated route maps alone. (2001-05-27)

E-tailers Benefit When Customers Run the Show

E-Commerce Times: According to this article on web site personalization, a Harvard Business Review study found that 93 percent of those surveyed have indeed customized at least one Web site for themselves, and 25 percent have customized more than one. However, 42 percent of respondents said they saw no real advantages of a Web site deciding their preferences or interests for them. (2001-05-13)

Pop-up Internet Ads: More Eyeballs -- and More Frowns

A new report from Statistical Research, Inc. (SRI) shows that pop-up Internet advertisements are 50% more likely to be noticed than banner ads, but also that they are 100% more likely to be considered intrusive. Nearly half (49%) of active Internet users "agreed strongly" that pop-up ads get noticed (versus 33% for banner ads); but 62% felt strongly that pop-ups interfere with their reading or use of a Web page (compared to 31% for banners). Respondents also were less likely to view companies that use pop-ups as being industry leaders. (2001-05-13)

Customers crave simpler financial services

CNet: According to this report and a survey of financial services web sites: "...the majority of consumers polled said what matters most to them in a financial services company is the quality of its customer service and whether it offers federally insured accounts. The biggest drawback to offering more services is that more is often less when it comes to navigating Web sites, Jupiter said, adding that new services often lead to a cluttered and confusing site. (2001-04-15)

Portals' E-commerce Efforts Receive Poor Ratings

Internet News: Cluttered sites, distracting banner ads, inadequate search features and confusing privacy policies jaded the shopping experience at several leading Internet portals, according to a study conducted by Consumer Reports Online. (2001-03-25)

Harnessing the Power of Online Pricing

According to this article on a recent internet retailing study by McKinsey & Comapany. most buyers do very little cross-shopping. The report cited data showing that 89 percent of online book shoppers and 84 percent of toy shoppers bought at the first site they visited. However, the study found that "price changes that appear capricious or, worse, deceptive can cause long-term damage to a company's price proposition." (2001-03-25)

Internet Can't Match Branch Banking

Cyberatlas: While 39 percent of U.S. households say their primary financial services institution offers online banking, only 18 percent have used it. That number drops to 13 percent when respondents were asked to indicate whether they have used online banking within the past month. Among online banking users, 85 percent said that they have used a brick-and-mortar branch within the past month. (2001-04-22)

Tabular and Textual Methods for Selecting Objects from a Group

The accurate formulation of boolean expressions is a notorious problem in programming languages and database query tools. This paper studies the ways that untrained users naturally express and interpret queries, revealing some of the underlying reasons why this task is so difficult. Among the study's findings are: people interpret the word AND to mean either conjunction or disjunction depending on context, the scope to which they attribute the word NOT depends on whether the subsequent operator is AND or OR, and they often ignore parenthesis. Therefore, relying on these words and symbols for query formulation will result in poor usability. A tabular query form is proposed that avoids the need to name the operators, provides a clear distinction between conjunction and disjunction, and makes grouping more explicit. Comparing the tabular language with textual boolean expressions, the study finds that untrained users perform better when they express their queries in the tabular language, and about equally well when interpreting queries written in either language. We conclude that systems may benefit by adopting a tabular notation for query formulation. (2001-03-11)

12 Minutes To Search Rage

Search Engine Watch: How long is too long until searching the web drives you crazy? Apparently, 12 minutes, according to a new survey commissioned by search engine WebTop.com. The survey found that 71 percent of Internet users say they get frustrated when searching, and it takes about 12 minutes, on average, for them to feel this search rage. The survey also found that 86 percent of users thought searching could be made more efficient, and that more than one-third of users (36 percent) spend more than 2 hours per week searching the web. (2001-02-18)

Search Engines, Browsers Still Confusing Many Web Users

CyberAtlas: A two-year study by Alexa Research has revealed, that based on their searching habits, an alarming number of Web users are not particularly efficient at reaching their online destinations. Rather than entering a URL into the address field of their Web browsers, millions of Internet users enter the name of the site they want into the search box of their start-up homepage or other search engine. This study shows that for many, there's a conceptual misunderstanding of how to effectively navigate the Web. Some people think that their homepage is the Web, that they have to go through their homepage in order to get to the site they want. (2001-02-18)

Designing for Information Foragers

ITG Internetworking: "This paper explains and elaborates a behavioral model for understanding how people look for information on the Web. The first half briefly reviews a wide range key research to provide a broader context for understanding human information seeking behavior and a starting point for further exploration. The second part proposes a model for organizing design ideas based on this research." (2001-02-04)

Patients Look to Net to Help with Medical Care

This article describes a recent survey that found "A majority of the online population (57 percent) think it is somewhat likely that the Internet will help reduce or eliminate frustrations associated with visits to their doctors, according to a survey by Harris Interactive for ARiA Marketing and iMcKesson. The research also found that 81 percent of the online population would like to receive e-mail reminders for preventive care, 83 percent would like follow-up e-mails after visits to doctors, 84 percent would like for for their doctors to be able to access and monitor their lab tests online)." (2001-01-21)

Shoppers Say E-Commerce Was Good for Them

According to this report, 90% of online shoppers were satisfied with their experience. 63 percent did encounter some difficulties, but the problems appear to be fewer and had little impact on overall satisfaction. The demographics of online buyers looked more like mainstream US buyers than ever before in 2000. More than half of the purchasers were female; more than one-third were older than 45; and half had incomes below $60,000. Shipping fees remain the major reason people did not shop online." (2001-01-14)

The Holidays Online

Pew Research Center Report: This report is based on interview with 3,493 American adults; of whom 2,038 were internet users. The study found that 24% of Internet users purchased gifts online, but 53% sent emails with holiday messages and 32% sent e-cards. From the responses to these and other questions, the researchers identified 12 trends in the use of the Internet, particularly related to finding information about products and making purchases. While the report is mostly about holiday gift buying, it is also reveals some interesting information about human behavior. (2001-01-07)

E-Commerce Gets High Usability Marks

E-Commerce Times: This article reports the result of a study by Modalis Research Technologies. You can download the full study (pdf) . The study found: 1. CDNow and Amazon were the highest-rated e-commerce sites in the usability study, while lowest in the e-commerce category were Barnesandnoble.com and Magazineoutlet.com.

Working Together In "War Rooms" Doubles Teams' Productivity

ScienceDaily Magazine: This University of Michigan study found that: Teams in a war room environments were more than twice as productive as similar teams at the same company working in traditional office settings. War room workers sit at wall-less workstations in one big, open room. that is outfitted with central worktables, whiteboards and flip charts to facilitate group discussions. The before-and-after questionnaires showed that workers liked working in the war rooms better than they expected to and were not as distracted by nearby colleagues as they thought they would be. (2000-12-17)

Evaluation of IR User interface

In this paper, we discuss the methodological framework used in an experimental evaluation study and present the implications drawn from the analysis of the information retrieval (IR) interaction for a user interface redesign of an on-line WWW-based IR system. The goal was to investigate if the current user interface to an on-line WWW-based IR system with real users with real information needs provided sufficient support in order to conduct an information-seeking task. (2000-12-10)

Study Backs Up Confusion Claim for Butterfly Ballots

Washington Post: "Butterfly ballots" like those used in Palm Beach County are significantly more confusing than standard ballots, and middle-aged voters using butterfly ballots are far more likely to vote mistakenly for a candidate they don't support, according to Canadian research being published in a scientific journal. (2000-12-03)

The Skeptical Internet User Does Not Search

InteractionArchitect.com: "The skeptical Internet user did not come to the Internet because of his innovative attitude. His motivation is not to learn and use the Internet. Instead he is motivated by the Internet's promise of offering value: comfort of living, entertainment, getting things done in a more convenient way. While he did get some of that, he also got a lot of discomfort: long download times, navigational and structural complexity, inconsistency, unpredictable behavior, disappointing value." (2000-11-26)

Companies look to convert content to cash

InfoWorld: "With the fear that e-marketplaces will increase competition and reduce margins, savvy companies are starting to use content as a strategic weapon to gain and defend market share." (2000-11-12)

Collecting Feedback About Your Website's Search Interface

Webreference.com, Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Coyne: "The ten high-selling sites complied with 40% of our usability guidelines for search whereas the ten less-selling sites only scored 27%. Even the best sites on the Web are far from having perfect search, but it is still remarkable to note the difference in search quality between sites that sell well and sites that sell poorly. Of course, rule #1 of ecommerce is: if the user cannot find the product, then the user cannot buy the product." (2000-11-05)

Depth vs Breadth in the Arrangement of Web Links

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of depth and breadth of web site structure on the user response time. The variables evaluated were five different web page linking strategies with varying depth and breadth. The results indicated that response time increased as the depth of the web site structure increased. (2000-11-05)

Study: Net Users Now Older, Wiser

E-Commerce Times: The average American who logs on is 41 years old with an average income of $65,000 (US$), married with 2.81 children and uses a PC at work. Gartner found that men and women are represented equally on the Web. (2000-11-05)

How tolerable is delay? : Consumers' evaluations of internet web sites after waiting

How consumer's waiting times affect their retrospective evaluations of Internet Web Sites is investigated in four computer-based experiments. Results show that waiting can but does not always negatively affect evaluations of Web Sites. Results also show that the potential negative effects of waiting can be neutralized by managing waiting experiences effectively. A conceptual framework and formal random utility model is introduced. (2000-11-05)

A Glass of Wine Helps Show What Buyers Want

According to this report on a study of 8 different e-commerce site design for selling wine, the researchers "...found with wine that if you give good information, consumers become less price sensitive," Professor Ariely said. "They like the wine that they buy more, and they stay longer with the service that sold it to them." (2000-10-29)

Study: Most E-Shoppers Abandon Carts

According to this E-Commerce Times article a recent study "...by BizRate.com shows that the average online shopper abandoned two or three Web shopping carts over the last 90 days, each representing lost sales of $175 (US$). The article describes the reasons why people abandon shopping carts. (2000-10-29)

Report: New Profile for 'Typical' Web User

According to this E-Commerce Times report "The Web is no longer the virtual playground of well-educated males and technology aficionados. The online consumer population is undergoing a major shift. Of the total U.S. households currently online, 33 percent have had Web access for less than a year. (2000-10-22)

First-Timers Dominate Most Traffic

According to this brief report WebSideStory's StatMarket has found that, for the sites they collect data on, a little over 70% of the daily visitors are first time visitors. (2000-09-30)

Wired Workers: Who They Are, What They’re Doing Online

According to this Pew Research Center Report " The Internet has grown in importance at America’s work places to the point where 37% of full-time workers, and 18% of part-time workers, have Internet access at work. Some 38 million full-time workers in the nation have Internet access at their jobs and two-thirds of them (67%) go online at least once per day. When they are online, most are doing job-related research and using email." (2000-09-10)

Online Help Skills and Technologies Survey

According to WinWriter "...this survey is all about identifying what we collectively deem as the specific elements of our work that are of most importance to us. How many of us are still using WinHelp? How many are going to browser-based solutions? What emphasis do we place on writing conceptual information? What platforms do we support? Which tools do we find the most useful?" (2000-07-30)

Online Drugstores

According to this Internet.com article, a recent study by Forrester predicts that, to be successful in the future, "ePharmacies must "...connect with patients by encouraging them to take their medication and sending e-mail reminders to refill prescriptions. Online pharmacies must also offer patients interactive treatment tools and site-sponsored support groups that complement drug therapies..." (2000-07-30)

Does Metaphor Increase Visual Language Usability?

Previous research suggests that graphical metaphor should increase the usability of visual programming languages (VPLs) by providing an instructional aid when learning to use the language. This paper describes three experiments which manipulated the degree of metaphor in VPLs. (2000-10-08)

Study: Poor Customer Service Costing E-tailers Dearly

According to this E-Commerce Times report on the recent results of a online shopping survey by Datamonitor: "Shoppers filling up online carts and then clicking away before completing their purchases is a large part of the problem. Some 7.8 percent of abandoned online transactions could have been salvaged and converted into sales if e-tailers had provided better service..." (2000-07-15)

Docs in the Real World

The User Interface Engineering article reports on the findings of a study of the user of systems documentation. By observing users in their working environment, UIE found that users did not rely on just one source of information, but used many. They also found that small problems with online documentation significantly undermined the user's perception of the trustworthiness of the information. (2000-06-11)

Readability Research on Online Reading

This page contains links to research reports about reading online. The research examined such variables as font style, font color and background color, the affects of line spacing, age and contrast, and affects of texture backgrounds. (2000-06-11)

Eyetracking Study of Web Readers

In this Alertbox article, Jakob Nielsen discusses the findings and implications of the Poynter Institute eyetracking study on Newspaper sites. Nielsen concludes "Adding one more study to the list of evidence for different reading behavior will hopefully convince more Internet executives of the need write differently for the Web and hire specialized Web editors who understand online content." (2000-05-15)

Report: Customer loyalty is e-commerce king

Repeat customers spend more, the report said. For example, the average repeat shopper at an apparel site spent 67 percent more in months 31 to 36 than in the first six months of shopping at the site. In addition, repeat customers refer significantly more people to a site, and those new customers over three years spend 50 percent to 75 percent of what the original customer spent, the report stated. (2000-04-02)

Ultimate Web site survival guide

New research reveals key shifts in Web surfing habits that is putting thousands of Net businesses at immediate risk. First of all, Web users are settling into stable patterns of surfing, and are becoming less likely to venture out of a narrow neighborhood of favorite sites as a result. (via webword) (2000-03-12)

Psychophysical and cognitive aspects of categorical perception

One of the most basic questions of cognitive science is: How do organisms sort the objects of the world into categories? The problem is very general, for an object can be any recurring class of experience, from a concrete entity such as a cat or a table to an abstract idea such as goodness or truth. (2000-03-12)

Pencil vs. Computer

According to this report on several studies conducted on school age children "students used to keyboarding are working at a disadvantage on pencil-and-paper tests. (2000-03-05)

Information Seeking on the Web

This paper presents findings from a study of how knowledge workers use the Web to seek external information as part of their daily work. Thirty-four users from seven companies took part in the study. Participants were mainly IT specialists, managers, and research/marketing/consulting staff working in organizations that included a large utility company, a major bank, and a consulting firm. (2000-02-13)

Trust and the perception of security

According to this research report "...people's perception of security when doing on-line transactions depends on the simplicity of the site and on the availability of user support...

90 Percent of Holiday E-Shoppers 'Largely Satisfied'

According to a just-released Jupiter Communications report, 90 percent of online shoppers said they were "largely satisfied" with their 1999 holiday season experiences on the Web. (2000-01-22)

"A" is for Amazon

A post-holiday online retailing survey by Ernst & Young found that 26 percent of those polled made an online purchase during the holidays, and that the number of women who shopped online outpaced men during the holidays. Amazon.com was the No. 1 shopping destination for 42 percent of online shoppers during the 1999 holiday season, followed by eToys.com (20 percent), Toys R Us (19 percent), Barnesandnoble.com (17 percent), and Buy.com (16 percent). (2000-01-10)

How Much Is Too Much?

The State of the Web study for 1999 found that "...nearly 30% of all pages present dead hyperlinks to their visitors, and the average page size remains, as it always has, at least twice the upper limit suggested by human factors research" (1999-12-20)

Software Hell

According to this Business Week article "...most big companies depend on layer upon layer of hand-built, poorly documented computer code, which may conceal a variety of ticking time bombs--Y2K being just the most famous. According to the U.S. Defense Dept. and the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, there are typically 5 to 15 flaws in every 1,000 lines of code... Just tracking down each bug eats up about 75 minutes, according to a five-year Pentagon study. And fixing them takes two to nine hours each. On the outside, that's 150 hours, or roughly $30,000, to cleanse every 1,000 lines. (1999-12-05)

IT Excellence

This Information Week article reports on a survey of the top 500 IT (Information Technology) departments. The survey found that: "E-commerce applications and intranet or enterprise portals were at the top of the list of key strategic technology priorities. On average, InformationWeek 500 companies now draw 21% of their total revenue from E-business transactions." (1999-10-10)

Online Shoppers Frustrated By Confusing Sites

According to this TechWeb news article "A research company estimates online retailers could lose as much revenue as the entire retail industry is set to earn during the upcoming holiday shopping season. In a consumer research study conducted on a dozen of the largest online retailers, 39 percent of customer buying attempts online and 56 percent of product searches failed." (1999-10-03)

Gartner says 75 percent of e-business will fail

According to this Information World report "A full 75 percent of all e-business projects will fail due to poor planning and unrealistic expectations of new technology, according to a study released Thursday by research firm Gartner Group. Most companies implementing e-business strategies don't fully understand the new technologies behind e-business, the study said. At the same time, they become so dazzled by those very technologies and turn away from old-fashioned business planning and strategies." (1999-09-25)

Report: Half of Net users mistrust sites

According to this CNet new article a study by Juniper communications found that "..about 64 percent of those surveyed mistrust online privacy policies. In light of recent privacy issues faced by America Online, United Airlines, and other online companies, the high percentage of wary users is understandable, analysts say. But their worries can be costly. Jupiter projects that privacy issues could potentially put an $18 billion dent in the $40 billion e-commerce revenue it projects by 2002." (1999-09-18)

Wanted: Better Job Listings

The Business Week article reports on a usability study of 6 corporate web sites in which "...job seekers called up a company's recruitment site and tried to find and apply for a job that suited their interests and talents. They succeed in completing an application just 26% of the time." (1999-09-18)

We have computers. Why aren't we more productive?

According to this Salon Magazine article ".. new research shows that technology rarely saves businesses time or money. In fact, innovations often come at considerable expense. But they do help companies do new things that would otherwise be impossible."(1999-09-05)

Captology - Computers as Persuasive Technology

Like human persuaders, persuasive computing technologies can bring about positive changes in many domains, including health, safety, and education. With such ends in mind, we are creating a body of expertise in the design, theory, and analysis of persuasive technologies. We call this area "captology." (1999-09-05)

Text Width and Margin Width Influences on Readability of GUIs

This study found ".. that, by itself, text width does not influence readability; however, there was a significant interaction between text width and margin width. The most efficiently read conditions were those with small text width (4-inch) and large margins, or the largest text width (8-inch) and no border. (1999-08-15)

Readability Of Websites

"The effects of 6 foreground/background color combinations (color), 3 font types (Arial, Courier New, & Times New Roman), and 2 word styles (Italicized & Plain) on readability of websites were investigated. ... In general these results suggest that there is no one foreground/background combination, font, or word style which leads to the fastest RT (i.e. best readability), but rather a designer must consider how each variable affects the other(s)."(1999-08-15)

Computer Stupidities

This site contains many stories and anecdotes about the kind of difficulties people encounter when they are first trying to learn how to use computers. Unfortunately the webmaster of this site views these people as stupid, rather than accepting the notion that perhaps the software is stupid. This site sadly reflects an all too common arrogant attitude towards the capabilities of users and the difficulties they encounter when learning to use a computer. These stories should not be treated as funny, but instructive and insightful. (1999-07-03)

Factors and Principles Affecting the Usability of Four E-commerce Sites

" This paper documents the results of the initial study in which sixteen participants used and compared two sites that sold clothing, and two sites that sold computer products. The primary purpose of this first study was to pinpoint factors that affect the usability of four e-commerce sites". (Mar-07-99)

Web Page Design: Implications of Memory, Structure and Scent

This paper describes "...an experiment to see if large breadth and decreased depth is preferable, both subjectively and via performance data, while attempting to design for optimal scent throughout different structures of a website. Results showed that, while increased depth did harm search performance on the web, a medium condition of depth and breadth outperformed the broadest, shallow web structure overall. (Sep-04-98)

Maxmizing Windows

This very interesting online article, by Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini describes the design and usability testing of a web page that contained instructions for maximizing the browser window. The design went through seven iterations before all the various types of users were able to successfully maximize the window. (May-15-98)

Buttons vs. menus

This exploratory study compares three command selection methods: pull-down menus, button bars, and user choice of pull-down menus or button bars. Results show that in frequently used functions, such as character attribute selection (bold, italic, underline, etc.), button bars are faster. There were no statistically significant differences in error rates between the three interaction methods. (Jul-05-98)

Helping and Hindering User Involvement - A Tale of Everyday Design

This online article presents a case study of a software development project that involved users in the interface design. The case study documents that factors that both facilitated and hinder user involvement. (Aug -04-97)

Valuable Consumers Demand Personalization

Cyberatlas: Frequent online purchasers are more likely to spend more money at Web sites that offer personalization, according to survey conducted by Cyber Dialogue. More than half (56 percent) of the respondents said they are more likely to purchase from a site that allows personalization, and 63 percent are more likely to register at a site that allows personalization or content customization. The implication for online sellers is that the most desirable customers increasingly want to receive improved service or relevant benefits from Web sites that can remember their personal information and subsequently tailor that information to their personal needs and interests. (2001-05-13)

What Causes Customers to Buy on Impulse?

User Interface Engineering: Impulse purchases represent almost 40% of all the money spent on e-commerce sites, according to recent tests we conducted. What drives shoppers to make these impulse purchases? It isn't price, but rather it's tied to design elements of the site itself. (2001-05-06)

Secondary Windows in Online Help - What Do Users Really Make of Them?

STC Usability Newsletter: "In conducting these two tests, Digitext set out to investigate how the discretionary use of secondary windows might contribute to the overall goal of easy-to-use Help systems. The overall conclusion is that there is little reason to assign specific types of topic to different secondary windows. However, it can be helpful to use a secondary window for a link to a sub-procedure or layer of additional detail, as long as the current window remains visible on screen when the new window appears. In this case, the two windows show a valid relationship between the two topics, and the user is able easily to return to the main topic after completing the sub-procedure." (2001-04-29)

Testing Web Sites with Eye-Tracking

User Interface Engineering: "Thanks to some recent usability studies we conducted using an eye-tracking system, we now have real evidence of where users actually look when they view a web page. It’s clear that users quickly learn to look where they expect to find content. They also quickly learn to avoid areas where they don’t see—or expect—what they’re looking for, including banner ads and parts of the page outside the central area." The study found" "...users typically looked first in the center area, then in the left panel, then in the right column. Users spent an average of 11 seconds on each of the pages..."

The 3Cs of Critical Web Use: Collect, Compare, Choose

Alertbox, Jakob Nielsen: According to a recent critical incident analysis, users' most important Web tasks involve collecting and comparing multiple pieces of information, usually so they can make a choice.

Seize the Occasion: Usage-Based Segmentation for Internet Marketers

enews: A new study ... shows that consumers' online behavior and their responses to online marketing vary greatly depending on what they're doing at a particular time. Consider this analogy: Web users ignore banner ads when they're intent on finding specific information fast, just as drivers don't pay attention to billboards when they're speeding to the emergency room. Once the deep link is understood between consumers' activity during a specific session and their receptiveness to marketing at that time, marketers can design and deliver better messages for every occasion. This article describes 7 types of Web usage behavior: Quickies, Just the Facts, Single Mission, Do it Again, Loitering, Information Please and Surfing. (2001-04-22)

Online Financial Services Falling Behind the Phone

Cyberatlas: A Jupiter consumer survey found that customer service (52 percent) and federally insured accounts (59 percent) are the most important qualities consumers look for when choosing a financial services provider. Only 7 percent of consumers cite availability of promotions as important criteria for selecting a financial provider. While many financial institutions focus on features, consumers' demands largely fall in two basic categories: trust and convenience, and Jupiter analysts caution that new features produce only complexity, which is fundamentally at odds with the desired goal of customer convenience. (2001-04-22)

Online Customer Service Tough To Implement

"The message from consumers this holiday season is very clear. They expect e-tailers to beef up their customer service operations. As a result, many cost-conscious online merchants are looking at so-called natural language service agents that allow customers to type in questions in English. The big question is whether it will work." (2000-01-22)

Solving the Customer Support Dilemma

"E-commerce may be the engine driving Web development these days. But no engine works without lubricant, and customer service is the lubricant of commerce. It keeps the wheels moving smoothly." (2000-01-10)

Giving Good Service on the Web

"Selling is only half of the e-commerce equation. Blinded by dollar signs, many e-commerce businesses go live without thinking about the flipside of opening a 24-hour, 7 day a week store on the Internet - they also need a 24/7 service department to support the needs of new and existing customers." (2000-01-10)

GE, Ventix to help users master e-commerce

This press release is about a partnership between the 1999 EPSS Design Contest recipient Ventix Systems and GE. According to the release GE will used the Ventix AnswerSystem, which delivers contextually relevant answers, and the new Ventix AnswerWeb, an intelligent self-supporting infrastructure for electronic-business transactions. (1999-10-10)

Inside Job

Fast Company: Want to find one area where Internet technology is delivering more than expected? Look within. Intranets are boosting efficiency and creativity, and changing work patterns. Here are seven steps to the ultimate intranet. (2001-09-16)

Liquid Design for the Web

This article will address just one of the many variables out there on the web — screen resolution. With so many users who leave their screen resolution at the factory default, to users who cannot change resolutions due to hardware limitations, to users who run at the highest resolution possible, there are a number of variations out there. Couple that with the fact that not everyone surfs full-screen, and most users have toolbars of some sort taking up space that could otherwise be used for web page display, and you've got an infinite number of possible dimensions in browser windows. (2001-09-02)

Password Usability

WebWord: Poor password usability can ruin your web registration process. While passwords are a painful fact of life, there are ways to minimize the problems that users face. This article contains suggestions on how to best collect passwords during the registration process, and it will help you determine if you should allow users to save their passwords. (2001-08-19)

Managing taxonomies strategically

Taxonomies are structures that provide a way of classifying things -- living organisms, products, books -- into a series of hierarchical groups to make them easier to identify, study, or locate. Taxonomies consist of two parts -- structures and applications. Structures consist of the categories (or terms) themselves and the relationships that link them together. Applications are the navigation tools available to help users find information. (2001-08-12)

Web Design Patterns

This site contains a series of Web design patterns. Patterns are a structured way of presenting design information about various web interface elements, such as: bread crumb navigation, site maps, wizards, etc. This is an XML site that won't render with Netscape. (2001-08-05)

Interface Usability in Flash

iBoost Journal: This tutorial attempts to steer both beginning and also experienced Flash designers towards a more responsible use of Flash. While this may sound a bit loaded, you should realize that, by now, quite a few sites have banned the use of Flash entirely -simply because they had the unfortunate experience of having Flash implemented on their behalf, but in the wrong way. Yet, when Flash is used the wrong way, it creates havoc. But the same might be said of HTML. (The designers should have been blamed, rather than the tool!) So, to help Flash designers avoid making the same errors all over again, I’ve written out some pointers, highlighting many of the common errors I’ve encountered when reviewing Flash sites. (2001-08-05)

The Keys to Improving Flash Usability

Flazoom.com: Watch any seasoned designer working in Photoshop, Quark Xpress or Flash. Their fingers fly across the keys to execute command after command all through the keyboard. The mouse may just sit there collecting dust until the designer needs it to make a selection or access a command that does not have a shortcut. These keyboard-shortcuts improve the usability of applications on our computers, so why can't they improve our Flash content too? (2001-08-05)

Tagline Blues: What's the Site About?

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: A website's tagline must explain what the company does and what makes it unique among competitors. Two questions can help you assess your own tagline: Would it work just as well for competitors? Would any company ever claim the opposite? (2001-07-22)

Response Time Still Matters

Bohmann Usability: Web pages become large when they include code and content that wasn't optimized for the Web. For instance, pictures and graphics usually needs to be reduced in size to download fast. The same goes for pages built with too much code (long stylesheets included in each pages, many scripts, etc.). Leading sites such as Yahoo strive to avoid large pages by dedicating developer resources exclusively to optimize page sizes and maintain fast response times. (2001-07-15)

Building A Potent Intranet For An Enterprise

Content is definitely king: But how easy is it to develop content and applications that is compelling, regular and enticing? Users of the intranet look for significant content that decides whether they re-visit the site regularly. (2001-07-15)

Experience Design

While everything is, technically, an experience of some sort, there is something special to many experiences that make them worth discussing. In particular, the elements that contribute to superior experiences are knowable and reproducible, which makes them designable. The concept to grasp is that all experiences are important and that we can learn from them whether they are traditional, physical, offline experiences or whether they are digital, online, or other technological experiences. (2001-07-15)

Bringing Out Your Dead!!! Resurrecting Your Intranet

Intranet Journal: The single most important thing to realize about an intranet is that it is a growing entity. An intranet must constantly be updated with new and relevant information so that it does not turn into a pile of yesterday's newspapers. There are measures you can take in order to keep your shiny intranet from turning into a gangrenous mass subject to user indifference and the occasional lamentation peppered with creative expletives. (2001-07-01)

Beating the Checkout Blues

Cooper Interactive Newsletter: Every substandard interaction you introduce to your store is a barrier that lies between your customers and a completed transaction with you. If you're a businessperson who sells online-or anywhere else for that matter-it's worth spending the extra time, money, and effort required to remove the barriers and nuisances from your checkout process to make it easy for people to give you their money. (2001-07-01)

Elements of Experience Design

WebReference.com, Nathan Shedroff: While everything is, technically, an experience of some sort, there is something special to many experiences that make them worth discussing. In particular, the elements that contribute to superior experiences are knowable and reproducible, which makes them designable. The concept to grasp is that all experiences are important and that we can learn from them whether they are traditional, physical, offline experiences or whether they are digital, online, or other technological experiences. In fact, we know a great deal about experiences and their creation through these other, established disciplines that can-and must-be used to develop new solutions. (2001-06-24)

A Solid Intranet in Eight Steps

Web Techniques, Theo Mandel: Corporate intranets are old news—everyone has one. But have you ever stepped back and wondered whether your intranet is cost-effective? Or, whether it increases your company's productivity? Have you ever asked your corporate users if they like it? For that matter, do they even use it? Because intranets have become commonplace, it's easy to assume they're well designed and usable. Unfortunately, most intranets have grown undirected and unchecked, like weeds in a garden. To dispel the myth that good intranet design just happens, let's look at the rules that my colleagues and I follow when we design corporate intranets. (2001-06-17)

Grow Your Site, Keep Your Users

According to this article about eBay.com "No matter what the information architecture is, keeping so much data easily accessible is an ongoing chore. "We don't have all the bangs and whistles of some of the sites that are out there. Because of all the users, we need to simplify what's on the site," Borns says. "One of the main things we hear from them is, 'Keep it simple.' " (2001-06-10)

Website First Impressions: Reading Your E-Commerce Aura

When it comes to designing an e-commerce website, storefront 'usability' is one critical issue you should be loath to neglect. Beyond essentials like fast download times and intuitive navigation, an effective e-commerce website must boast equally intuitive catalog and order-interface systems, with the least number of obstacles. How you interface with your customers is critical, and terms like 'usability', 'architecture' and 'flow' suddenly take on increased significance. Even your text and marketing content must be conceived in terms of design, in terms of global impact, in terms of 'cognitive usability'. (2001-06-03)

Universal Usability in Practice

The goal of universal usability is to enable the widest range of users to benefit from web services. This website contains recommendations and information resources for web developers who wish to accommodate users with slow modems, small screens, text-only, and wireless devices. It deals with content design issues such as translation to other languages, plus access for novice, low educated and low motivated users, children and elders. The website also covers design guidance for blind, deaf, cognitively impaired, and physically disabled users. Each article has practical guidelines, web site examples, links to organizations, and a bibliography.

The cranky user: Instant back buttons

IBM DeveloperWorks: In this article, we discuss things that drive users away from pages even before the page is done loading. There are several main reasons why a user might abandon a page. Time is one of them; a page that takes longer than a user is willing to spend will be abandoned. Presentation problems (such as awful color schemes) can also drive people away. Annoying content may cause users to give up on a page, either because it's distracting or because it takes too long to load. Finally, a page with no content can drive people away as quickly as anything. (2001-06-03)

Designing an E-commerce Site for Users

Usability considerations should be of prime importance in the design of an electronic commerce (e-commerce) web site. While the number of e-commerce web sites has increased rapidly over the last three years, the satisfaction of e-commerce users has generally decreased. This gap results from too little attention being paid to human factors that affect whether a web site can be used easily, accurately, and without losing user interest. This paper discusses the role of user interface design in developing e-commerce web sites and provides some guidelines for user interfaces.

Recipe for a Successful Website

Listen up, this one's a no-brainer. Building a successful website is as simple as an Easy-Bake Oven™. Although it's a lot of hard work, it isn't very difficult to understand. The directions are clear.

Series 80 Developer Platform 2.0: Usability Guidelines For Enterprise Applications

From Nokia.com, this document presents usability guidelines that should be considered when developing mobile enterprise applications for Series 80 devices. The document also includes a usability toolkit for developers, containing usability checklists, design templates, and a 'Top 10 Usability Guidelines for Series 80 Enterprise Applications' poster.

Study: Linux nears Windows XP usability

DUSSELDORF, Germany -- Linux, once viewed as an OS only computer geeks could appreciate, is today a much more user-friendly software that companies, public administrations, and consumers can master almost as easily as Microsoft's Windows XP. That's the core finding of a study published on Friday by Relevantive, a Berlin-based company specializing in consulting companies on the usability of software and Web services. The Relevantive usability study, which can be downloaded from the company's Web site (www.relevantive.de), comes as numerous government bodies and companies in Germany's public and private sectors move to migrate their IT systems away from Windows to the Linux operating system, while others are still debating the pros and cons of such a move.

The Designers’ Outpost: Capturing and Interacting with Design History

In a high-tech field like web design, we might expect to find computer-savvy practitioners accomplishing all their work with the click of the mouse and a stroke of the keyboard. However, in our studies of the early stages of web design, we found that good ol’ pens, paper, walls, and tables were the primary creative tools.

MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #1

What is the Holy Grail of information architects? It’s the secret that will help them develop and maintain a centralized, user-centered information architecture for a large, distributed organization—the kind made up of all sorts of autonomous, bickering business units that have their own goals, their own sites, their own infrastructures, their own users, and their own ideas of how to go about things.

MSWeb: An Enterprise Intranet #2

Beyond taxonomies: selling services The MSWeb team started out four years ago with a vision of the very broad but tricky area of taxonomies, and went to work figuring out how they could be built for use on the MSWeb portal. They tested and developed tools and vocabularies that improve content management as well as the searching and browsing of the MSWeb site.

Modeling the Creative Organization

The challenge: “If you could organize the group in whatever way you wanted, what would you recommend doing?” Everyone who has ever been a manager longs to hear those words. I often thought, “If I could do it my way, I would do things differently.” Now, suddenly, I was being offered an opportunity to make a difference—to design the perfect design group.

Recruiting Without Fear - How to Find First-Rate Participants for Design Studies

Eighty percent of solving problems is just getting the right people to show up. Whether you’re conducting usability tests, field studies, or focus groups, the quality of the participants you recruit can make or break your design study.

Mapping TSP to CMMI

Abstract: With the advent of CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model® Integration), development and maintenance organizations are faced with many issues regarding how their current practices, or new practices that they are considering adopting, compare to the new model. The Team Software ProcessSM (TSPSM), including the corequisite Personal Software ProcessSM (PSPSM), defines a set of project practices that has a growing body of evidence showing highly desirable process performance in terms of delivered product quality, schedule performance, and cost performance. TSP also has a history of favorable coverage with respect to the SW-CMM® (Capability Maturity Model for Software), a major precursor to CMMI, as well as several real-world implementations that have helped organizations to achieve high maturity levels in a relatively short period of time. This report provides an essential element to facilitate the adoption of the TSP in organizations using CMMI, namely, a mapping of ideal TSP practices into the specific and generic practices of CMMI. By having such a mapping (also known as a gap analysis), those involved with process improvement and appraisal efforts can more easily determine how well the organization or a particular project is implementing the TSP, how well projects using TSP might rate with respect to CMMI, and where and how to fill any gaps in CMMI coverage. Organizations already following an improvement plan based on CMMI may also determine how TSP adoption might help them to achieve broader, deeper, or higher maturity implementations of CMMI goals and practices.

Virtual Dissection and Physical Collaboration

This paper explores how software can be designed for individual use or for collaboration in the physical or virtual world, focusing on physical collaboration. The case study explored is the design and use of frog and human dissection simulation software. Since socialization has traditionally played an important role in the dissection laboratory experience, yet dissection simulations do not typically incorporate any online or offline interactions, the idea of virtual dissections or other types of educational software for physical collaboration is proposed.

Computers Grade Students' Writing

COLUMBIA, Missouri -- Student essays always seem to be riddled with the same sorts of flaws. So sociology professor Ed Brent decided to hand the work off -- to a computer. Students in Brent's Introduction to Sociology course at the University of Missouri-Columbia now submit drafts through the SAGrader software he designed. It counts the number of points he wanted his students to include and analyzes how well concepts are explained.

Mental Models For Search Are Getting Firmer

Users now have precise expectations for the behavior of search. Designs that invoke this mental model but work differently are confusing.

Formal Usability Reports vs. Quick Findings

Formal reports are the most common way of documenting usability studies, but informal reports are faster to produce and are often a better choice.

Older Americans and the Internet

"Just 22% go online, but their enthusiasm for email and search may inspire their peers to take the leap."

Using digitized primary source materials in the classroom: A Colorado case study

Abstract Using digitized primary source materials with K-12 students makes learning content more engaging and relevant, and helps students develop a wide range of skills. This paper highlights the use of primary source materials in Colorado classrooms and provides a brief overview of what educators' needs are in order to use digitized primary source materials more efficiently and effectively with students.

Companies are from Mars, Customers are from Venus

Despite all the money and effort poured into them, customer-relationship-management systems often misunderstand or even ignore the customer and do more harm than good-as these three cautionary tales show.

Proven ROI from Website Usability Study

Sigmer Technologies, providers of bespoke software solutions and extensive website expertise, today announced the launch of their new website which has already achieved ROI, largely due to incorporating a usability study during the redevelopment of the site. Sigmer's new website showcases the business benefits of usability and information architecture as an integral part of the web development process. The new site supports W3C Accessibility Priority Level 3, the highest level. Sigmer developed the site utilising its experience in designing highly accessible websites for clients such as The International Save the Children Alliance.

Usability and Acceptance in Small-Screen Information Systems

Abstract The small screen sizes of mobile phones can create problems for users. There is a need for acceptable user interfaces that enable a better, more maximised use of the limited screen size while still providing high levels of usability. One method of maximising a limited display area is translucency. To examine the effect of translucency on interface usability we created a fully functioning simulation of a third generation mobile phone user interface, containing a translucent menu system. In this study translucency was implemented at 50% alpha, and two menu levels deep. Objective and subjective aspects of usability and acceptance were gathered. Within the focus of the research the study yielded interesting findings positively relating translucency to perceived usability and measures of acceptance of small screen information systems. This paper presents the results of this study, and presents avenues for continuing research arising from the findings.

Semantic Web Technologies

The Semantic Web is an ambitious vision, first proposed by Tim Berners-Lee, to extend today's Web – imbuing it with a sense of meaning. The articulation of this vision in a now famous article in Scientific American has led to a wide reaching research programme. This programme is resulting in the development of new technologies for describing items of Web-based information and their inter-relationships, but what impact is this development likely to have on Higher and Further Education? This TechWatch report provides an introduction to the Semantic Web – the vision, programme and technologies, but also explains where we currently are in its development and what the likely impact will be on education in areas such as information management and discovery tools, digital libraries, supporting Web-based interaction, and e-learning. It also proposes some realistic timescales for adoption and outlines the current and potential role of the UK F&HE community.

Digital Divisions: There are clear differences among those with broadband connections, dial-up connections, and no connections at all to the internet

Sixty-eight percent of American adults, or about 137 million people, use the internet, up from 63% one year ago. Thirty-two percent of American adults, or about 65 million people, do not go online, and it is not always by choice. Those who are currently offline have had varying levels of exposure to the online world. One in five American adults say they have never used the internet or email and do not live in an internet-connected household. At the other end of the spectrum, 53% of home internet users have high-speed access, creating a new divide among internet users.

Geography matters: Mapping human development and digital access.

Policy circles have long made the assumption that information and communications technologies promote human development. In mapping the Human Development Index (HDI) against the Digital Access Index (DAI) we explore the statistical and spatial relationship between human development and digital access. The results suggest information and communications technologies may not play as strong a role in promoting human development as is usually asserted and that public policies might need to be centered more on human rather than digital capital.

The ABCs of the BBC: A Case Study and Checklist

A-Z indexes are sometimes seen as the less desirable counterpart to other navigational elements such as sitemaps and, especially, search. However, A-Z indexes can be a valuable secondary navigation tool, especially for large sites with a lot of granular content ... "We felt the need to make the A-Z more like a supermarket (comprehensive and well-organized) and less like a junk shop (random and gems buried amidst the clutter)."

Evolutionary information seeking: A case study of personal development and Internet searching

This article explores one question: what does Internet searching have to do with personal development? Personal development means that individuals improve their own abilities, skills, knowledge or other qualities by working on them. The paper reports on a qualitative case study, in which a single participant was interviewed and her Web searches observed. Information search strategies seemed to form a spectrum of developmental sophistication. Four major types of relationship were found: a) the Internet in the context of development; b) development in the context of the Internet; c) development affecting Internet use; and, d) Internet use affecting development. There were some informational phenomena which exhibited regression, the converse of development.

Elements of a Usability Reasoning Framework

Abstract: This technical note brings together two different threads of work: (1) investigating the relationship between usability and software architecture that has generated a number of usability scenarios with implications for software architecture and (2) developing an architecture design assistant, Architecture Expert (ArchE). One key element of ArchE is that quality attribute knowledge can be encapsulated into reasoning frameworks, and a Carnegie Mellon University Master of Software Engineering project team has developed an ArchE reasoning language (ARL) with which to specify the actions of reasoning frameworks within ArchE.

How Women and Men Use the Internet

Men continue to pursue many internet activities more intensively than women. At the same time, trend data show that women are catching up in overall use and are framing their online experience with a greater emphasis on deepening connections with people.

Evaluation of integrated software development environments

Evidence shows that integrated development environments (IDEs) are too often functionality-oriented and difficult to use, learn, and master. This article describes challenges in the design ofusable IDEs and in the evaluation ofthe usability of such tools. It also presents the results of three different empirical studies of IDE usability. Different methods are sequentially applied across the empirical studies in order to identify increasingly specific kinds of usability problems that developers face in their use of IDEs. The results of these studies suggest several problems in IDE user interfaces with the representation of functionalities and artifacts, such as reusable program components. We conclude by making recommendations for the design of IDE user interfaces with better affordances, which may ameliorate some of most serious usability problems and help to create more human-centric software development environments.

Common Elements of Risk

Traditionally, responsibility for completing a mission and the resources needed to pursue it aligned with organizational boundaries. However, key drivers in the business environment, such as the globalization of business and the fast pace of technological change, have resulted in increased outsourcing and partnering among organizations. It is now common for multiple organizations to work collaboratively in pursuit of a single mission, which creates a degree of programmatic and process complexity that can be difficult to manage effectively. In today's business environment, management and staff must be able to deal with intricate and unclear interrelationships and dependencies among technologies, data, tasks, activities, processes, and people. Mission success in these complex environments requires people to sort through the inherent complexity when making important decisions. Effective risk management that is based on a solid conceptual foundation is an essential part of this decision-making process. This technical note begins to define this foundation by identifying the basic elements of risk and exploring how these elements can affect the potential for mission success.

Modeling and Analysis of Information Technology Change and Access Controls in the Business Context

Ongoing field work centered at the Information Technology Process Institute (ITPI) makes clear that processes that control change and access within information technology (IT) management and operations simultaneously reduce security risk and increase efficiency and effectiveness.

A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users

Half of all American adults are only occasional users of modern information gadgetry, while 8% are avid participants in all that digital life has to offer.

Applications of the Indicator Template for Measurement and Analysis

Abstract: Organizations often do not achieve the potential benefits of a sound measurement program due to the inconsistent construction and interpretation of indicators derived from measurement data. This technical note presents guidance for adapting and completing an indicator template—a tool the Software Engineering Institute has developed to precisely describe an indicator—including its construction, correct interpretation, and how it can be utilized to direct data collection and presentation and measurement and analysis processes. An indicator template can help an organization to define indicators, or graphical representations of measurement data, which describe the who, what, where, when, why, and how for analyzing and collecting measures. This technical note defines each field of the indicator template, provides example inputs, and shows how the template may be used in the context of a process improvement effort that uses the Capability Maturity Model® Integration framework and/or Goal-Driven Software Measurement.

CMMI® Interpretive Guidance Project: What We Learned

This report summarizes the results of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Interpretive Guidance Project. It summarizes and analyzes the 7500 comments received regarding CMMI adoption that were reported by CMMI users and potential users. It also describes the actions being taken by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to address the issues identified by Interpretive Guidance Project participants. Although the initial goal of the project was to develop interpretive guidance, after data gathering and analysis the team realized that most respondents’ input did not require interpretive guidance. Based on a relatively small number of comments, interpretive guidance was planned, including papers, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and new CMMI courses. However, participant comments clearly showed CMMI interpretive guidance to be less of an adoption issue than suspected. Some comments covered issues already being addressed as part of SEI activities, including the development of Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPISM) Class B and C methods, the collection of cost and benefit information, and the creation and improvement of CMMI training courses. The majority (approximately 80%) of the actionable comments received were best handled as change requests to help guide the ongoing improvement of the CMMI Product Suite.

Why It Will Be Hard to Close the Broadband Divide

When you look at the data on Americans without broadband at home, it suggests that it will take time to get these holdouts off the digital sidelines.

Basic Principles and Concepts for Achieving Quality

This technical note extends the quality concepts first articulated in A Software Quality Framework (SQF) developed in the early 1980s for the Department of Defense (DoD) by Baker and colleagues. The original quality concepts of the SQF are extended beyond software to include products, services, and processes. This technical note also describes the conceptual elements necessary for building quality into systems, or any entity, and evaluating the quality actually achieved...

Online Activities & Pursuits - Information Searches That Solve Problems

There are several major findings in this report. One is this: For help with a variety of common problems, more people turn to the internet than consult experts or family members to provide information and resources. Another key insight is that members of Gen Y are the leading users of libraries for help solving problems and in more general patronage.