Usability, Interface Design, & Information Architecture Resources

The literature in these fields is extensive, and so knowing where to begin can be a challenge. The following list of books, articles, and sites is intended to help you get started.

Accessibility

Clark, Joe. Building Accessible Web Sites . 2003.
To get a taste of Clark’s point of view, read his access manifesto.

Clark, Joe. Big, Stark, and Chunky. A List Apart, January 11, 2005.

Heilmann, Christian. 10 Reason Clients Dont Care about Accessibility. Digital Web Magazine, September 12, 2005.

Ritsko, John J. Ed. Special Accessibility Issue. IBM Systems Journal 44, no. 3 (2005).

Section508.gov. IT Accessibility & Workforce Division (ITAW), Office of Governmentwide Policy, U.S. General Services Administration.

Skills for Access, The Guide to Creating Accessible Multimedia eLearning. Learning Development and Media Unit, University of Sheffield, UK and Digital Media Access Group, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK.

Design, general

Bogaards, Peter J. InfoDesign: Understanding by Design.

Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, 1988, 2002.

Norman, Donald. Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. Basic Books, 2003.

Norman, Donald. jnd.org.
A good place to keep up with Norman’s current interests and research.

Schneiderman, Ben. Leonardo’s Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies. MIT Press, 2003.

Handheld device usability

Weiss, Scott. Handheld Usability. Wiley, 2002.

Human factors

Darnell, Michael J. Bad Human Factors Design.

Vicente, Kim. The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology. Routledge, 2004.

FAA Human Factors Awareness Web Course. Federal Aviation Administration.

Information Architecture

Rosenfeld, Lou and Peter Morville. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. O’Reilly Media: 2 edition, 2002.

Boxes and Arrows.

Return on investment

Donaghue, Karen and Michael D. Schrage. Built for Use: Driving Profitability Through the User Experience. McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Marcus, Aaron. Return on Investment for Usable User Interface Design: Examples and Statistics. Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc., February 28, 2002.

Usability testing and web usability

Dumas, Joseph S. and Janice C. Redish. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Intellect Books, 1993.

Fogg, B.J., Cathy Soohoo and David Danielson. How Do People Evaluate a Web Site’s Credibility? Consumer Reports Webwatch, October 29, 2002.

Krug, Steve. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. New Riders Press, 2000.

Nielsen, Jakob. Usability Engineering. Morgan Kaufmann, 1993.

Nielsen, Jakob. useit.com.

Rubin, Jeffrey. Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. Wiley, 1994.

User-centered design

Garrett, Jesse James. The Elements of User Experience. New Riders Press, 2002.

Vrendenburg, Karen, Scott Isensee, and Carol Righi. User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach. Prentice Hall PTR, 2002.

User interface design standards and guidelines

Apple Human Interface Guidelines. Apple, Inc.

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, Second Edition. Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Usability.gov. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

User interface design, interaction design: theory and practice

Fowler, Susan and Victor Stanwick. Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices for Web-Based Software. Morgan Kaufmann, 2004.

Olsen, Henrik. The Interaction Designers Coffee Break.

Sharp, Helen, Yvonne Rogers, and Jennifer Preecee. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Wiley, 2002.

———. ID-book.com, a companion website for the book listed above.

Scharff, Dr. Lauren. 1996. Color Test Results.

Schneiderman, Ben. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. Addison Wesley, 2004 (4th edition).

Toganazzini, Bruce. asktog.com, Interaction Design Solutions for the Real World.

A List Apart.

Digital Web Magazine.

Vincent Flanders’ Web Pages that Suck.