Usability Engineering

by Jakob Nielsen

Overview

Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book is an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. The book provides the tools needed to avoid usability surprises and improve product quality. Step-by-step information on which method to use at various stages during the development lifecycle are included, along with detailed information on how to run a usability test and the unique issues relating to international usability.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780125184069
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	09/23/1994
Series:	Interactive Technologies
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Called the world's leading expert on Web usability by US News and World Report, Jakob Nielsen today serves as user advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group. In the course of a career in which he held influential positions at Sun Microsystems, Bellcore, and IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, Nielsen founded the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation. He holds 58 US patents, many of which focus on ways to make the Internet easier to use. He has written the Alertbox column on Web usability since 1995 and is the author of Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity and Usability Engineering, plus eight other books.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary.
What is Usability?
Generations of User Interfaces.
The Usability Engineering Lifecycle.
Usability Heuristics.
Usability Testing.
Usability Assessment Methods Beyond Testing.
Interface Standards.
International User Interfaces.
Future Developments.
Appendix A: Exercises.
Appendix B: Bibliography.
Author Index.
Subject Index.

Editorial Reviews

"The purpose of Jakob Nielsen's Usability Engineering is to help nontechnical people improve the systems so that they are not only error-free but also easier and more pleasant to use, and more efficient. It is a book that ...shows us how to change the world and does so admirably....One of this book's strengths is that it provides a wide selection of methods for improving systems, and allows for the unavoidable constraints of the real world." —NEW SCIENTIST

From the Publisher

Nielsen, author of the popular HyperText & HyperMedia, provides concrete advice and methods that can be systematically employed to ensure a high degree of usability in the final user interface. Appendix A lists several practical exercises touching upon important aspects of usability engineering. Appendix B is an extensive (53-page) bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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