The UUX Community Newsletter
Usability Interface

Usability Interface is the quarterly publication of the Usability and User Experience Community. The purpose of the newsletter is to provide technical communicators with up-to-date and in-depth information on how they can apply usability design and testing techniques to their products.

May 2006

Recipe for Designing Usable Documentation
By Geoff Hart
What makes documentation usable? Usable documentation accommodates the way I think. Geoff summarizes his principles for define "user-friendly documentation".

Million Dollar Web Usability Tips
By Jacqueline Remus and Jessyca Frederick
What we have discovered here at Shopzilla, however, is that what has long been a struggle for UEX professionals can actually be a great tool to demonstrate the importance of your role. We have found a way, using tools that you may already have, to support the users’ needs that can positively impact your company’s bottom line.

Case Study: Promoting Usability at Lucent Technologies
Cheryl L. Coyle and Karen L. Ziech, New Jersey Usability SIG
We sponsored an award to raise awareness of the importance of usability. Instead of focusing on what projects had done wrong with regard to usability, we decided to reward a project for doing things right!

Meeting Report: Washington D.C. STC Usability SIG and UPA
Report on the Seminar "Understanding Web Readers (and Non-Readers): Creating Usable and Effective Web Content"
By Scott McDaniel
A report on a presentation by Ginny Redish where she discussed how research from linguistics, as well as cognitive psychology, reading studies, writing studies, and other disciplines could contribute to useful and usable Web sites.

Columns and SIG News

What Happened to Usability Interface
David Dick, Editor
User Interface has been on sabbatical, but I am happy to announce that we have returned. Starting with this issue, the newsletter is online and ends our traditional newsletter format.

Epiphany in the Trenches
Karen Bachmann, UUX Community Manager
Recognize the many paths to success and be prepared to forge your own if needed. You may find at the end of your “wrong way” happy clients, satisfied users, and a successful and delivered system.

Community News and Conference Announcements

• Usability Interface welcomes reports about meetings, events and activities from our Usability Experience Community. To have your announcement of a meeting, event or activity published on our Web site, contact davidjdick2000@yahoo.com.