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If you'd like to learn more about usability (either as a technique or a profession), here are online resources you can explore. |
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my favorite gurus and consultants and online repositories of info |
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professional groups I belong to & recommend as useful |
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UPA's printed journal (available to members only) is called Common Ground. A recent lead article was, "Assessing Web Site Usability from Server Log Files," by Laurie Kantner. |
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The most relevant of ACM's magazines is the (comparatively) glossy interactions. If you happen to have a subscription to ACM's Digital Library, or a copy of the January/February issue, you can read my rant about the Windows 95/98/NT File Open dialog box, as part of Elizabeth Buie's column "The Whiteboard." |
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surveys of people online (not just eliterature readers - everybody) |
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books |
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The best way to learn about usability is by doing, and reading online (since the field changes so incredibly fast), and watching other practitioners (which is how I learned a lot of what I know). |
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Nevertheless, books are also important to me, since they help me keep usability projects interesting by reminding me of the way they relate to larger issues such as, uh, how we think, and what's the point of thinking. |
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Here's a short list of the books I reread occasionally to keep my brain alive, professionally speaking, in no sort of order: |
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The Power of Maps by Denis Wood. Guilford Press, 1992. |
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ISBN 0-89862-493-2 |
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"In learning as in discovering, edge precedes surface." (page 176) |
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The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass. CLSI Publications (Stanford) and Cambridge University Press, 1996. |
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ISBN1-57586-052-X |
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User and Task Analysis for Interface Design by JoAnn T. Hackos and Janice C. Redish. John Wiley & Sons, 1998. |
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ISBN 0-471-17831-4 |
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Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature by Espen J. Aarseth. Johns Hopkins, 1997. |
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ISBN 0-8018-5579-9 |
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Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Kitchen Sink Press, 1993. |
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ISBN 1-56862-019-5 |
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Computers as Theatre by Brenda Laurel. Addison-Wesley, 1991. |
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ISBN 0-201-51048-0 |
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intense game design articles I've recently become obsessed with reading, many from gamasutra |
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"The role of the programmer now consists of writing good tools and trying to make life as easy as possible for the artists and level designers, rather than leading from the front with state of the art technology." |
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Ernest Adams' Designer's Notebook: |
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Dani Berry: |
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"These two elements "play" and "story" are really dipoles of some thing that our brains feed on. What do you think?" |
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