Amy Schade
Director
Amy Schade is a Director at Nielsen Norman Group and heads the Chicago office.
She works with clients large and small in a variety of industries such as telecommunications, e-commerce, government, travel, automotive, music, publishing, banking, non-profit and education, including extensive work on corporate intranets. She has conducted worldwide user research, including longitudinal studies, remote studies and eyetracking research, running studies in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. She regularly presents tutorials on user testing, intranet usability, writing for the Web, email newsletter usability and mobile usability.
Before joining NN/g, Schade worked as an Information Architect at Arc eConsultancy. At Arc, she created and revised site architectures for clients ranging from a family-related content site to a transaction-based sponsorship marketplace. Schade has also held a variety of positions in web production and advertising. She holds a Master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and a BA in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania.
She co-authored the following NN/g reports:
- E-Commerce Usability:874 guidelines based on user testing, eyetracking and diary studies in the US, Europe and Asia
- Intranet Design Annuals 2010, 2011 and 2012: Compilation of the winners of the Nielsen Norman Group annual intranet design contest
- Intranet Usability Guidelines: 614 intranet design guidelines based on user testing and field studies with employees at 27 organizations in 7 countries
- Intranet Information Architecture (IA): Analysis of the intranet structure and organization of 56 intranets, with guidelines and tips for structuring intranets
- Email Newsletter Usability: Guidelines for signing users up for newsletters and creating effective content, based on a series of studies of 228 newsletters with 83 participants in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia
- Site Map Usability: Guidelines for creating useful site maps based on a study of 10 sites
- Flash Accessibility: A companion study to Flash Usability, based on tests with users who are blind or have low vision
She also conducted many of the usability sessions with people with low vision or who are blind and users over the age of 65 for the NN/g reports:
- Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users with Disabilities
- Web Usability for Senior Citizens