Jakob Nielsen's trip report for the 1992 Computer-Human Interaction conference (CHI '92).
CHI'92 (Monterey, CA, 3-7 May 1992), IEEE Software 9, 4 (July 1992), pp. 78- 79.
The concept of direct manipulation is usually viewed as a single characteristic of a class of interaction styles. Here, direct manipulation is analyzed according to a detailed layered interaction model, showing that it has quite different effects on the dialogue on the different levels. In particular, the "no errors" claim may be true at the syntax level but not at several of the levels above or below that level.
Furthermore, a unified framework is presented for conceptualizing Direct Manipulation, What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG), Transparency, Immediate Command Specification, Arcticulatory Directness, and Computational Appliances according to a layered interaction view.
User interface standards can be hard to use for developers. In a laboratory experiment, 26 students achieved only 71% compliance with a two page standard; many violations were due to influence from previous experience with non-standard systems. In a study of a real company's standard, developers were only able to find 4 of 12 deviations in a sample system, and three real products broke between 32% and 55% of the mandatory rules in the standard. Designers were found to rely heavily on the examples in the standard and their experience with other user interfaces.
Thovtrup, H., and Nielsen, J. (1991). Assessing the usability of a user interface standard. Proc. ACM CHI'91 Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems (New Orleans, LA, 28 April-2 May), 335-341.
Trip report from the ACM Hypertext'89 conference. Includes summary of Meyrowitz' discussion of open integrating hypertext and the extent to which the Memex vision has been realized so far.
Hypertext'89 (Pittsburgh, PA, 5-8 November 1989), SIGCHI Bulletin 21, 4 (April 1990), pp. 52-61.
Jakob Nielsen's trip report for the 1989 Hypertext 2 conference in York, U.K.
International Conference on Fifth Generation Computer Systems (Tokyo, Japan, 28 November - 2 December 1988), SIGCHI Bulletin 21, 1 (July 1989), pp. 68-71.
Jakob Nielsen's trip report from the 1989 Computer-Human Interaction (CHI '89) conference held in Austin, Texas.
CHI'89 (Austin, TX, 30 April - 4 May 1989), SIGCHI Bulletin 21, 2 (October 1989), pp. 28-40.
Jakob Nielsen's trip report for the 1989 Hyper Hyper Conference in London, UK.
British Computer Society HyperHyper workshop (London, UK, 23 February 1989), SIGCHI Bulletin 21, 1 (July 1989), pp. 65-67.
A review of the Macintosh CD-ROM versions of The Manhole, the Time Table of History, and the Electronic Whole Earth Catalog with emphasis on their usability and their support of hypertext navigation. Based on the discussion of these hypertexts the following general principles are found to be useful for analyzing hypertext user interfaces: Navigational dimensions and their explicitness, directionality and literalness, landmarks, locational orientation, history lists, and backtrack mechanisms.
Originally published as: Nielsen, J. (1990). Three medium-sized hypertexts on CD-ROM. ACM SIGIR Forum 24, 1, 2-10.
Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb for UX and not specific usability guidelines.
Empathy maps help UX teams visualize user attitudes and behaviors, building a shared understanding of end users while highlighting gaps in existing user data.
Modern day UX research methods answer a wide range of questions. To know when to use which method, each of 20 methods is mapped across 3 dimensions and over time within a typical product-development process.
User interviews have become a popular technique for getting user feedback, mainly because they are fast and easy. Use them to learn about users’ perceptions of your design, not about its usability.
User journeys and user flows both describe processes users go through in order to accomplish their goals, but they differ in scope, purpose, and format.
iOS 26’s visual language obscures content instead of letting it take the spotlight. New (but not always better) design patterns replace established conventions.
Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.
In a card-sorting study, users organize topics into groups. Use this research method to create an information architecture that suits your users' expectations.