Research-based web design and usability guidelines
Introduction
“The Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (Guidelines) were developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in partnership with the U.S. General Services Administration. This new edition of the Guidelines updates the original set of 187 guidelines, and adds 22 new ones. Many of the guidelines were edited, and numerous new references have been added. There are now 209 guidelines. [..] The primary audiences for the Guidelines are Web site managers, designers, and others involved in the creation or maintenance of Web sites. A secondary audience is researchers who investigate Web design issues.” (p. XV)
Each guideline is rankend in importance and scientific evidence. One foreword is written by Ben Shneiderman and we suspect that he played an important role in the design of this document. Authors were supported by a large panel of respected researchers and practitioners.
“This newest set of guidelines from the prestigious team assembled by the Department of Health and Human Services makes important contributions that will benefit practitioners and researchers. They have done the meticulous job of scouring the research literature to find support for design guidelines, thereby clarifying the message, resolving inconsistencies, and providing sources for further reading. Researchers will also benefit by this impressive compilation that will help them understand the current state of the art and see what problems are unresolved. Another impact will be on epistemologists and philosophers of science who argue about the relevance of research to practice. It is hard to recall a project that has generated as clear a demonstration of the payoff of research for practice.” (Ben Shneiderman, Introduction, p IV)
The purpose of this page is to present some of these guidelines in a single page for teaching purposes. (I hate dealing with 20MB PDF file for display in a classroom ....)
Important guidelines
The guidelines we present below are chosen (a) by their importance and (b) for various other reasons :) Look at the [http://usability.gov/guidelines/index.html original if you want to real thing ! Also, on the website, the authors promised a database-base solution at some point.
1:1 Provide Useful Content
Guideline: Provide content that is engaging, relevant, and appropriate to the audience.
Comments: Content is the information provided on a Web site. Do not waste resources providing easy access and good usability to the wrong content. One study found that content is the most critical element of a Web site. Other studies have reported that content is more important than navigation, visual design, functionality, and interactivity.
1:2 Establish User Requirements
Guideline: Use all available resources to better understand users’ requirements.
Comments: The greater the number of exchanges of information with potential users, the better the developers’ understanding of the users’ requirements. The more information that can be exchanged between developers and users, the higher the probability of having a successful Web site. These could include customer support lines, customer surveys and interviews, bulletin boards, sales people, user groups, trade show experiences, focus groups, etc. Successful projects require at least four (and average five) different sources of information. Do not rely too heavily on user intermediaries. [....]