What not to measure

A quick reminder from Gerry McGovern about why judging your website by the number of visits you get is not a particularly clever thing to do.

Online surveys - a lesson in what not to do

Jared Spool recounts his recent experience of completing a survey for United Airlines, revealing 19 things not to do.

Your user experience vision

An excellent article (with loads of resources) about developing a user experience vision for your website or service - and why you need one in the first place.

Customer support free webinar - Gerry McGovern

Gerry McGovern is presenting a free online seminar on Web customer support best practice on Monday, 17 January 2011.

Xbox Kinect interface usability

Nothing to do with university website management, but an interesting article nonetheless. Jakob Nielsen's appraisal reminds us of the underlying usability principles that apply to all interfaces. Plus you may have bought one this Christmas.

Reading behaviour trends

Interesting article about how interaction with the web is affecting our attention spans and the way we read.

Margins of error when user testing

A useful reference article which looks at the difference between finding usability problems and predicting success rates.

Free Nielsen usability reports

Jakob Nielsen has made a couple of his company's research reports - previously costing US$198 and US$98 - available as free downloads.

University students - usability study by Nielsen

A must read for all higher education website managers. Jakob Nielsen's research challenges a range of myths around student activity online.

Web writing guidance - Nielsen

Jakob Nielsen's index of articles he's written relating to writing for the web. He also includes a few links to other resources and recommends a few books.

Organising content - classification schemes

Donna Spencer considers a range of ways to approach the organisation of your website's content.

$12m - the cost of one extra field

An interesting little case study that emphasises the value of testing a form before publishing it. In this instance, $12 million per year.

Paper prototyping resources

An article all about what paper prototyping is and what it's not, plus a load of useful related links and resources.

Web accessibility - a new community tool

I've just discovered fixtheweb.net which, if it proves successful, will be an excellent initiative improving website accessibility and the online experience of disabled users.

What does a usability company actually do?

I've picked on a few UK usability companies who have published case studies of what they've done for their clients. These are nice, succinct stories of what can be achieved when adopting a user-focused approach for your website development or enhancement project.

Motivating usability test participants

If you're planning tasks for users to undertake in an upcoming usability test session, this is essential reading.

Designing great user experiences

This article by Jared Spool barely mentions websites or interfaces. But read it - there's a lot to learn from his comparison of user experiences in other environments.

Email newsletter usability - Nielsen compares studies

Jakob Nielsen reports on his latest round of research on email newsletter usability, and compares findings with his previous 3 studies in this area. Worth a read if you regularly send out email updates.

Choosing user research techniques

A quick run through what you should consider when deciding the best approach for your user research.

Web teams - the essential skills

What makes a good web team? One that covers all the bases in the development and management of a user-focused website? Jesse James Garrett has a model which works for both small and large teams as he focuses on key skills - his 9 pillars - which can be covered by one or more members of a multi-disciplinary team.