InfoCentre

There are many compelling reasons to suggest that usability is even more critical to successful application design than it is for winning websites. Usable applications are easy to sell, easy to learn, more efficient in deployment and usability saves money in development.

There should be no doubt that it is the testing itself that is most important to the success of a project. Although a usability lab is helpful, it is not essential. The lack of one should not deter an organisation from pursuing the user testing option.

Understanding the user is a pre-requisite of high quality interface design. Four useful pointers for understanding users are - remember that users are not a homogenous group, don't rely on 'second-hand' information and think in terms of user goals but remember the bigger picture.

Brief pointers on creating navigation systems, and the information structures that underlie them focusing on web navigation.

There are aspects to touch-screen technology that make their design fundamentally different to that of desktop applications. This article outlines these differences and provides some pointers to ensure success.