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new terms and concept would be added from time to
time, when I come across them. These are the compilation
of various usability terms collected from numerous
sites I had browsed for my personal knowledge. I
have mentioned most the sources in the bibliograph
at the end of this page. |
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Accessibility --
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In
the world of electronic and information technology,
"accessibility" refers to the possibility
for everyone, including and especially people with
disabilities, to access and use technology and information
products. A piece of software or a Website, for
instance, is fully "accessible" if it
can be accessed by people with any of the following
types of disabilities: Sensory impairments (vision
or hearing), mobility impairments, and cognitive
impairments.
Also
see -
http://www.w3c.org/WAI/
for W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
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Affinity Diagrams
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Affinity diagramming
is a categorization method where users sort various
concepts into several categories. This method is
used by a team to organize a large amount of data
according to the natural relationships between the
items. Basically, you write each concept on a Post-It
note and tack them onto a wall. Team members move
the notes to groups based on how they feel the concept
belongs with other concepts. We use this technique
when we need to generate a large number of ideas
or concepts and sort them into groups and relationships.
figure of Affinity Diagram excercise.
(image adapted from sapdesignguild)
Also see -
Card
Sorting |
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Affordance -- |
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More precisely
called “Visual Affordance.” Coined by
ecological psychologist James J. Gibson (1904-1979)
and co-opted by usability pioneer Donald Norman,
it has come to mean a visual clue that signals to
a user how to interact with an object. For example,
you see a door with a handle. You sense that you
can open the door by giving the handle a pull. And
in most cases, you'd be right. Of course, we've
all had the experience where you have to push on
a handle to get the door open. If that happens,
you have a bad affordance on your hands.
Another example: you're reading a Web site, and
some of the text is underlined and in a blue color.
That's an affordance signaling clickability. What
if it's underlined and blue, but not clickable?
That's called a false affordance. And be on the
lookout, too, for the hidden affordance. The right
button is there somewhere, if only you could find
it. The hidden affordance is why no one knows how
to program their VCR. |
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benchmarks -- |
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A quantitative
way of measuring the degree of usability of a system.
Examples of these include time to perform a task,
number of errors, time to learn a system, and how
a user feels after using a system. |
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Contextual Inquiry
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The
contextual inquiry is a specific type of interview
for gathering field data from users. It is usually
done by one interviewer speaking to one interviewee
(person being interviewed) at a time. The aim is
to gather as much data as possible from the interviews
for later analysis.
Also
see -
Interviews
User
surveys
User
observation |
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Bibolography |
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Bob
Goodman's personal site glossary listing, http://www.bobgoodman.net/main/glossary.html |
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