resource center: books
Edited by Dave Rogers
Usability
Usability has been around for a long time—but only with the launch of the Web did it become a household word. Thanks to prolific writing and canny publicity, Jakob Nielsen has emerged as usability's key spokesperson. But there are other voices to hear.
Jeffrey Rubin. A level up from Steve Krug's brief treatment of usability testing is this book from Raskin. It introduces some additional concepts that you can build into usability testing.
Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide
Jared Spool,
et al. A groundbreaking book when it published in 1999, this is a report of
usability studies conducted on a number of popular sites—and the design
principles that grew from them. This matter of fact and brief book is full of
sound advice and guidance that remains valid.
Mark Pearrow. This book rose out of a college class taught by Pearrow—which might account for its somewhat odd approach and writing style. The early chapters may have you wondering why you're reading—but hang in there! You'll find gold as you continue. Pearrow introduces numerous aspects of the usability discipline: user-centered design, human factors, heuristic testing and much more.
Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, Scott Wood. If I were teaching a college course on IA, this would be one of the textbooks—not because it's necessarily so good, but because it is so comprehensive.
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