Reference & tools

Print references

The classic print reference about usability evaluation is Jakob Nielsen's (1993) book, Usability Engineering. Nielsen has written several other texts since then, but this book remains the standard guide.

Two print references from the American Library Association are more closely related to usability evaluation of digital libraries: Nicole Campbell's (2001) Usability Assessment of Library-related Web Sites: Methods and Case Studiesand Elaina Norlin and CM Winters' (2002) Usability Testing for Library Web Sites: A Hands-On Guide.

Online references

The most popular resource available online related to usability evaluation methods is Jakob Nielsen's usability website: http://www.useit.com/.

Several papers related to usability evaluation are available at the web associated with the workshop on the usability of digital libraries held at the 2002 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries: http://www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/annb/DLUsability/JCDL02.html.

Online instruments, tools, guidelines, etc.

Some usability evaluation tools can be found at the following site: http://jthom.best.vwh.net/usability/.

A resource providing guidelines and resources such as example consent forms and task scripts can be found at:
http://www.infodesign.com.au/usabilityresources/evaluation/usabilitytesting.asp.

Another resource focused on usability in the context of digital libraries can be found at: http://dkc.mse.jhu.edu/dkc_usability.html.

A resource comparing usability evaluation methods can be found at: http://www.userdesign.com/usability_uem.html.

Another resource providing information and guidelines for conducting three different types of usability evaluation methods can be found at: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~zwz22/UsabilityHome.html.

Although primarily aimed at software engineers, some useful usability tools are at: http://www.otal.umd.edu/guse/.

An example of a report of a usability evaluation can be found at: http://eprints.cs.vt.edu:8000/archive/00000619/01/iLumina.pdf.