Re: [Usability] how to contribute

[Anna Marie Dirks <anna ximian com>]

Il giorno mar, 13/02/2007 alle 20.30 +0100, Kristof Keppens ha scritto:

Hi Kristof, 

It's great that you are interested in contributing, and I'd like to
welcome you to the community. Your English is totally fine; please don't
apologize for it. :) 

There are a few techniques that usability professionals use which would
be good for you to learn about. (Actually there are many techniques, but
heuristic evaluation and usability testing are arguably the two most
important.) I'm sending you a list of papers to read; they are a good
sampling of basic information about usability. 

As for some reading: 
http://www.asktog.com/columns/027InterfacesThatKill.html 
http://www.asktog.com/columns/042ButterflyBallot.html

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000035.html

http://www.useit.com/papers/guerrilla_hci.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/usability_problems.html
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/inspection_summary.html
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html

The gnome project uses Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) to guide user
interface development. It would be good for you to acquaint yourself
with the HIG: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/ . 

Kristof, why don't you read some of the information above, and then
return to the list with your questions and comments? I'd enjoy engaging
in a dialog about how to get started with usability work. 

(er, shoot, I have should have introduced myself properly earlier: my
name is Anna, and for the past seven years I've worked for Helix
Code->Ximian->Novell as a usability expert. My current title is "Manager
of Product Design"; I run http://betterdesktop.org , which is a place
where I store usability testing videos as I make them. 

Speaking of both you getting started helping out and of betterdesktop: I
would dearly LOVE help from the community with watching tests and
summarizing reports of the tests. 

cheers, 
Anna