Selected presentations and tutorials

• The Five Dimensions of Usability
  What makes something usable? It's tempting to say "easy to use" or "easy to learn," but these quick phrases don't really help you understand how to meet user needs. A more helpful approach is to think of usability as the end result of a user-centered design process. This session looks at the five characteristics ("the 5 Es") that describe usable documentation and software design—efficient, effective, engaging, error-tolerant, easy to learn—and explains how to recognize them. We'll start with definitions and examples and then look at how to decide which of these characteristics you should emphasize to meet the needs of your users.
• On Beyond Help – User Assistance and the User Interface
  An article on how people search for information, published in Technical Communication. Winner 2001 Frank R. Smith Outstanding Journal Article.
• Designing Usable Search Interfaces: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (PDF)
  Almost every large web site, intranet, e-commerce application or knowledge management system includes some kind of search interface, whether it is a query screen, hierarchical navigation or a visualization approach. But, despite their wide-spread use, they are often the cause of usability problems in effectively finding information or other items.   This session looks at the challenges of search interfaces and some ways to design for better usability.
• Profiles, personas and stories (PDF)
  This tutorial explores ways of communicating what the users are like as people, how they will use what you create, their goals and the context in which they live and work. Profiles organize the information you have collected about your users into a concrete format. Personas add goals, character and personal histories to make these archetypical users come alive, and allow you to address your writing or design work directly to them. Storytelling techniques help make a point, convey information efficiently and effectively, and sell design ideas.
• Voting and Usability (PDF)
  Lessons learned from the 2000 Presidential Election.
• When the show must go on, it's time to collaborate or die.
  An article in Boxes and Arrows on what I learned about UI design while working in the theatre.

Whitney Quesenbery is the former Vice-President of Design for Cognetics Corporation.