Reviewing User Interfaces

WritersUA (2008): Techniques for Reviewing a User Interface

Technique for reviewing a UI: WUA 2008 - slides titlepage

Handouts:

Official description from 2008 WritersUA Conference website:

"Can you just look over these new screens for us? Oh, and can you check the error messages too? It won't take long!" If you've been asked to review a web or standalone application's user interface but don't know what to look for other than checking the text, then this session is for you. As technical communicators, we are often in a position to identify usability problems related to the logical flow, layout, and structure of the interface; inconsistencies in the design; non-compliance with standards and guidelines; ambiguous wording on labels, error messages, dialogs, and onscreen user assistance; performance issues; functional errors; and the like. Rhonda shares practical checklists of things to look for when reviewing an interface, as well as various tools that can assist you.

— YOU WILL LEARN —

  • What to look for when checking an application's user interface, including overall design, textual and visual elements, user actions and interactions, navigational links, and the '-ilities': accessibility, readability, usability.
  • About some tools that can help automate parts of the review process.

AODC (2006): Reviewing Screen-based Content

Reviewing screen-based content: AODC 2006 - slides titlepage

In May 2006, I presented a session on "Reviewing Screen-based Content" at the AODC Conference in Cairns, Queensland, and repeated that presentation (with minor variations) at the ASTC (NSW) annual conference in Sydney in October 2006.

The following handouts are from that session:

Society of Editors (WA) Inc. (2005)

From Paper to Pixels: Dealing with Digital Content (PDF; 72 KB): Handouts from a presentation given by Rhonda Bracey to the Society of Editors (WA) Inc., September 6, 2005

Testimonials

Here's some feedback on our user interface reviews and related conference presentations:

  • WritersUA Conference 2008: Average score: 4.675 out of 5 for this presentation. Some comments included: "BEST OF SHOW!", Excellent", "Very useful". Full details are available from the Testimonials page.
  • Just a quick 'thanks' for the excellent session on UI reviewing. This is certainly an issue I plan to address here at [company]. Your insight and obvious experience have inspired me to approach our software R&D director with a plan to increase the value of their already very excellent software apps by following the checklist you suggested and, to help them develop a sound yet simple style guide. (Michael Diederich, San Francisco, March 2008)
  • ... the CIC SIG management team thank you for your incredibly thorough review of the pre-alpha Contractor's Database project. Wow, what a lot of valuable feedback! (STC Consulting and Independent Contracting SIG secretary, February 2008)
  • Rhonda, I like your work! I've looked at your document and can really appreciate the effort you've gone to. I can only imagine your frustration. As you point out, there is a lot of inconsistency and poor UI design - and your document only covers "Text and Labels"!!

    I think your matter-of-fact, no-holds-barred, warts-and-all style of constructive criticism is new to the [company] team. I find some of the [development team] are very wary of criticising each others' work.

    Have you been asked to do further in-depth reviews of their applications? In the coming months I'm hoping to change the way they build their applications - it would be good to have your recommendations/guidelines adhered to from the outset. (D.P., Team Architect and Integration Coordinator, Perth, October 2007)

  • AODC Conference 2006: Some of the written comments: "Wonderful", "I hadn't thought I was interested, but it had heaps of useful info, so I'm glad I didn't choose this session for a break", "...Great content", "A great coverage of a lot of useful tools", "A lot of content in time, but wouldn't want it longer", "Great practical session", "Would have liked more demo stuff", "Very useful review and tools", "Great session. Not teaching us to suck eggs. Useful resources." (By the way, this session was the third highest ranked for the entire conference.)
  • ASTC Conference 2006: Average scores—out of 5—for this presentation were: Relevance - 4.69; Depth - 4.74; Quality - 4.72.
  • Thanks, Rhonda, for last night. Your presentation was exceptional and very much appreciated by all who attended... I have already received one email full of praise for your presentation and the conversation over a glass of wine before we slouched off into the night was absolutely positive and deeply sincere. (Betty Durston, President, Society of Editors (WA), Inc., Perth [Sept 2005])
  • Many thanks to those who attended last night's meeting—it was a great success. A huge thanks to our presenter, Rhonda Bracey, for her well-prepared, thorough and engaging presentation. (Chris Walker, Society of Editors (WA) Inc., Perth [Sept 2005])

Evaluation scores and comments from conference presentations are available from the Testimonials page.

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