Usability. It’s a fundamental issue for content design in the digital environment. Think of it as the genetic code for a digital asset, whether that’s a Website, an e-book, or a smart phone. If there are bad sequences in the DNA, things start to go very wrong.
Two usability experts, who have taken up the obvious question of how users – in the past, we called them readers – experience a book in print, on a PC, and an iPad or Kindle address these points and more with CCC’s Christopher Kenneally. Hoa Loranger, a director at Nielsen Norman Group, who heads the firm’s San Diego office, and, Marieke McCloskey, who is a Los Angeles-based user experience specialist with NNG, review several recent company reports including “Usability of iPad Apps and Websites” (available as a free download) as well as a UseIt article about e-readers and reading speeds.
Nielsen Norman Group co-founder Jakob Nielsen is nearly synonymous with “usability” when it comes to the Web. The New York Times has called him the guru of internet usability, and he holds 79 U.S. patents, mainly on ways to make the Internet easier to use.