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Articles on usability, by Kristoffer Bohmann

Bohmann's Articles

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Microsoft Settlement: Protect Producers and Consumers, Not Moochers and Looters - February 16, 2002

Defenders of Microsoft must base their arguments on corporate property rights to establish a strong and consistent argument.

Email notifications: Making Unsubscription Easy - September 18, 2001

Most unsubscribe problems can be avoided by making the subscribers email visible and linking to an unsubscribe page in all emails.

Microsoft's So-Called Monopoly - August 24, 2001

Web users prefer Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to competing browsers for one reason: It's a better product.

Response Time Still Matters - July 12, 2001

Slow response time remain an issue on the Web even for users with high-speed Internet connections.

Navbars: Why Drill-Down Menus are Harmful - June 24, 2001

Drill-down menus make interaction more difficult, destroy the user's overview, and poor wording make users give up using the site.

Language Selection Waste Homepages - May 30, 2001

A large number of European websites waste homepages on language selection.

Why Primary Navigation Must Die - November 14, 2000

Users mainly ignore primary navigation bars because the information featured is less relevant to their tasks.

Usability Problems to Fix Today - October 22, 2000

List of common usability problems that are easy to fix on most well-organized small- and mid-sized websites.

Effective Search Results - October 10, 2000

Search result pages must make information easy to find and present results in a format that is easy to use.

Against Non-Standard Link Colors - September 28, 2000

User tasks are carried out faster and better with sites that use standard link colors as opposed to non-standard.

Syndication example: Fast download and easy to install - August 3, 2000

Syndicated news stream: Easy to install and fast response time.

News List Usability - August 1, 2000

News lists must present usable page lengths, story headlines, and descriptions.

Valuing Usability Programs - July 14, 2000

Practical tools to cost-benefit analyze usability programs.

Syndication example: Too much JavaScript - July 12, 2000

A stream of daily updated news is presented as an example of easy syndication.

Making URLs Predictable - July 9, 2000

URLs that are easy to predict make it easier for users to type in a URL and link to pages.

Calculating Usability Effects - July 6, 2000

Time to complete a task and number of errors per task are key metrics when evaluating usability effects.

Performance Metrics - July 4, 2000

30 user performance metrics for informal usability evaluations.

Useful Features are Not Always Usable - July 3, 2000

Differences between useful and usable features are discussed and a brief usability framework is presented.

Syndication example: Easy to install but too much graphics - June 25, 2000

Real-life example on how content can be integrated into pages from external sources.

20 Tasks in Ecommerce - June 23, 2000

Suggested tasks for testing of ecommerce sites such as compare product features for products A and B.

Weblogs Enable User-Centric Sites - June 22, 2000

Weblogs give users information from multiple sources in one page.

Ways to Shop the Web - June 11, 2000

Described list of ways Web users can shop the Web today.

Site Comments

Site Comment: Yellow Page Search on Krak.dk - July 6, 2001

Too many required choices, too much mouse moving, too weak words, and less obvious options make address search hard on Krak.dk.

MAN Group Homepage Comment - June 4, 2001

Navbar disappears when the browser window size is changed.

Site Comment: Boxman.com - September 27, 2000

Navigating product pages is difficult due to problems with search results and product pages use buy buttons that are too small to get noticed.

Site Comment: Apple Store.com - September 20, 2000

1-click ordering is not enough to optimize the ordering process.

Site Comment: Ordering Process at Bokus.com - August 9, 2000

Critical links and buttons are not visible enough making ordering difficult.

Site Comment: Toycity.com - July 18, 2000

Toycity.com is hard to use for users who don't know exactly what they want.

Site Comment: Haburi.com - June 8, 2000

Haburi.com makes several design mistakes, including too small windows and lack of navigation support.

Site Comment: Boo.com - May 20, 2000

Boo.com were too focused being innovative and paid too little attention to basic usability.

News

Other Publications

• Kristoffer Bohmann (2001). International Usability Issues for Nordic Ecommerce Sites. European Retail Digest, Oxford University.
• Urs E. Gattiker, Stefano Perlusz, and Kristoffer Bohmann (2001). The Virtual Community: Building on Social Structure, Relations and Trust to Achieve Value. In: Laku Chidambaram and Ilze Zigurs (editors). Our Virtual World: The Transformation of Work, Play and Life via Technology, Chap. 11. Idea Group Pub.
• Stefano Perlusz, Urs E. Gattiker, and Kristoffer Bohmann (2000). Managing Information Security and Privacy: Impression Management and Behaviors. Eicar 2000 Conference Proceedings.
• Urs E. Gattiker, Stefano Perlusz, and Kristoffer Bohmann (2000). Using the Internet for B2B activities: A review and future directions for research. Internet Research. Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 126-140.
• Kristoffer Bohmann (1999). Interacting with Content on Commercial Websites. In: Stoustrup, J. (editor). Research Papers in Technology and Science. Aalborg University.
• Urs E. Gattiker, Stefano Perlusz, and Kristoffer Bohmann (1999). How Corporate Clients and Consumers Surf the Internet: A Review and Future Directions for Research. Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Information Systems. Copenhagen Business School.