Literacy and Education
National Center for Education Statistics
General surveys and information on levels of knowledge.
National Assessment of Adult Literacy
A number of surveys and analyses specifically relating to adult literacy.
Distance Learning/Web-based Training
Collaborative Learning and the Internet
How traditional collaborative learning works and whether we should expect similar relationships over the internet. Written in 1995 at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, School of Psychology and Education Sciences.
Technology and Webagogy
Rick Ells’s site on “technology in support of higher education teaching and learning.” Some good thoughts on editing for hypertext, student frustrations with distance learning, good links.
WBT Information Center
The Web-Based Training Information Center, with a very good WBT “primer,” forums, surveys, and links.
Human-Computer Interaction
Association for Computing Machinery
ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction has a useful index of HCI web sites and sponsors the annual CHI conference. Interesting information from these conferences can be found at CHI97 Electronic Publications and CHI98 Workshop Web Sites.
HCI Oversite
Web Usability Oversite
John Cady at the University of Michigan produces these lists for information “produced by those in the field of human-computer interaction” and “produced by those in the field of human-computer interaction on usability issues surrounding Web site development,” respectively. He is less respective in his amusing home page.
Usable Web
“773 links about web usability.” They’re all here, by topic. Usability engineering, design, issues, technology, etc. A great starting point.
Instructional typographies...
The print-centric but informative Instructional typographies using desktop publishing techniques to produce effective learning and training materials, Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1991, by Wendy Priestly.
Interface Interest and Research Group
The IIRG has about a half-dozen select links to prominent groups that study human-computer interaction.
Dr. Lauren F. V. Scharff, Alyson L. Hill, et alia in the Department of Psychology at Stephen F. Austin State University have provided these useful HCI studies.
Task-Centered User Interface Design
Clayton Lewis and John Rieman at the University of Colorado wrote this book to show us “how to design user interfaces that will enable people to learn computer systems quickly and use them effectively, efficiently, and comfortably.” From 1993, 1994, all text pages.
Web Site Navigation
Designing Site Navigation
Dmitry Kirsanov’s May 1997 column in Web Review covering the use and mis-use of navigation panels. Even with rollovers, we still need to know “when a button is a button.”
Problems with Navigating in Web Applications
From the “Text Matters” web site, this article thinks of a web site as an “application” that must not be confused with the browser and its functions. A very interesting approach.
Steering Users Isn’t Easy
The process that author Will Schroeder and friends went through developing an earlier interface for Netscape's 15,000-page DevEdge Online site. Mr. Schroeder is part of the consulting team at User Interface Engineering.
A User-Centered Approach...
...to Designing a New Top-Level Structure for a Large and Diverse Corporate Web Site. Got that? This is how Kodak went about redesigning their web site in 1998, from the 4
Other Web Site Design Sites
Jacob Nielsen’s Useit.com
No screwin’ around advice from Jakob Nielsen, distinguished scientist and web designer from Sun Microsystems.
David Siegel
David Siegel’s eclectic site has some interesting articles on the nature of the web and stuff in general. Try Web Wonk, Tips for Writers and Designers.
What is Good Design?
A fun column by Mary E. S. Morris, pointing out how different types of designers decide what's “right” for web design.
Style Guides, Tutorials, and Resources
Building a Better Interface
An excellent series from Builder.com, including thoughts from many of the web’s development pioneers.
CIO Intranet/Extranet Research Center
Chief Information Officer Magazine “For those who are building, rebuilding, or extending their business Webs.” I know, it reminds you of why you quit that big corporation. But there's some interesting information here, plus their Web Design Resources.
Publishing on the World Wide Web
A list of web design resources tracked by MIT.
The Library of Congress World Wide Web Style Guide
A listing of references and links from the Library of Congress.
What Makes a Great Website?
A good basic tutorial from Web Reference.
Yale Web Style Guide
Patrick J. Lynch is the Design Director at the Yale School of Medicine’s Web Design and Development Unit and co-author of this very thorough web site design manual. Go to patricklynch.net for more tips and advice.