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Web Usability: Principles and Evaluation Methods

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Web Engineering

Abstract

Current Web applications are very complex and highly sophisticated software products, whose usability can greatly determine their success or failure. Defining methods for ensuring usability is one of the current goals of Web engineering research. Also, much attention is currently paid to usability by industry, recognising the importance of adopting methods for usability evaluation before and after application deployment. This chapter introduces principles and evaluation methods to be adopted during the whole application lifecycle for promoting usability. For each evaluation method, the main features, as well as the emerging advantages and drawbacks, are illustrated so as to support the choice of an evaluation plan that best fits the goals to be pursued and the available resources. The design and evaluation of a real application is also described for exemplifying the concepts and methods introduced.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Via Ponzio 34/5, 20133, Milano, Italy

    Maristella Matera (Assistant Professor)

  2. Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano, Via Ponzio 34/5, 20133, Milano, Italy

    Francesca Rizzo (Dr.)

  3. Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Via Giuseppe Ponzio, 34/5, 20133, Milano, Italy

    Giovanni Toffetti Carughi (BEng.)

Authors
  1. Maristella Matera
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  2. Francesca Rizzo
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  3. Giovanni Toffetti Carughi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

    Emilia Mendes

  2. MetriQ (NZ) Ltd., 19A Clairville Crescent, Wai-O-Taiki Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

    Nile Mosley

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Matera, M., Rizzo, F., Carughi, G.T. (2006). Web Usability: Principles and Evaluation Methods. In: Mendes, E., Mosley, N. (eds) Web Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-28218-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-28218-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28196-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-28218-1

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