Preferred language style: English (U.S.) Essay

First, you should read these key documents relating to the definition and expression of usability. As you read, try to define for yourself as specifically as possible how you would assess usability. Remember, usability matters, because time matters — the argument for usability is heavily based on efficiency, not on aesthetics or people’s rights not to be put upon. Jakob Nielsen, Kara Pernice Coyne, and Marie Tahir, Make it Usable. PC Magazine 02. 06. 01. [Available at http://www. pcmag. com/article2/0,4149,33821,00. asp] Jakob Nielsen (2003) Usability 101: Introduction to Usability. Alert box, August 25 http://www. useit. com/alertbox/20030825. html The Web Style Guide (2nd Edition) available at http://www. webstyleguide. com/index. html Usability First [available at http://www. usabilityfirst. com/] Then comes the experiential component of the case. It shouldn’t take you to long and will give you a point of reference for what the debate is all about. Take the Web Usability Quiz — free and online at http://www. humanfactors. com/training/webquiz. asp You might actually want to try the quiz before you do the reading to check your prior knowledge. However, since your score is just between you and the machine, it`s up to you. But you`ll get more out of it if you do take the quiz. Then, in a 3-5 page paper, discuss the following questions: What do you believe are the appropriate criteria for assessing usability? Who should make such judgments? How should disagreements about usability be resolved? Usability plays a very important role in determining the efficiency of a website, and suggests the ability of the customer to use the website (Neilson, 2001). It is a quality component and determines the easiness and the convenience in using the website (Neilson, 2003). The customer should find the website user-friendly and interesting (Neilson, 2001). In this article, the importance of usability to websites is mentioned, but it could be applied to any area. As there are countless number of websites providing relevant information, people have several options. Hence, if a website is badly designed, it would suffer from not being visualized by the customer. The customer has to be involved during the construction stage itself to ensure that the website can be designed in the most appropriate manner. Another fact which should be noted in this regard is that a customer would not return to the website if it is bad, as a negative impression would already have been generated in the mind (Neilson, 2001). Before the website is launched, a sample of the potential customers should provide feedback. Studies have shown that these potential users have provided appropriate feedback which was utilized and helped to improve the quality of the website. Many web-designers have made huge amount of corrections within a very short period of time, and with a little investment after taking advice from the sample of the customers. Usually customers were lost right from the start of the homepage, were a registration of the customer was required (Neilson, 2001). Usability is also required for the website surviving in the market. Customers would leave the website at any given point of time, if it is difficult to use. Any information put in a difficult to read manner would also have the same consequence. It is very important that the website answers the questions of the user promptly (Neilson, 2003). Hence, the information presented should be very relevant and specific. In the industry of web designing, usability suggests that the designers are very efficient at the construction of a website. At the moment about 10 % of the construction of websites costs is spent on determining and improving the usability (Neilson, 2003). It is one of the areas a website production unit would be spending more compared to other quality areas (Neilson, 2003). There are several criteria for assessing usability. These include:- 1. Efficiency – The ability of the user to perform the activities mentioned, once they have learned the website. 2. Learnability – The ability of the user to perform the activities easily, once they are able to enter the website. 3. Satisfaction – The pleasure derived in using the website. 4. Errors – The chances of committing errors on the website, and the extent of these errors along with the ease in which they can be corrected. 5. Utility – The ability to function in an appropriate user-friendly manner, (Neilson, 2003). 6. Accessibility – The customer should be provided with access to appropriate information in the website. This is one of the most important criteria a website should follow (Lynch and Horton, 2002). 7. User-friendly design – The graphics and the texts available on the website should be balanced and prepared in a well-balanced manner. It should encourage good flow of information. The website should provide content and should be user-friendly for only the target audience group. The navigation aids present on the website should be accessible. Sometimes, the user may require additional information, and in such circumstances an access link should be available. This access links should always be functional (Lynch and Horton, 2002). 8. Relevant information – The website should provide relevant and current information. Sometimes, further details about the source from where the information is derived, would also be required. 9. Author’s name and the Credentials of the author – The website should be providing the author’s name and the credentials of the author, so that the customer can also weight the accuracy and genuineness of the information provided. Judgments to improve the usability should be made by the potential customers. They should be called in at the designer’s office. The correction would be occurring in a process, which include:- 1. Determine the objectives and the activities of the representative user – At first, the users should be told the objectives of the website and they should be given sufficient information to proceed on to the next task. Each representative tasks should be written on a separate page, and once the user finishes with one age, he/she could move on to the next page (Neilson, 2001). 2. The people testing the usability of the website should be placed in real-life instances. Their profile should suit that of the relevant audience the website wants to target. To test a particular site, 5 people should be utilized. The time each tester should spend ranges from 20 minutes to about 2 hours (Neilson, 2001). 3. The test sessions should be performed in a serene and a quiet environment. Usually, testing should be performed at one person at a time. However, if one tester cannot observe or disturb the other tester, the process can be done for several individuals at a time (Neilson, 2001). 4. The areas the testers experience certain difficulties should be observed immediately, and efforts should be made to correct them. The feedback and responses supplied by the testers is very important and should be utilized appropriately (Neilson, 2001). 5. Besides actually following the feedback and reactions of the user, several other issues can be sorted out by the designers to ensure that the usability of the website can be improved. Frequently, surveys may not convey precise information, and a lot depends on following the observations of the user. The information provided by a survey may frequently be misleading (Neilson, 2001). 6. During the process of testing, the designers should be quiet and observe what the representative user does or say. Anything said by the designers would affect the outcome of such a procedure (Neilson, 2003). Problems that could arise during testing:- 1. The results obtained from one user may be similar to another user. In such a circumstance, it would be better to conduct the entire procedure individually for each user or place them in rooms where one user cannot disturb another user (Neilson, 2003). 2. Frequently, the outcome of a testing may not be useful if people not belonging to the target group are selected for testing. In such a circumstance, it would be better to select individuals (at least five of them belonging to the target group) (Neilson, 2003). 3. Users should not be told anything during the testing. Instead most of the talking should be done by the user. If too much talking is done by the testers, the users would get influenced, and real-life simulation would not be possible (Neilson, 2003). References: Foraker Design. â€Å"Usability in Website and Software Design. † 2002. Usability First. 2 Jun 2007 http://www. usabilityfirst. com/ Human Factors. â€Å"Web Usability Quiz. † 1996. Human Factors. 2 Jun 2007 http://www. humanfactors. com/training/webquiz. asp Jakob Nielsen, Kara Pernice Coyne, and Marie Tahir, â€Å"Make it Usable. † 2001. PC Magazine. 2 Jun 2007 http://www. pcmag. com/article2/0,4149,33821,00. asp Jakob Nielsen, â€Å"Usability 101: Introduction to Usability. † 2003. Alert box. 2 Jun 2007 http://www. useit. com/alertbox/20030825. html Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton. â€Å"The Web Style Guide, Second Edition. † Web Style Guide. 2 Jun 2007 http://www. webstyleguide. com/index. html

Online Selection of Printable Graph Paper

Online Selection of Printable Graph Paper Do you need to print some graph paper? This is a selection of different types of graph paper in pdf format that you can save and print as needed. Standard Printable Graph Paper - 5 x 5 graph paper grid, 10 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper with X-Y Axis - 5 x 5 grid graph paper, centered X-Y axis, 10 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper with 5 Lines per Inch - 5 x 5 grid graph paper, 5 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper #4 - 5 x 5 grid, centered X-Y axis, 5 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper #5 - 4 x 4 grid, 8 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper #6 - 4 x 4 grid, centered X-Y axis, 8 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper #7 - 8 lines per inch (no grid) plain graph paper Printable Graph Paper #8 - 8 lines per inch, centered X-Y axis Printable Graph Paper #9 - 10 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper #10 - 10 lines per inch, centered X-Y axis Printable Graph Paper #11 - 5 lines per inch Printable Graph Paper #12 - 5 lines per inch, centered X-Y axis

The Symbolization of the River in Huck Finn essays

The Symbolization of the River in Huck Finn essays The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn has been widely recongnized as a great American novel. The book has many features which have helped sustain it over the years, but among the most important is the Mississippi river which carries Huck and Jim upon a winding path through a series od adventures. The river symbolizes many important aspects intrical to the novel's theme. These aspects include God or some other higher power, Huck and his irrepresible nature, and the change of characters in the novel as well as society in general. First and foremost the river symbolizes the novel's protagnist, Huckleberry Finn. The Likeness between the two is startling as one begins to examine the common trait. According to T.S. Eliot the most striking similarity that the two share is that like the river, Huck can not be contained (470). Throughout the course of the novel the river is constantly at flood, and all other powers pale in comparision to its awesome current. Evidence of this is found throughout Huck and Jim's journey in the form of swept away houses and smashed steam boats. Hucks personality is much the same. No matter how many times "respectable folk", like Miss Watson or Aunt Sally, try to civilze Huck or curb his extreme personality, Huck always breaks free and returns to his roots. Those of a poor, brazen country boy who speaks his mind regardless of the consequences. Huck refuses to compromise what he is and the principals for which he stands for the sake of others. Huck like the river will not except the bo undaries, rules, and practices which govern the rest of the world. A second comparrison which demonstrates this symbolization would be the fact that throughout the novel both Huck's path and the path of the River are circular in nature. T.S. Elliot put it sysnctally when she said; "Like Huckleberry Finn, the River its self has no beginning or end. In its beginning it is not yet...

Understanding Confidence Intervals

Understanding Confidence Intervals Inferential statistics gets its name from what happens in this branch of statistics. Rather than simply describe a set of data, inferential statistics seeks to infer something about a population on the basis of a statistical sample. One specific goal in inferential statistics involves the determination of the value of an unknown population parameter. The range of values that we use to estimate this parameter is called a confidence interval. The Form of a Confidence Interval A confidence interval consists of two parts. The first part is the estimate of the population parameter. We obtain this estimate by using a simple random sample. From this sample, we calculate the statistic that corresponds to the parameter that we wish to estimate. For example, if we were interested in the mean height of all first-grade students in the United States, we would use a simple random sample of U.S. first graders, measure all of them and then compute the mean height of our sample. The second part of a confidence interval is the margin of error. This is necessary because our estimate alone may be different from the true value of the population parameter. In order to allow for other potential values of the parameter, we need to produce a range of numbers. The margin of error does this, and every confidence interval is of the following form: Estimate  ± Margin of Error The estimate is in the center of the interval, and then we subtract and add the margin of error from this estimate to obtain a range of values for the parameter. Confidence Level Attached to every confidence interval is a level of confidence. This is a probability or percent that indicates how much certainty we should be attributed to our confidence interval. If all other aspects of a situation are identical, the higher the confidence level the wider the confidence interval. This level of confidence can lead to some confusion. It is not a statement about the sampling procedure or population. Instead, it is giving an indication of the success of the process of construction of a confidence interval. For example, confidence intervals with confidence of 80 percent will, in the long run, miss the true population parameter one out of every five times. Any number from zero to one could, in theory, be used for a confidence level. In practice 90 percent, 95 percent and 99 percent are all common confidence levels. Margin of Error The margin of error of a confidence level is determined by a couple of factors. We can see this by examining the formula for margin of error. A margin of error is of the form: Margin of Error (Statistic for Confidence Level) * (Standard Deviation/Error) The statistic for the confidence level depends upon what probability distribution is being used and what level of confidence we have chosen. For example, if Cis our confidence level and we are working with a normal distribution, then C is the area under the curve between -z* to z*. This number z* is the number in our margin of error formula. Standard Deviation or Standard Error The other term necessary in our margin of error is the standard deviation or standard error. The standard deviation of the distribution that we are working with is preferred here. However, typically parameters from the population are unknown. This number is not usually available when forming confidence intervals in practice. To deal with this uncertainty in knowing the standard deviation we instead use the standard error. The standard error that corresponds to a standard deviation is an estimate of this standard deviation. What makes the standard error so powerful is that it is calculated from the simple random sample that is used to calculate our estimate. No extra information is necessary as the sample does all of the estimation for us. Different Confidence Intervals There are a variety of different situations that call for confidence intervals. These confidence intervals are used to estimate a number of different parameters. Although these aspects are different, all of these confidence intervals are united by the same overall format. Some common confidence intervals are those for a population mean, population variance, population proportion, the difference of two population means and the difference of two population proportions.

The Black Death Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Black Death - Essay Example 3 Not so the pneumonic plague, which attacked the respiratory system and killed virtually 100 percent of its victims within 2 or 3 days.4 A more rare form, the septicemic, also killed virtually 100 percent of its victims, killing them within hours.5 A large number of people died during these two years, and that death rate cut across population and socioeconomic boundaries. It spread by human contact with remarkable speed - "whenever those suffering from it mixed with people who were still unaffected, it would rush upon these with the speed of a fire racing through dry or oily substances that happened to be placed within its reach....it also seemed to transfer the sickness to anyone touching the clothes or other objects which had been handled or used by victims."6 With the speed and ease of transmission that was shown by this pestilence, the disease was an equal opportunity killer. One of the striking aspects of the plague was its effect as a kind of leveler between the peasant and ruling classes. Because the plague swept across socioeconomic boundaries, taking both consumers and producers, peasants commanded more of a wage while manorial incomes went down. This is in evidenced in the fact that labor laws were put into place to try to halt the trend of paying serfs more, stating that Lords who payed higher wages and the serfs who accepted them would be punished, as sign that "the new market forces created by the Black Death were so irresistible that only more draconian measures could halt them.†7 The economic necessities that the Black Death imposed include such progressive ideas as "emancipation higher wages and living standards, greater land-holdings, and the labor-saving devices that became available."8 Giovanni Boccaccio, a literary figure, described the servants who remained as greedy, stating that they were "in short supply

Wrist Tendinosis among Blue-Collar Workers Article

Wrist Tendinosis among Blue-Collar Workers - Article Example The report tries to show a study of this problem among those who have blue collar jobs. The report involved the study of workers who had performed jobs involving hand intensive manual work and were involved in more than four tasks in the day. The whole study took 28 months and it was designed to investigate the occurrence of musculoskeletal disorders and factors which cause the problem at workplaces. The interview assessed several aspects of work, these included the following; history about previous employment, organizational factors, and pain in various parts of the body especially the upper body and the wrist. During the process of doing the research, a physical medical examination was conducted on the arm and the interview was conducted in the language that the participants preferred. The physical examination was conducted by a licensed physical therapist and it involved identification of eleven disorders that are related to the wrist. Main signs that were identified during the examination included: swelling, redness, crepitance of the wrist as well as tenderness to palpation. After the initial physical examination had been conducted, a periodic follow up was done after every four months. The interview involved collecting information about changes in jobs, for instance, change in stress, tasks and also over time. Conditions of the wrist were also checked to asses whether there were any changes in the level of pain. The ability of the wrist to conduct work, type of medication that the workers were using and healthcare were also inquired. After the research, survival analysis was conducted the entire variable in the data. The variables were divided into tertiles on the basis of the number of cases, that is, the highly exposed, medium and low exposure groups.

To what extent can a states promotion of its culture further its Essay

To what extent can a states promotion of its culture further its national interests and influence on the world stage - Essay Example In this case each country is seeking to prove its cultural heritage as a really valuable for the world’s success or even progress. Following this idea, the measure between the most or less influential countries of the world slowly becomes vague, so to speak. However, if the main features of such a discussion are that it is really the fact to keep in mind. Definitely, as Snow & Taylor (2008, p. x) admit, this kind of â€Å"primacy-of-culture perspective dominates much of our thinking about public diplomacy and calls for a more balanced perspective that takes into account cultural difference but also recognizes and utilizes influence universals.† Hereby, this question still remains to be answered. On the other hand, the truth of cultural diversity seems to be of less concern for powerful countries of the world inclined more and more to impose their cultural peculiarities along with the way of living on other communities. Here comes a mere extent of imitation in a global scope. One of the most apparent examples is the American cultural influence. On the other hand, less people have an idea of cultural life in Jakarta, for instance. Needless to say, such cultural ideals are mostly stereotyped and have much of copyism. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2008, p. 34) pays more attention to the following fact in terms of the cultural aspect: â€Å"Images of foreign countries are in fact part of the culture of the country that holds the perceptions: Japan’s image in China, for example, is part of Chinese culture, and vice versa.† Thus, countries are constantly trying to earn more appreciation from the rest of the world forgetting about some national priorities and, therefore, amplifying the need for the cultural promotion as it is. Everyone desires to look well or even better before the rest. Thereupon, countries urge for better reputation in order to show their status in the world arena. Once such