Software for use: a practical guide to the models and methods of usage-centered design

"Recognizing usability as the key to successful software, Constantine and Lockwood provide concrete tools and techniques that programmers can employ to meet that end. Much more than just another set of rules for good user-interface design, this book guides readers through a systematic software development process. This process, called usage-centered design, weaves together two major threads in software development methods: use cases (also used with UML) and essential modeling. With numerous examples and case studies of both conventional and specialized software applications, the authors illustrate what has been shown in practice to work and what has proved to be of greatest practical value."--Jacket.

Software for use: usage, usability, and user interfaces -- Built-in usability: a usage-centered design approach -- In principle: rules and principles of usage-centered design -- Users and related species: understanding users -- Working structures: task modeling with essential use cases -- Interface architecture: interface contents and navigation -- Designing the dialoge: layout and communication -- Practical widgetry: choosing and designing visual components -- Innovative interfaces: creative interface engineering and custom components -- Expressing solutions: implementation modeling and prototypes -- Help me if you can: designing help and helpful messages -- Once a beginner: support evolving usage patterns -- In place: fitting the operational context -- Same game, different fields: special applications, special issues -- Usage-centered design applied: the teleguida case --- Better next time: improvement by inspection and review -- By the numbers: measuring usability in practice -- Test scores: laboratory and field testing of usability -- Code and you're done: implementing interfaces -- Using your users: users in the development process -- Getting organized: usability in the large…