Research-based Web Design and Visibility Guidelines

by Sanjay J. Koyani, Robert W. Bailey, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Although recent findings show the public increasingly interacting with government  Web sites, a common problem is that people can’t find what they’re looking for. In other words, the sites lack usability. The Research-Based Web Design and Usability Guidelines aid in correcting this problem by providing the latest Web design guidance from the research and other forms of evidence. 

 
This unique publication has been updated from its earlier version to include over 40 new or updated research guidelines, bringing the total to 209. Primary audiences for the book are: Web managers, designers, and all staff involved in the creation of Web sites. Topics in the book include: home page design, page and site navigation, graphics and images, effective Web content writing, and search. A new section on usability testing guidance has been added.
 
Experts from across government, industry, and academia have reviewed and contributed to the development of the Guidelines. And, since their introduction in 2003, the Guidelines have been widely used by government, private, and academic institutions to improve Web design.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Website Design, Usability

294 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2006

Reviews

[Alexander Debkaliuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good starting manual for everyone in web design industry.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of guidelines compiled by the US HHS for web usability.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has compiled a number of studies and research data into this document. The result is a number of useful guidelines to consider when writing for the web. Each guideline is rated as to importance and strength of evidence, so you - the reader - can draw your own conclusion as to how important any particular guideline may be. Guidelines include suggestions on presentation (amount of text, color choices, etc), appropriate sizes, designing for the most popular browsers while still allowing for less-popular user-agents (like screen-readers or mobile web browsers), and even minimizing load times and other "hardware" concerns.

While a little dry, this does represent a good (and well-indexed) collection of usability guidelines.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

To my knowledge, the most academically-rigorous collection of usability guidelines. Free whole-book is available online:

PDF Version:
https://www.usability.gov/sites/defau...

Web Version:
http://webstandards.hhs.gov/guidelines/

[Bernadette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This survey of the research literature is an indispensable reference in my work. There are 209 guidelines (stress on guidelines, not do's and don'ts), each including indicators of "relative importance" and "strength of evidence" as exemplified in the book cover illustration.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indispensable, comprehensive, if at times dated, list of heuristics with ratings for level of importance against evidence to support the heuristic (many heuristics being apparently plucked out of some web guru's arse).