Links and Resources

• Usability
• Clear communication, plain language, technical and scientific writing

Usability

STC SIG on Usability
The STC User and User Experience Community of the Society for Technical Communication
excellent bibliography
extensive toolkit of forms, checklists, other aids
information on many topics in usability

Usability Professionals' Association
The professional society of people who specialize in user-centered design and specific techniques for making hardware, software, web sites, and documents usable
also has extensive information and resources

www.usability.gov
from the National Cancer Institute; a great resource on usability basics, methods, and complying with accessibility requirements

usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html
research-based guidelines for developing useful and usable web sites

www.usabilitynet.org
a project of the European Union with global resource links

www.useit.com
Jakob Nielsen's biweekly column on usability topics

Gary Perlman's HCI bibliography
Perlman has absorbed Keith Instone's usable web collection into his already extensive list of books and other resources

Usability News – research reports (not the British newsletter)
newsletter from the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University; reports of hypothesis-based research on topics such as fonts and font sizes for web site, column width, etc.

Usability News – a newsletter from Britain
newsletter of the British Human-Computer Interaction Group

Clear communication, plain language, technical and scientific writing

www.plainlanguage.gov
resources about plain language, especially in the U.S. government agencies

Washington state Department of Labor & Industries' award-winning regulations
an example of how clear and well-organized a legal document can be