Page 17 -

x Preface

These chapters cover key issues that are important when designing and evaluating
the usability of websites. A worked assignment runs through these chapters.

Usability professionals' route
Usability professionals who want to extend their knowledge of evaluation techniques
and read about the social and psychological issues that underpin design of the web,
wireless, and collaborative systems are advised to read Chapter 1 for an overview,
then select from Chapters 10-14 on usability testing. Chapters 3,4, and 5 provide dis-
cussion of seminal user issues (cognitive, social, and affective aspects). There is new
material throughout the rest of the book, which will also be of interest for dipping
into as needed. This group may also be particularly interested in Chapter 8 which, to-
gether with material on the book website, provides practical design examples.

Acknowledgements
Many people have helped to make this book a reality. We have benefited from the
advice and support of our many professional colleagues across the world, our stu-
dents, friends, and families and we thank you all. We also warmly thank the following
people for reviewing the manuscript and making many helpful suggestions for im-
provements: Liam Bannon, Sara Bly, Penny Collings, Paul Dourish, Jean Gasen,
Peter Gregor, Stella Mills, Rory O'Connor, Scott Toolson, Terry Winograd, Richard
Furuta, Robert J.K. Jacob, Blair Nonnecke, William Buxton, Carol Traynor, Blaise
Liffich, Jan Scott, Sten Hendrickson, Ping Zhang, Lyndsay Marshall, Gary Perlman,
Andrew Dillon, Michael Harrison, Mark Crenshaw, Laurie Dingers, David Carr,
Steve Howard, David Squires, George Weir, Marilyn Tremaine, Bob Fields, Frances
Slack, Ian Graham, Alan O'Callaghan, Sylvia Wilbur, and several anonymous re-
viewers. We also thank Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Tim and Dirk from DSTC (Australia)
for their feedback on Chapters 1 and 4, Mike Scaife, Harry Brignull, Matt Davies,
the HCCS Masters students at Sussex University (2000-2001), Stephanie Wilson
and the students from the School of Informatics at City University and Information
Systems Department at UMBC for their comments.
We are particularly grateful to Sara Bly, Karen Holtzblatt, Jakob Nielsen, Abi-
gail Sellen, Suzanne Robertson, Gitta Salomon, Ben Shneiderman, Gillian Cramp-
ton Smith, and Terry Winograd for generously contributing in-depth interviews.
Lili Cheng and her colleagues allowed us to use the Hutchworld case study.
Bill Killam provided the TRZS case study. Keith Cogdill supplied the MEDLZNE-
plus case study. We thank Lili, Bill, and Keith for supplying the basic reports and
commenting on various drafts. Jon Lazar and Dorine Andrews contributed mater-
ial for the section on questionnaires, which we thank them for.
We are grateful to our Editors Paul Crockett and Gaynor Redvers-Mutton and
the production team at Wiley: Maddy Lesure, Susannah Barr, Anna Melhorn,
Gemma Quilter, and Ken Santor. Without their help and skill this book would not
have been produced. Bill Zobrist and Simon Plumtree played a significant role in
persuading us to work with Wiley and we thank them too.