Details myths that illustrate novice instructional designers' perspectives on usability sessions and their users. Then offers suggestions for integrating creativity and developing enhanced perspective-taking. Two tables list the myths and guidelines, and potential effects of usability-session guidelines on novice designers' myths are charted. (AEF)

Designing the instructional interface is a challenging endeavor requiring knowledge and skills in instructional and visual design, psychology, human-factors, ergonomic research, computer science, and editorial design. This paper describes the instructional interface, the challenges of its development, and an instructional systems approach to its…

"Design Inspection Reviews" are structured meetings in which participants follow certain rules of procedure and behavior when conducting detailed readings of design plans to identify errors and misunderstandings. The technique is widely used in the software engineering industry, where it is demonstrably more effective than testing at…

Focuses on the pre-design questions that a Web site designer and client need to address. Discusses the why, who, what, where, and when phases of the Web site design process. Includes a Web Site Development Form to guide site designs through the first two stages of Web site development: specification and design. (AEF)

Presents technical issues, design considerations and resource sites to consider when designing a Web site. Discusses fonts; colors; screen resolutions; statement of purpose; audience; content; layout; size and number of images; spacing and emphasis; browser-supported features; grammar and spelling; revision/improvement; and testing. (AEF)

Almost every state is "imposing" academic standards. Helping students to meet those standards is a key task for teachers and school administrators, as well as instructional systems designers. Thus, instructional designers in the K-12 environments are facing the challenge of using appropriately and effectively academic standards in their…

Managing a company's knowledge requires a different set of skills than are typically found in a corporate Web team. Chief among these is a "customer-obsessed" philosophy. The job of taking content, tools, and data and providing a platform that makes it meaningful is an inevitable next step for Web teams in the age of the new intranet.…

This report characterizes human problem solving in digital circuit design. Protocols of 11 different designers with varying degrees of training were analyzed by identifying the designers' problem solving strategies and discussing activity patterns that differentiate the designers. These methods are proposed as a tentative basis for assessing…

Despite the widespread availability of Web-based information resources, it is difficult for some people who rely on assistive technology to access and process these materials. Web designers can play an active role in facilitating access by formatting resources so that they are compatible with these technologies. This can be accomplished by…

Argues that there is a fundamental gap between the knowledge that the information systems development community values and that which cultural analysis yields. Suggests that developers, rather than trying to explain social behavior and knowledge with rules, should be concerned with the production of contesting rules and what the production tells…

Four articles respond to the Bader and Nyce position that it is unlikely cultural analysis will become a routine tool for information systems developers with these arguments: ethnographic work can aid software development; the problem lies with inappropriate application of social science methods; the problem is technique, not fundamentals; and…