Amberlight's Hierarchy HCI Briefings Library Amberlight Whitepapers

A straightforward introduction to HCI in a series of easy to read briefings.

A History of HCI

How did the field of Human-Computer Interaction come about? Learn about its origins, and the disciplines - such as psychology and engineering - that have informed its growth.

Information Architecture

How is content organised on your website? Does it have a logical, coherent structure or was it simply allowed to evolve into a large, unwieldy mass of information? Information architecture is the discipline of creating blueprints for information on the Web.

Professional Bodies in HCI

Take a look at the organisations that promote HCI and user-centred methods in academia and industry. Members of these organisations benefit from access to resources and member networks.

Accessibility

Find out why any interactive system, including your company's website, must be accessible to all users regardless of disability. Learn about the legal requirements and standards that apply.

Usability? HCI? Terms explained

Usability, HCI, UXP, UCD? Why are all these terms used to describe the business of making things easy to use? What are the differences and does it really matter?

Standards and Guidelines

UCD and Usability aren't buzzwords: they are defined by internationally accepted standards in the HCI community, which prescribe methods to help developers achieve better, more usable systems.

Testing with Real Users

There's only one way to find out if your product works - test it on people who will actually use it. See how Amberlight and other usability practitioners conduct fieldwork and why.

The Return on Investment of Usability

Usability just costs money and doesn't increase revenue, right? Wrong. Learn how early spend on user-centred inputs increases profitability.

Human Attention

Very often when looking at a display screen, we attend to some features and not others. This is based wholy on our automatic responses to certain stimuli. Learn how human attention relates to the design of interactive systems.

Human Memory

How do the workings of human memory affect how we interact with computers, and how can designers use this knowledge to create more usable systems?

Human Perception

Knowledge of how people perceive the world around them can inform the design of the interactive systems they use.

Sociotechnical Systems

There is more to usability than merely observing users at an interface. Learn how groups of people interacting with computers are affected by the wider world around them, and how this can affect how they behave.

Emotion and Enjoyment in Technology Design

Usability is not the ultimate goal of design. To ensure products are successful, we must also focus on users' emotions (particularly in gaming environments). User-centred design knowledge shows us how.