User Experience, Usability and Usability Testing

Understanding usability is the core to creating innovative design. If you find a way to present information with more clarity, your ability to design improves. I have been trying to focus more on "content" when designing than actual aesthetics. I've been trying to communicate the site's purpose and making everything clear, organized, and easy to find what you are looking for. When I saw UX Mag's site, I was amazed by the layout. I realized that it's a user experience publication and thought to myself "of course!" Then I realized that my design focus wasn't on "content" as much as it was on usability.

Usability Focused Site Design(s)

1. UX Mag: User Experience Publication

I hope I find more examples!

The mistake of ignoring usability
"Violating Design Conventions: Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. Every time you release an apple over Sir Isaac Newton, it will drop on his head. That's good.The more users' expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will feel insecure. Oops, maybe if I let go of this apple, it will turn into a tomato and jump a mile into the sky.Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience states that "users spend most of their time on other websites."This means that they form their expectations for your site based on what's commonly done on most other sites. If you deviate, your site will be harder to use and users will leave. " - no. 8 of the Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

Best Practices
No link on the homepage that links to the homepage itself
site search is important

Case Studies
Wired Article "How Would You Redo the Google Interface?"
Design View: Google Redux
Design View: eBay Redux

Resources
UX Mag is a publication dedicated to providing information on user experience
Wide Open column: Digital Web Magazine
Jakob Nielsen: Useit.com
Human Factors International
Association for Computing Machinery
Adaptive Path
Fast and Simple Usability Testing
Criteria for optimal web design (designing for usability)
Who are the best communicators? features advertising best practices from David Ogilvy
User Experience Design Illustrated
30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of

Read More
Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog — Condensed from Dozens of Bloggers’ Experiences
Things to avoid when creating a website
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
10 Ways to Increase Blog Usability

Don’t do this on your website, it bugs me

Blog Optimization

Content is King:
What did blogging teach you in 2007?

Usability Optimization:
20 Usability Tips for Your Blog

SEO:
Making Your WordPress Blog Search-Engine Friendly
Download the XHTML Sitemap Generator Template for WordPress
google sitemap for blogspot
http://www.copyblogger.com/
5 Reasons I Don’t Read Your Blog and How to Change That
User Generated Content (USG) is Hot - Find Out Why, and How to Make it Work for You.

Accessibility

"Although many people automatically think about people with some sort of physical impairment when accessibility is mentioned, the term actually refers to a Web site that is open to all. Even visitors with old equipment, tiny monitors, slow modems, and screen readers can use accessible Web sites.What happens when a designer considers how the page will look to all visitors? The usability level of the site increases, as does visitor satisfaction - and hopefully repeat visitors. You don't have to design an ugly site geared towards the lowest common denominator. Just put some thought into how the site looks in configurations other than your own.If you assume that "everyone" has a huge monitor running at the highest possible resolution or other cutting edge equipment, then you could be locking out well over half of your visitors. Why not invite them in instead?"

Providing text equivalents for non-text elements in the form of an alt or longdesc tag

Resources:
30 days to a more accessible web site
Accessify

Test Your Site

Test your site in multiple browsers, browser versions, screen resolutions, operating systems, and monitor sizes combinations.
Become familiar with the major assistive technologies used by visitors with disabilities.
Running IE 6 and 7 at the same time

Notes on Usability

This information has been moved to User Experience, Usability and Usability Testing

Screen Resolution And Web Page Design

Read Optimal width for 1024px resolution?

I wish I did before I wrote all the following out...
The comments have both good information and a fixed vs fluid debate. Comment debates give me headaches.

Here's the archaic research I did:

Researching an old question for the newest answer.

1. Check Visitor Stats
2. If you have no stats history, Check Current Research - Preferably Industry and Geographically Specific

2001 [1]
Check your visitor stats
Reference online user surveys at WebSideStory and BrowserNews
They indicate that 800x600 is the most popular resolution, with 1024x768 close behind in 2001.
A page optimized for 800x600 should have a maximum width of about 760 pixels.

2005 [4]
The rightmost part of a page is cut off when printing a frozen page. This is especially true for Europeans, who use narrower paper (A4) than Americans
mistake #1 is to freeze the fonts - then they are too small for browsers

2006 [3]
Percentage Of Users:
1024 × 768 - 56% (2005) & 50% (2004)
800 × 600 - 28% (2005) & 35% (2004)

Screen Size In Browser:

For Screen size 800 × 600
IE 6 779 × 400
Firefox 781 × 434
Opera 777 × 427
Mozilla 779 × 420
Netscape 781 × 389

For Screen size 1024 × 768
IE 6 1003 × 568
Firefox 1005 × 602
Opera 1001 × 595
Mozilla 1003 × 588
Netscape 1005 × 557

"I use both fixed-width and percentage-based designs, and determine which to use based on user research, intended audience and client expectations. If I use a fixed-width design I tend towards an 800 × 600 screen size, usually around a 762 × 400 design size. If I use a percentage-based design I will design in stretch points so that the information looks good at both of the dominant screen sizes." - Joshua David McClurg-Genevese


Resources:
1. Screen Resolution And Page Design [Dec 2001]
2. Screen, which screen size should a web designer design for? [May 2000]
3. Designing for the Web [Jan 2006]
4. Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 [Oct 2005]

Read More:
Resolution Dependent Layout
Accessibilty Guide to Screen Resolution and Page Layout