User interface designers are challenged to design for diverse users, including those of different genders, cultures and abilities; however, little research has been directed at this problem. One factor which may inhibit such research is its cost. This paper presents an approach which offers a way to seek out important characteristics of designs in a cost-effective way and reports on the results. In a study reported here, subjects from different nationalities and of both genders evaluated three dialog boxes specifically designed for 'white American women'. 'European adult male intellectuals', and 'English-speaking-internationals'. The dialog boxes were evaluated with conjoint techniques of preference rankings, and factor-analysed adjective ratings. These results showed that female subjects had stronger and more consistent patterns of preferences than the male subjects. All subjects preferred interfaces rated high on an accessibility factor and disliked complex layouts; this effect was even stronger for women. Nationality did not effect ratings. Gender had a stronger effect on the outcome than nationality.

Although hypertext offers exciting new ways of presenting and accessing information, there is little research which systematically compares the usability of hypertext against traditional media with an eye to improving the design of the hypertext. This paper presents the results of an experiment which examined the performance and navigation strategies of users engaged in a question-answering task using either a hypertext encyclopedia of Sherlock Holmes facts (the HyperHolmessyTMstem) or the traditional paper form. The results showed that, overall, the hypertext users were marginally more accurate in answering questions, and excelled at questions where the key information was embedded in a text entry. The book users were marginally faster overall, but excelled only in answering questions based on graphics. Hypertext users showed a preference for those tools which most closely mimicked use of a conventional book. They used a hierarchical structure to guide their navigation strategy in early trials, but soon learned to navigate in a non-hierarchical, flat way.