If you want to learn something basic about web usability, or you want to start paving your way to joining the usability professionals, Usability.gov is a good place to start with. It is a website by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides and suggests good resource for designing usable, useful and accessible Websites. There you can find good articles to learn usability basics and methods for designing usable web sites. You can also learn the most important places and faces in the field, as well as other resources to website accessibility and usability. For example, I learn the following four professional organizations in the field.
- ACM SIGCHI - The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI)
- Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) - It promotes the discovery and exchange of information on the characteristics of human beings that are applicable to the design of systems and devices of all kinds
- Usability Professionals’ Association - It is a world-wide association of professionals dedicated to usability.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) - It focuses on accessibility of the Web through technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.
The seven commercial sites on web usability that it links to are also great. Check it out yourself!