The Auction House has proved to be a good addition; it definitely has its benefits, and nearly every day after its implementation, I have yet to see an empty Auction House counter. However, there are probably some aspects that could be improved. The purpose of this thread is to address the usability of the Auction House and examine aspects in which it may be improved.

(spoilers: it will be long-winded)

To be fair, these are not high-priority items; you guys and girls at OOO probably have a lot on your plate (focus on gameplay is great), but feedback and suggestions are... feedback and suggestions!

General References:
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html - Heuristic Evaluation critera by Nielsen
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/9397 - (05/24/10) Current AH plans as laid out by Admin wtfwtf_ok

1. Time periods should be (1) labeled for the time period they represent and (2) be specific for sellers.
   (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/9467 ; http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/8666)
   (1) Recognition, not recall; we should be able to instantly tell that "Long" means 4-12 hours (example; not even sure if this is the case ^^;), either by tooltip or by a subtle line underneath "Long" that says (4-12 hours). Reduces guessing.
   (2) In a similar vein to (1), except for sellers only. It would be really nice to know when exactly those crowns are coming in. An actual timer (even 10-minute intervals) would definitely help, but this can also be addressed with a timestamp of end time (depends on if either are feasible, really). The availability to buyers can be debated, but for now, I will leave it as is.
2. Confirmation dialogue on buyout
   Error prevention; <--. Something similar to "are you sure you want to buy X at Y?". Adding the cute icons in would be a plus.
3. Specific UV type displayed without having to mouse-over
   (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/8764)
   Flexibility and efficiency of use; Mostly the latter. When searching for UV items, often players don't just want it to be 'unique', but have a specific variant (ie: Charge Time Reduction on weapons), and the only ways to accomplish this are (1) mouse over every item in the UV search or (2) [sometimes] infer from the pricing of the item (usually considerably higher than others). A great example of one solution is mentioned in the reference: (http://www.4mul8.net/up/files/1187_q7akq/AHUI.jpg)
   However, adding this to EVERY UV item in every search context would possibly detract from the interface's aesthetic (the additional information competes with all the previously-available information). So it may be up for debate as well.
4. Show price information about the item you're about to put up for auction.
   Flexibility and efficiency of use; Often, I want to list an item at a competitive, if not the lowest price. Currently, to do this, I have to
   1. go to Search
   2. search for the item
   3. sort by buy price (or bid price, or do both!)
   4. go back to My Auctions
   5. list my item at the price I think is competitive
   It would be helpful to know things like the average or lowest buy or bid price (or both?) on the same window that I want to list an item.
5. Filters for My Bids/My Auctions (mostly the latter tab)
   Flexibility and efficiency of use; All the items I bid on (or put up for auction) compete with eachother for space on the corresponding tab. The winners are:
   1) Bids I won or lost already (I don't care about them anymore) and
   2) Items I cancelled from auction or already sold (I don't care about them anymore).
   As a result, every time I want to check a bid or sale that is still outstanding, I have to scroll past these. Every time. Some kind of filter for active bids/auctions might help.
   Having used it since implementation, I guess I have gotten used to it, but there has to be some way to make it easier.

And that's all I have time to examine, really. Hope I addressed some things that might be useful for future consideration.

tl;dr : There are some things that might make the AH easier to use.
1) Label time periods; maybe make them specific for sellers.
2) Add confirmation dialogue for buyout
3) Display specific UVs without mouseover (maybe)
4) Show price information about the item you want to sell on the My Auctions tab
5) Filters for My Bids/My Auctions to ignore won/lost/sold/cancelled auctions.