#usability (301 links)
Good analysis of the recent WebAIM screen reader survey. Use <Hn> tags, think hard about accesskeys, use skip links, know your audience.
- Web Performance Matters - Journal - Acceptable Response Times webperformancematters.com
"The real question is not "What is the industry standard?" but rather "What response time will the users of my Web site or application find acceptable?"
- Recreating the button | stopdesign stopdesign.com
The buttons we’re using are imageless, and they’re created entirely using HTML and CSS, plus some JavaScript to manage the behavior. They’re also easily skinnable with a few lines of CSS
- Geeking with Greg: Marissa Mayer at Web 2.0 glinden.blogspot.com
Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction.
- Top 10 jQuery plugins for Form Usability « Steve Reynolds reynoldsftw.com
Via alastc.
Clever clever. Nice detail.
For throwing at certain designers. Surprising how poor some cta's are.
We were wrong about the first-time shoppers. They did mind registering. They resented having to register when they encountered the page. As one shopper told us, 'I'm not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.'
- userfly userfly.com
Run instant usability studies for your website using your real users. You can get it up & running in seconds with one line of javascript, and immediately watch movies of your users’ browsing sessions to analyze their behavior.
"Axure RP is the leading tool for rapidly creating wireframes, prototypes and specifications for applications and web sites." Expensive.
- UX London, Clearleft uxlondon.com
Looks great, but £895 sounds rather steep, even for 3 days (conference plus workshops) . Doesn't look like it's possible to pay less and just attend conference day. Definitely aimed at corporate types, not that there's anything wrong with that.
The 90-9-1 Principle is an often discussed concept that has been used in countless conversations about online communities and social strategy. Until now, there hasn't been a single collection of description and support for the principle, making it hard to share a single links with clients, colleagues, and friends who haven't heard of 90-9-1. This site works to solve that problem!
Via zeroinfluencer.
- MSc Human-Centred Systems overview soi.city.ac.uk
Will equip you with techniques and theories with which to design, implement and evaluate interactive computing systems for the widest range of users.
Gracefully get's your users attention by fading out a definable area but leaving the target element (the element which is seeking attention) un-faded.
- Design for Emotion and Flow - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design boxesandarrows.com
When attention becomes a scarce resource, it’s important to invest it wisely. Information architects and designers play a critical role in ensuring the products they design provide users’ with a return on their investment of attention.
- People-centric Mobile Computing | About Mobility Weblog weblog.cenriqueortiz.com
An Introduction to the mobile context and mobile social software, which explores the topics of the mobile context and its role on what I referred to as People-centric mobile computing.
Registration keeps out good posters and attracts trolls? Who'd have thought that?
One of the most significant findings of our research on web-site usability is that users are perfectly willing to scroll. However, they’ll only do it if the page gives them strong clues that scrolling will help them find what they’re looking for.
- Features are a one-way street - (37signals) 37signals.com
Once your user base has grown beyond a certain point, you cannot take features away from them. They will freak out. Whether the feature is good or bad, once you launch it you’ve married it.
- Learning from "bad" UI - (37signals) 37signals.com
The fact that a screen is “cluttered” doesn’t automatically mean it is poorly designed or ill-conceived.
The dominance of visually-driven interfaces become especially problematic in the mobile context. Design principles and conventions like WYSIWYG and GUI become brittle and broken on small devices.
- Usability Testing is more than Testing thoughtballoon.co.uk
Products such as Morae allow 'usability labs' to be constructed from two laptops and a webcam. This has made Usability Testing as practical and almost exclusively necessary part of the building of any interface or application.
The Usage Lifecycle describes how far a person has progressed in using your web application, helping to identify the hurdles someone needs to overcome to become regular, passionate users.
I ran a few tests on coworkers this morning using the application and was simply blown away by its ease of use and useful features.
The Google User Experience team aims to create designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable.
- Information Architects » Blog Archive » Web Design is 95% Typography informationarchitects.jp · Archived on
95% of the information on the web is written language. It is only logical to say that a web designer should get good training in the main discipline of shaping written information, in other words: Typography.
- A List Apart: Articles: Sign Up Forms Must Die alistapart.com
I believe we can get people engaged with digital services in a way that tells them how such services work and why they should care enough to use them. I also believe we can do this without explicitly making them fill out a sign-up form as a first step.
Ranty but potentially useful basis for discussing the issues faced with all-Flash sites.
- SXSW: Lessons Learned at 37 Signals - ReadWriteWeb readwriteweb.com
"How to use hCards to fill in forms". Not a new idea (implemented on getsatisfaction.com signup) but good to have some source to play with.
Ends with some excellent form design tips.
- Sniff browser history for improved user experience niallkennedy.com
Clever, well-meaning but crosses the privacy line.
Users now do basic operations with confidence and perform with skill on sites they use often. But when users try new sites, well-known usability problems still cause failures.
"Font-based layouts will cause issues for people with visual impairments. [...] In usability testing I’ve seen people get really frustrated with horizontal scrolling. Or when they don’t notice the scrolling, frustrated with trying to do things that sh
Ethnio is a friendly new way to recruit people from your website for research. Usability studies / Marketing studies / Surveys / Focus groups
My personal experience registering for 87 accounts with the top online retailers and offer some tips for registration form design.
- Advancing Advanced Search - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design boxesandarrows.com
Advanced search functionality has not significantly developed in years. Poor matches and overwhelming search results remain a problem for users. Perhaps the standard search pattern deserves a new look.
Eight additional mistakes we've seen as we watch users try to create accounts and sign into the site.
- SAKUZAKU » Blog Archive » I’ve Reached My Limit: Approaches to Character Limit Cutoffs blog.wearesakuzaku.com · Archived on
"In real life, it’s important (and polite) not to obtrusively interrupt someone when they’re in the middle of something, and, of course, this carries over to website usability as well. So, how should we enforce form field character limits [...] ?
Optimize Web pages for 1024x768, but use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800x600 to 1280x1024.
If however, you start off by thinking about web pages, site maps, left hand navigations and visual design you will very quickly photoshop yourself into a corner. You will find it difficult to create a web of data.
AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design resources and prove (once again) that what's hyped is rarely what's most profitable.
75 Best Practices for Design of Websites and Intranets, Based on Usability Studies with People Who Use Assistive Technology