Taking the last tip a step further, when expending serious brainpower, eliminate distractions from your environment. Log out of your email (or pause your inbox using a tool like Boomerang), turn off your phone, close your office door — whatever you have to do to keep your brain from losing focus. Whether you realize it or not, constant email updates or social media notifications keep you from doing your best work. Your brain is pulled in so many directions it can’t possibly produce at peak level. So do your time management skills a favor and remove distractions while working. One
There are plenty of macro and micro trends which impact upon whether companies are building at any given time. This means that flexible companies with an on-demand workforce are better placed to match the workflow of any given moment. In busy periods, the company may be shorthanded and require additional employees to complete work on time, while leaner times means additional staff drain on company resources. The company resources are where hiring from project to project makes complete sense for the company and the worker. The gig economy in construction means the removal of talent-management
The design-thinking process Scalability — Think Bigger The packaged and accessible nature of design thinking makes it scalable. Organizations previously unable to shift their way of thinking now have a guide that can be comprehended regardless of expertise, mitigating the range of design talent while increasing the probability of success. This doesn’t just apply to traditional “designery” topics such as product design, but to a variety of societal, environmental, and economical issues. Design thinking is simple enough to be practiced at a range of scopes; even tough, undefined
Thomas Edison wasn’t just known for his startup, the Edison Company. He was known as an inventor — and a prolific one at that. He contributed to innovations, including the phonograph, the light bulb, the motion picture camera, and others. In generating ideas and inventions that had a profound and lasting impact on the world, Edison became synonymous with invention. How do we free up the world’s best entrepreneurs to keep inventing today? Silicon Valley isn’t producing new “Edisons” to keep inventing. These days, Silicon Valley has become synonymous with the concept of the
The green highlighting on this clickmap shows where users clicked when they attempted to navigate to the homepage. Since the Koshka logo is centered, many users accidentally clicked the leftmost link Under $29 to get to the homepage. In some cases, users eventually did make it to the homepage — but only after several false starts and mistakes. Comparing the steps taken by users on left-logo sites versus centered-logo sites illustrates how painful this process can become. On Stella and Dot’s website (which had a left-aligned logo), users’ clickpaths to home were clear and
We first documented banner blindness among web users in 1997, through traditional usability testing. Then, we replicated this finding in more detail in 2007 when we conducted a major eyetracking study. We just completed a new major eyetracking study and found that banner blindness is still a common
In digital systems, customers interact with the representation of the brand in the form of websites and other interactive services, making behavior a crucial attribute of brand. The granularity of behavior as a brand attribute can and does vary and can be expressed holistically at the level of
Participants were asked to interact with each pair of prototypes, and then answer a series of 7-point rating-scale questions. Each question asked the participant to indicate which of the two extreme prototypes related most to a brand value or emotion. For example, for the direct/indirect
CSS conversion of my Radio weblog
The hardest thing about the re-design was integrating the tableless CSS design into Radio Userland. I had to do some jiggery-pokery with the Radio Userland templates and macros, and the CSS implementation is not yet complete. I’ve had to temporarily remove my blogroll and topicroll, along
Stop Focusing on Cryptocurrencies Problems. Consider its Future.
Unfortunately, would-be entrepreneurs like to throw a crypto component atop haphazard tech architecture to generate buzz. Make sure crypto will add value to your business processes. Exercise caution around proponents, and ask to see demonstrated cases. At the very least, a crypto partner or
Banking is the Next Personal Assistant
Technology can be the catalyst to kick off this shift, but banking decision makers must reconstruct the roles they play if they want to bring this tech-reality to life. Instead of cold, numbers-driven institutions, consumers wish to have banks that offer friendly, knowledgable and familiar faces. A
UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet
All UX mappings have two-fold benefits. First, the process of creating a map forces conversation and an aligned mental model. Second, the shared artifact resulting from the mapping can be used amongst your team, organization, or partners to communicate an understanding of your user or service. This
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How to Report Errors in Forms: 10 Design Guidelines
For complex input such as new passwords, instant inline validation (which appears as the field value is being typed) will prevent users from guessing or checking multiple times if what they’ve entered meets the guidelines set by the system. In the example below, the password-strength indicator
Generic Commands
Currently, the only generic Web commands that truly work are those in browsers rather than on individual sites. Examples include Back, Forward, and Print. In the latter case, it would be much more useful if the generic Print button subsumed a page's Printer-friendly version feature; clicking Print
Five User Requirements for Online Ads
When you are courting a potential customer, you are essentially building a new customer relationship and establishing trust. Unconventional and unpredictable behavior (in a person or in a product) diminishes trust over time. In the effort to be creative, designers sometimes create interactions that
6 Ways Ecommerce Sites Can Compete With Amazon
For these reasons, small brands and retailers with niche product inventories are better positioned than Amazon to create the engaging and branded social content that inspires customers to purchase. Inspirational content that shows your products in use pushes users to your site. When they get there
The User Experience of Customer-Service Chat: 20 Guidelines
People don’t like to wait. When they are on a large screen, they can multitask while waiting for an answer, but on a smartphone, switching between windows is difficult and the user may not receive a notification when the agent responds. One of our study participant commented: “Waiting always
10 Must-Have Features for a WordPress Website in 2018 .
On that same note, add your website to the Google Search Console. This is a free service from Google to help give you an overview of your website’s search ranking, site health and flagged issues. Again, even if you don’t think you need this, it’s is a proactive step for when you will. Adding
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StudioPress Theme Spotlight: Altitude Pro .
What is a child theme? A child theme works in combination with the parent theme. With regards to Genesis, child themes serve as a sort of skin that can change the way a theme looks, while relying on the functionality of its parent theme (in this case, Genesis). Child themes offer users the added
StudioPress Theme Spotlight: Altitude Pro .
What is a child theme? A child theme works in combination with the parent theme. With regards to Genesis, child themes serve as a sort of skin that can change the way a theme looks, while relying on the functionality of its parent theme (in this case, Genesis). Child themes offer users the added
User Intent Affects Filter Design
Net-a-porter.com: The moment between when a facet is selected (in this case, Black) and the new results are displayed minimizes visual distractions; the entire results area dims and an animated spinner shows progress. Even with a fast system, designs should avoid visual changes that happen too
Parallel & Iterative Design + Competitive Testing = High Usability
Just as with parallel design, a competitive test shouldn't simply be a benchmark to anoint a "winner." Sure, it can get the competitive juices stewing in most companies to learn that a hated competitor scores, say, 45% higher on key usability metrics. Such numbers can spur executive action. But as
UX Guidelines for Recommended Content
Of course, marking items as unwanted or irrelevant is not limited to advertisements. While browsing personalized show recommendations on Hulu, one study participant noticed several reality shows that did not match his interests. He was wasn’t sure why they were recommended to him. When asked what
6 Emerging Cyber Threats to Lookout for in 2019
2018 showed us an accelerated growth in cyber threat activities. Data breaches, attacks using malicious software and insider threats were among the most familiar forms of attack. Many well-known organizations suffered from these cybersecurity disasters and compromised data of millions of users
Data Science Careers: From Fragmentation to Necessity
Over the past decade — the concept of being a data scientist has become a “normal” occupation title. It is no longer an unusual way to phrase the job description in data analytics. Now this to the industry standard term for a swath of data careers. Data Science. Like any career
Is Workplace Privacy Dead?
Employee monitoring doesn’t have to endanger your company culture. Some companies were able to improve their culture since the software allowed them to spot all kinds of harassment in the workplace. Additionally, thanks to tracking tools, companies were able to detect internal threats and
5 Key Metrics You Should Be Tracking in Your Business
If your business has significantly more liabilities than assets, you will have a difficult time securing further lines of credit. Furthermore, assuming that at least some of your liabilities are actively accruing interest, a weak current ratio can also have a negative impact on your profit margins
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A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
She explained that the original design of the Internet was driven more by considerations of interoperability rather than security, and as a result we are now faced with almost insurmountable issues. Some examples include online criminals who steal our information, mass bandits who have the ability
How to Save Money Filing Patents
For example, in Size Appeal of Novalar Pharmaceuticals, Inc., SBA No. SIZ-4977 (2008), the SBA Size Determination Board determined that an “affiliation” with an individual minority stockholder (a venture capital firm) transformed the otherwise small medical device startup company into a large
Sam Plecic secrets on Internet Business | Can Hated Design Elements Be Made to Work?
Can Hated Design Elements Be Made to Work?
That said, PDF has its uses — they're just not in the realm of interactive information access. When people want to download a report for later reference, PDF shines. Indeed, I use it myself for this purpose. (As an example, see our report on social media usability, which is available for free
Top 10 Enduring Web-Design Mistakes
Sites create flawed facets and filters when they attempt a one-size-fits-all approach. The same criteria and characteristics may not apply across all content types. Be cautious in limiting users’ selections to an either-or approach, as well. Furniture shoppers may be looking for blue chairs, or
Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 2003
Sites that offer many items ought to provide winnowing and sorting, which is a highly useful way to deal with lists and is fortunately fairly common. Unfortunately, many sites only let users sort items by brand. So you can find, say, all Armani products, but not all red sweaters. To support sorting