Whether you’re designing web pages, web-based applications (e.g., SaaS), or native mobile apps, one of the basic building blocks is the humble text-input field: a box where the user can enter some text. Uses of this widget are plenty and not the topic of this article. We should point out that there are many issues in application design relating to workflow and other big-picture questions that are important for good application user experience. (These topics are discussed in our full-day Application Design course.)
In this article, we focus on the nitty-gritty of input fields. Each of these issues may seem minor, but we repeatedly see these usability guidelines violated —...
We get countless questions about small details in UI design that don't matter much to the overall user experience. One classic is the order of buttons in dialog boxes: OK / Cancel Cancel / OK Both are reasonable choices, and people can argue for hours about their preferences: Listing OK
Using a 3D representation of a chart distorts and skews the shapes that represent the data, thus making it harder to decipher the quantitative values (and relative relationships between specific data). In a 3D visualization, it becomes much tougher to determine which bar is shortest, even though
The Makr iPad app uses a series of tips each time the user reaches a new section of the app. Unfortunately, these tips are overly wordy, and present a multi-step workflow before the user has been able to do anything. Rather than learning-by-doing, users must memorize all of the steps before being
SEO DIY: Optimize Your Startup’s Website Yourself
Anyone who pays attention to the world of search engine optimization knows that maximizing your company’s search results on Google and other search engines is not something you can do with a quick pin here and a hasty status update there. It’s a full-time job. But if you’re
9 Blockchains Transforming the Way We Pay, Play, and Work
Look past digital currencies’ nosebleed pricing volatility, and you’ll discover a robust, decentralized, secure database. Brands and technologists are quickly figuring out how to put this powerful ledger to good use. Here are several real-world examples that demonstrate cryptos’
Past Bitcoin to Making Money from the Blockchain
People who got in on the ground floor of Bitcoin are sitting pretty. In January of 2011, you could buy over 300 BTC at $100USD. If you held onto it until today, it would be worth $1.7 million. If you held it until Bitcoin was close to $20,000 in December of 2018 it would have been worth nearly $6
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
It used to be that you would buy two or three nice outfits to have in your wardrobe and would rotate them for special events. But in today’s era, with social media like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, all your friends will see what you wear, whether they go to the same event or not. And even
a checklist for designing mobile input fields
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
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
The Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice
The actual differences in the ratings were rather small, around 0.5–1 point on a 5-point scale. Our samples used realistic tones that we could reasonably expect to find in real sites. For all but the most extreme and exaggerated tones, you should expect to find similar effect sizes in your own
Usability 101: Introduction to Usability
If you run at least one user study per week, it's worth building a dedicated usability laboratory. For most companies, however, it's fine to conduct tests in a conference room or an office — as long as you can close the door to keep out distractions. What matters is that you get hold of real
The Mobile Checkout Experience
What distinguishes the best mobile checkout experiences from standard ones is the extra attention to detail. Mobile-focused, user-centered UI elements can help move your users through the experience with speed and ease. Though often overlooked and easily forgotten, these seemingly small design
Maps and Location Finders on Mobile Devices
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf mobile website: The placement of the map caused users to accidentally pan within the map when they intended to scroll the page. The “gutterless” design of this map (the extension of page elements to fill the entire width of the screen rather than leaving whitespace
WP Engine Celebrates Pride 2018 .
Austin’s Annual PRIDE celebration is one of the largest opportunities for local non-profit organizations, social groups, and causes to gain exposure in the LGBTQ community. This year marked 28 years of Pride events in Austin. This year’s parade emphasis was awareness, equality and
a checklist for designing mobile input fields
WordPress for Good: Relieving Fatigue .
In this segment, we highlight Untire, an application that helps cancer patients and survivors reduce cancer-related fatigue (CRF) symptoms and regain life. CRF is a common side-effect of cancer and related treatments; patients describe it as a paralyzing level of fatigue that leaves patients
A Look Back at the 2018 WP Engine Summit
Next, WP Engine Founder and Chief Technical Officer Jason Cohen, provided insight into WordPress as a solution for a developer and marketers everyday woes as well as a solution for the growing needs of tomorrow’s digital landscape. Today, he said, WordPress powers nearly a third of the web, and
Flat-Design Best Practices
Google’s Material Design, which has been around since 2014, took an admirable stab at this concept. The best thing about Material Design was that it defined a carefully considered framework with specific rules, behaviors, and visual properties. Unfortunately, it’s not always implemented
Decision Frames: How Cognitive Biases Affect UX Practitioners
Resist the impulse to make a snap judgment. Acting quickly is satisfying, but taking the time to explicitly think through the context yields more accurate and meaningful decision frames. In our example, consider the amount of time spent planning and running the usability study (with 20 users, this
Breaking Web Design Conventions = Breaking the User Experience
Any budget that has room for an expensive glossy redesign should also have room for usability testing. As demonstrated in this article, a single day of user research easily identifies the worst design flaws. This tiny investment protects you from wasted investments in trendy design that will damage
The Evolution of Healthcare Data: 5 Little Known Facts
Recognizing the importance of EHR to improve the healthcare system, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was introduced in 2009 to encourage organizations to adopt electronic records. It was also implemented to improve patient security and boost HIPAA’s
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues
3 Awesome New Apps for 2010: Thesixtyone, Quora, Plancast
Take a team of early Facebook engineering rock-stars, have them tackle the age-old field of Question & Answer and what do you get? Quora, a social Q&A site that is a whole lot of fun to use and a great place to learn things trivial or useful. The company’s goal is to create a
2 Billion Downloads Later, Apple’s App Store is Still Going Strong
The App Store is obviously one of Apple’s most important assets in the mobile market. While Microsoft’s Zune HD, for example, is getting a lot of favorable reviews, the absence of an application ecosystem makes it a far less compelling product than Apple’s more expensive iPod
a checklist for designing mobile input fields
JS-Kit Score: Turn Your Site into a Localized Digg
Widget provider JS-Kit has released their latest widget this morning, Score. Score adds a thumbs up/thumbs down-style ratings widget to any page content, and then aggregates the data across the entire web site into an info box that can highlight a site’s top content. It can also integrate
Mistakes University Students and Graduates Make in Their Jobs
Finding the first job after the graduation is the most time consuming and stressful task. Despite of knowledge and skills, it becomes difficult to climb up the ladder of the career. Choosing the right career is important as it will impact you the whole life. There are many considerations in
A Checklist for Designing Mobile Input Fields | Web Page Footers 101: Design Patterns and When to Use Each
Web Page Footers 101: Design Patterns and When to Use Each
While many sites have utility navigation located in the top-most areas of their site, the footer is where users look when they search for these specific items. Users will often go directly to the footer to find contact information or locate ways to get customer support. Whether you have links to
Website Forms Usability: Top 10 Recommendations
The usability of web forms is by no means a new topic. It has been covered in general usability references (including several NN/g books of both general usability guidelines, eyetracking usability research, and mobile usability). Many of the 114 UX guidelines for e-commerce shopping carts are
Scoped Search: Dangerous, but Sometimes Useful
Any time users must pause to consider the differences between categories, the interface is making them work too hard. When this happens, it’s often a symptom of bad navigation design or of structural issues with the information architecture of your entire site. Organizations with many divisions
