The Concept of Brand: A Lesson from Edward “Blackbeard” Teach
Edward Teach, the pirate better known as Blackbeard, is one of the most infamous pillagers in history. More relevant to our interests, however, is that he was also a man who understood the importance of creating an enduring impression. In short, he understood the value of brand.
Before a siege, Blackbeard dressed himself in a dark heavy coat and captain’s hat to accentuate his domineering stature. He strapped pistols to his chest and tucked lit, smoking fuses under his hat and in his beard to create an image reminiscent of the devil himself having just emerged from some smoky brimstone...
Not necessarily, but red has become the expected required-marker color on the web, which is a reason in its own right to stick with this choice (according to Jakob’s Law). In any case, there is some value to using different colors for the asterisk and for the field label: it allows users to
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
In their definition of user experience, Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen claim that “the first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother.” Brands that choose to address an unmet user need at the core of their business are
4 Mistakes Even the Smartest People Make When Looking for a Career Change
How do you know which opportunity will truly make you happy? Companies are starting to recognize and address this challenge. Stellares, for example, is a deep-tech talent acquisition platform that harnesses the power of AI to help you find opportunities that match your learning goals, work-life
Freewheeling Freelancers will Dominate the Future Jobs Market
Freelancers are at particular risk of exploitation from employers. In some cases, the scope of their work can be increased with no new pricing negotiations, they could be left waiting for weeks to be paid, and they typically don’t enjoy the same health or retirement benefits that in-house
Why Mobile Games and App Stores Should Opt for Blockchain
Hence, Apple and Google will no longer have full power over what will be allowed — or not — and no more of their (whoops) security breaches. [Frankly, as gamers, we don’t want Apple, Google and Amazon having all our data, using their bots to record and watch every eye movement
The Anti-Mac User Interface (Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen)
Notice in Figure 3 how the books on a bookshelf have a wide variety of appearances and yet are all recognizable as books. This variety adds visual interest and helps us quickly locate a particular book. Yet in our computer interfaces, all documents of a given application usually appear identical
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7 Tips for Successful Customization
Over many years of seeing customization tools implemented in a variety of systems in a variety of ways, we often find that users do not use them. The fact that customization relies on users’ actions means that the potential benefits of customization will reach fewer users than personalization
Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful
As we saw, placeholders can be problematic for all users: disappearing placeholders increase the memory load; persistent dimmable placeholders cause confusion when they look clickable but aren’t, and placeholders that do not disappear require more keyboard or mouse interaction to be deleted
Designing for Different Types of E-Commerce Shoppers
A good e-commerce user experience is crucial to all shopper types, but different elements take on significance based on the shopper's goal. Designing with user types in mind improves the overall shopping experience. Following guidelines, such as those in our E-Commerce User Experience report
After the Buy Button in E-Commerce
I recently discussed our report on the usability of confirmation email with a marketing manager. She said that while it was interesting research, it wasn't really relevant to her marketing team because confirmation messages are sent out only after customers have placed their orders. It's
Why Personas Fail
Personas do work — or, more accurately, they often work. But humans have a great ability to generalize from a single observation, so it’s understandable that somebody could sour on personas (or any UX technique) if her one experience was a bad one. You can appeal to the logical side of most
Decision Frames: How Cognitive Biases Affect UX Practitioners
Experiment with different frames. Try restating your question in reverse terms, or from a different point of view. Taking a few seconds to simply flip a data point from a success rate to a failure rate, or to consider not just a percentage of failure but the actual number of people affected, is a
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Instructional Overlays and Coach Marks for Mobile Apps
When designing tips, coach marks, and any other types of hints for mobile applications, the main guideline to remember is to keep them as short as possible. Focus on primary user tasks or atypical interactions, and design for maximum scannability by using visuals and succinct text. Additionally
Design Charrettes & Team Sketching: ½ Inspiration, ½ Buy-In
In an intranet design, the HR representative sketches a section page with 90% of the above-fold space dedicated to the benefits of the open-enrollment period. When explaining her design, she says that this year there will be no print mailings to employees, and that people already get so many
How to Recover Abandoned Shopping Carts for WooCommerce Stores
Imagine this: You’ve spent months getting your new eCommerce shop up and running. You set up WooCommerce, installed a bunch of plugins, found a perfect theme, dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s on tax compliance, logistics, and customer service. You roll out your beautiful new shop
International Study by WP Engine Reveals Enterprise Investment Lags Today's Mobile-First Consumer
A recent study of U.S. smartphone users found that the majority (70 percent) have a clear preference for using company websites over mobile apps when making purchases online. The study, conducted by The Center for Generational Kinetics and commissioned by WP Engine, surveyed over 1,200 U.S
Introducing Gutenberg Optimized Themes
In addition to all of the above, the Genesis Framework will be further upgraded for Gutenberg with the release of version 2.8 in Q1 2019. 2.8 will include built-in features that allow you to easily and efficiently style and control Gutenberg blocks as well as auto-load demo content, which can arm
Quick Streaming from Anywhere: 10 Best VPNs for IPTV
Most people are familiar with IPTV services that are the recent replacement to the tradition cable TV. This latest technological trend, IPTV delivers users with fast streaming service of their favorite video content. Internet Protocol Television operates through your internet service which means
The Positive Evolution of Your Business Depends on the Tech Revolution
Most of today’s businesses are subject to security threats and vandalism. You can use technology to protect your company’s financial data, confidential executive decisions, and proprietary information. Take prodigious care so that you won’t succumb to hackers or be taken over by your
Discovering the threats below the surface on the Dark Web
The Dark Web and browsers like Tor were originally built for activists living under repressive regimes to be able to organize and communicate without fear of reprisal, using mirroring tools to hide their identities. A deeper look into the history shows that the U.S. Navy had a hand in this project
How Technology and Training Fueled One Ad-Based Company’s Growth
Young and Yu realized quickly that a high churn rate plagues the digital marketing space. “A lot of clients see marketing as a one-time engagement, and they leave when their projects are over,” Young explains. To reduce that high turnover among the young people BlitzMetrics employs, the brand
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Meet Meural, Fine Art on My Walls at Home
One person was offended by a painting — it was a Degas — some ballerinas, of course. Do ballerinas belong in a tech world? Come to find out — everything belongs in the tech world. Photos by Ansel Adams, Quotes from Shakespeare, Don Quixote, and Buddha. Pictures of fast cars
8 Major Legal Risks Faced By Startups
Every business act falls under the purview of legal regulations. Businesses must know the licenses and permits they need to have in order to function without trouble. Non-compliance with regulations can have serious legal ramifications for an organization. It can lead to hefty monetary penalties
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age | Are Chinese Websites Too Complex?
Are Chinese Websites Too Complex?
Insufficiently user-centric content didn’t address users’ key concerns. For example, one Chinese user said about Tsinghua University: “If I’m here on this site, I must be looking for things related to admission or other useful information. However, there are too many ads and clichés about
"Get Started" Stops Users
Even within the style quiz, one user maintained the belief that she would get more information about the service as she answered questions: “So it takes me through a quiz that I would guess would help me pick things that are more geared a little bit toward me as I’m shopping. … I’m still
Iterative Design and Testing of Icon Usability
As you can see, all the versions of the color icon were essentially the same since the computer with a light bulb going on was easily recognized by all users as representing some combination of computers and bright ideas (the Sun solutions!). The light bulb did double duty as representing software
