I can operate almost any user interface. After all, I have 33 years’ experience using computers and 25 years’ professional experience analyzing bad designs: I know most of the ways interaction designers can confuse or annoy users. I’ve seen it all before. Or so I thought.
Despite my prowess at defeating complicated user interfaces, I was recently stumped by a simple dialog box. I simply couldn’t figure out how to proceed, so I had to close the application and use another program to achieve my goal.
The offending software shall remain nameless; it’s a nice piece of shareware that I enjoy enough to have paid the fee. Also, a single...
For mobile apps, it's usually a good idea to have an "application home" that users can return to as a safe base after exploring the apps various areas. This is particularly important for content-rich apps, such as magazines or newspapers. Used this way, the "home" button serves as a generic
It is always good to prevent human error before it happens, if possible. However, once the error was made, it may be easier to fix it if the error message is presented within the main content instead of in a modal dialog. For example, an error in a form should be reported on the page, next to where
Long strings of letters and digits, such as automatically generated IDs in a database are frequently used to uniquely identify an item in an application. These strings are completely meaningless to users, but they are often prominently displayed as the first column of a table, forcing people to
FinTech is Transforming the Finance Industry
As with other emerging and disruptive industries, FinTech has drawn the attention of legislators. In the United States, lawmakers have expressed that FinTech firms need to put more effort into creating opportunities for under served consumers and enterprises. Traditionally, cite lawmakers, these
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
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
Intranet Design After a Merger or Acquisition
Keeping multiple intranets up implicitly tells employees that either one is valid and leads to duplication of processes, applications, policies, and other types of content. If people followed the wrong process or act on the wrong information, the consequences could be catastrophic. Instead, do a
defeated by a dialog box
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
Unless you have an unlimited clothes budget, it’s unrealistic (and wasteful) to wear a new outfit for every single occasion, yet social media pressures us into it. Rent a Runway solves this tension elegantly by recycling (expensive) clothes across a large set of women. It’s an example of the
Net Promoter Score: What a Customer-Relations Metric Can Tell You About Your User Experience
NPS scores (like any metrics) are rarely relevant with a small sample size. Running a qualitative user test with 5 users and asking for the NPS at the end is unlikely to provide you with any valid data, yet many practitioners insist upon reporting these measures with small samples and they base
Comparison Tables for Products, Services, and Features
The biggest problem with most comparison tables isn’t a design problem, it’s a content problem. When attribute information is missing, incomplete, or inconsistent across similar offerings, otherwise handy comparison tables quickly become useless. This is especially problematic for dynamic
The User Experience of Customer-Service Chat: 20 Guidelines
The message was likely automatically generated by the system and not sent directly by the agent. Unfortunately, the user had no way of knowing that, especially since the automated message was displayed in the same way as the other agent-generated messages. The user said: “I assume Judy [the
The Mobile Checkout Experience
Long dropdown lists are especially difficult for mobile users, particularly those on iOS. The iOS picker control (which is used for implementing dropdowns) occupies half the screen and displays only a few items at a time. If the list is long, users have to scroll many times before getting to values
Recapping the State of the Word 2018
Mullenweg began the talk by offering the audience a perspective. “With so much going on, I’d like to give WordPress a chance to reintroduce introduce itself,” he said. “WordPress isn’t a physical thing, it’s not a set of code. It’s kind of an idea. It only exists in the space between
defeated by a dialog box
A Look Back at the WP Engine London Summit .
At the end of September, we held our 2018 WP Engine Summit in Austin, Texas. Last week, agencies, brands, and digital innovators from EMEA came together in London for the WP Engine EU Summit. Attendees discussed the future of digital experiences, Gen Z’s perception of the Internet, and the
Join WP Engine in Web Week 2018
Are there old shortcodes lingering around, bulking up your code? Do you still have widgets installed that you don’t use anymore? Perhaps your dashboard is full of comment spam. Maybe you need better analytics software or want to start reaching more audiences by adding more localized content
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
While “branding” products with an identifying mark (definition #1) has been around since people first began trading and selling goods, the use of brands to differentiate products — to truly attempt to influence consumers’ perceptions and choices within a market (definition #2) — is a
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
The distinction here is an important one, and goes well beyond the narrow view of qualitative as “open ended” as in an open-ended survey question. Rather, studies that are qualitative in nature generate data about behaviors or attitudes based on observing them directly, whereas in quantitative
How Channels, Devices, and Touchpoints Impact the Customer Journey
Take a look at your own omnichannel ecosystem. What channels do you support? Across which devices? Ask yourself if there are important gaps to be filled in your channel solutions. Study the touchpoints of common customer journeys to understand the context of each interaction and how customers are
The Open Data Initiative’s Benefits Go Far Beyond Improved Customer Intelligence
Take sales and marketing, which should share data about everything from customers’ pipeline progress to lifetime value projections. Sales went digital first by a wide margin: Salesforce was founded way back in 1999, one of the first SaaS tools on the market. Almost no marketing technologies
Operational Technology in Industrial IoT Can’t Tolerate IT-Style Patching. “Threat Analysis” is a Safe and Powerful Solution
Speaking about the Industrial Internet of Things – (IIoT). Operational technology in industrial internet of things (IoT) can’t tolerate IT style patching. Using “Threat Analysis” is a Safe and Powerful Solution. Within companies and across the entire global the IIoT ecosystem
Nearshoring Basics for Software Development
Some things to be wary of when looking for a country for nearshoring operations is political stability, the work ethic within the country, and the available expertise or competition for workers. Since some countries of Latin America are much smaller, political effects tend to be immediate, so
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Finally, Hathaway sees this as a unique opportunity for the United States to work with countries around the world, and with organizations on an extremely local level. “We cannot succeed if our government works in isolation,” she added. It requires “leading from the top” from
defeated by a dialog box
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
Building a Startup Culture that Encourages Wellness
Doesn’t matter if you’re a janitor or a member of senior management, everybody likes when they feel respected and their ideas worthy of someone’s time. If your company has a reputation of a prison camp, where bosses bark orders and everyone else is keeping their mouth shut, that’s bound to
Defeated By a Dialog Box | Image-Focused Design: Is Bigger Better?
Image-Focused Design: Is Bigger Better?
The homepage for Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, is another example of extreme focus on imagery, with its ever-changing backdrops. But a site devoted entirely to search has quite different design constraints that most websites. The top priority on this page is to show people the search box, and
Centered Logos Hurt Website Navigation
It appears that other factors (such as the contrast, padding, and legibility of the brand name) affect brand recall more than the position in the center of the page versus the top left corner. For example, the Nolitan hotel websites had a background image behind the logo, which may have
Page Parking: Millennials' Multi-Tab Mania
We used to say that on the web, your competition is only a click away. That’s why anything but an awesome website is a loser. With page parking, this old argument for the business impact of user experience is ratcheted up a notch: now, several of your competitors’ sites have already been opened
