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 a user interface standard to increase usability in the resulting products, two conditions have to be met: The standard must specify a usable interface, and the standard must be usable by developers so that they actually build the interface according to the specifications. As reported by Potter
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
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
The Top Futurist Speakers to Have at Your Conference
Calum Chace spent 30 years in the industry and now speaks about artificial intelligence and its effect on society. His significant interest is on the relationship between machine and human cognition, and how it may make most people unemployable. Calum Chace has spoken at events organized or
Blockchain Metrics Will Add Transparency to Investing and Better Inform Investors
The same can be said for traditional finance as many millennials are extremely skeptical of financial institutions for a variety of valid reasons. Retail investors’ confidence in these markets could rise when blockchain-based financial aggregated data is made available to them, and the regained
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
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
defeated by a dialog box
Vanity Metrics: Add Context to Add Meaning
A cumulative curve such as the number of app downloads (red) will always increase, regardless of any other factors. In contrast, a graph capturing a ratio, like that between the number of new active users and the number of downloads within a week (blue) is a much more meaningful measure, as it
The Impact of Interaction Design on Brand Perception
Tolstrup and Heyer found many relationships between interactivity attributes and the brand and emotional attributes. For the full discussion on the relationships they found, see their paper, referenced at the end of this article. The findings related to labels, expected behavior, and consistency in
Dot Voting: A Simple Decision-Making and Prioritizing Technique in UX
Regardless of what meaning you assign to colors, remember that some participants could be color blind. As a rule of thumb, always have participants also draw shapes on the dot stickers to coordinate with the color. For example, draw squares on red dots, triangles on yellow. This technique ensures
Eartracking: A New UX-Research Method
A second technology advance now allows us to turn micromovement video streams into true eartracking and tell where the user’s attention is directed. A machine-learning algorithm has been trained with 10,000 hours of video recordings from our most recent eartracking study, during which we tracked
Visual Design Terms Cheat Sheet
If there are too few components on a page (which may not even warrant a dedicated page), users may not have enough information scent to confidently navigate that page. Conversely, too many components on a page can cause sensory overload and increase the task time or the chance that people will
Troubleshooting Group Ideation: 10 Fixes for More and Better UX Ideas
Hierarchy intimidation is related to groupthink and unequal contribution. It can manifest when one high-ranking member of the group proposes an idea, and all the teammates agree and begin to focus on that idea, rather than contributing alternate solutions. It can also happen when new or
defeated by a dialog box
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
Why is it important to understand the components of brand, and to differentiate brand from its common misinterpretation as simply a logo, a figurehead, or a website, among other things? Only when all three brand components — visuals, tone, and behaviors — are present and true to the core brand
Long-Term Exposure to Flat Design: How the Trend Slowly Makes Users Less Efficient
Here’s the good news: these new behavior patterns aren’t necessarily the end of the world, they just mean you have to consider them in your designs. And here’s more good news: you don’t have to go back to the garish realism effects of yesteryear to communicate clickability. You can give
Linkedin führt Conversation Ads als Messenger-Werbeformat ein
Darüber hinaus wird der Call to Action nur an derzeit aktive Linkedin Mitglieder gesendet, was dazu beitragen soll, ein Engagement in Echtzeit sicherzustellen und die entsprechenden Werte für die Werbetreibenden hoch zu halten. Der Messenger als Kommunikationsmittel im beruflichen Umfeld
WP Engine Culture Recognized at Greater Austin Business Awards
The annual Greater Austin Business Awards competition, presented by The Austin Chamber of Commerce, is designed to honor excellence in all aspects of business. In order to promote awareness and perpetuate good practices, the Awards recognize companies and organization in the Austin region for
WP Engine Participates in the Day of Understanding
WP Engine was proud to take part in this event sponsored by the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion. Each company was encouraged to customize the events during the day according to the needs, nature, and geography of its workplace. At WP Engine, multiple company-wide workshops were held in
How to Create an Effective Cybersecurity Routine
Backing up is one of the essential threads of any cybersecurity routine, but it’s not without its potential issues. You can segment the hard drive of every workstation, and that will help to a degree. But you may find that all of your workstations are put offline by a sudden attack. There’s
As Digital Identities Evolve, Data Security Should Too
Pretend my personal data is a pencil. I can wrap tissue paper around the pen and hand it to you, and you’ll know it’s a pencil. You may not know the exact specifications of the pencil, but you understand through context what I’m giving you. This environment is ripe for AI disruption. Machine
How to Better Defend Against Cyber Threats
Aside from violating customers’ trust, these events are costly — customer data has become a commodity in its own right. Although some breaches feel inevitable, best practices can limit the damage significantly. The New York Times reported that handling cybersecurity the right way — including
Free Up the World’s Best Entrepreneurs to Keep Inventing
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
defeated by a dialog box
How To Create a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign for Your Startup
A great strategy here is to set an achievable fundraising goal that supporters can achieve with minimal effort. Therefore, the minimum amount set should be enough to enable your startup to begin when enough people give. Not only should you focus on achieving your funding goal, but also focus on
The Role of IT or an IT Consultant Provider for Business Growth
When you are able to quickly provide secure IT, your place in your business becomes more secure and you can ensure that you make a higher salary. You can become part of a business, or an onsite IT, or you can become a freelance IT solution. When you are a freelance IT solution you can consult to a
Defeated By a Dialog Box | How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?
How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?
If the web page survives this first — extremely harsh — 10-second judgment, users will look around a bit. However, they're still highly likely to leave during the subsequent 20 seconds of their visit. Only after people have stayed on a page for about 30 seconds does the curve become relatively
Web Page Footers 101: Design Patterns and When to Use Each
Some companies are so massive that they own or preside over dozens of other companies. Some use universal navigation to connect these child companies with the parent one. It can also be helpful to include a list of subsidiaries and brands in the footer to reinforce awareness of other brands or
Maximize Content-to-Chrome Ratio, Not the Amount of Content on Screen
Eliminating the search box and replacing it with a magnifying-glass icon has become almost standard on mobile. It doesn’t work as well on the desktop: the space is simply too large and users don’t have the patience to hunt for a small search icon. If you consider using it on the desktop, keep
