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...
You might be wondering, "if proximity is such a problem, then why not place the labels inside the text fields?". Don't be tempted. When you place the labels inside the text field as filler text, the label disappears when users input their text and they must remember it as they fill in the field
When it comes to modal dialog boxes, our winners have very distinct ideologies. At one extreme is Seating Management. As a real-time application monitoring a physical environment, Seating Management didn't set out to interrupt hostess work in any way. If a hostess wants to seat 5 guests at a table
Users often won’t bother to customize the site, even if the system is clear and simple to use. Because of this, don’t depend on customization to make a good experience. Generic site experiences, with no customization, should be strong enough to support users. You do not want a user staring at
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
5 Tips for Protecting Your FinTech Data Assets
The most aggressive hackers will search relentlessly for cryptocurrency exploits. To ensure the safety of this new and powerful financial instrument, the cryptocurrency market needs highly qualified specialists who can help investors prevent unauthorized access to their accounts. As the popularity
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
Browser and GUI Chrome
What do we mean when talking about the "chrome" in a user interface design? An attendee asked this question during a recent course on Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet. Whenever someone asks us a basic question, I assume that many more people want the answer as well — and thus, this article on
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Why WSJ Mobile App Gets ** Customer Reviews
Workflow design is a big issue in application usability. In many cases, a tighter workflow best expedites the paths users take to their goals. But in many other cases, it's better to add a few steps to ensure that each step is focused and self-explanatory. What matters to usability is not the
When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps
Journey maps should result in truthful narratives, not fairy tales. Start with gathering any existing research, but additional journey-based research is also needed to fill in the gaps that the existing research won’t cover. This is a qualitative-research process. While quantitative data can help
Better Link Labels: 4Ss for Encouraging Clicks
Notice that this quality of good links is last in the list. Concision is important, but it must be balanced with the other priorities (specific, sincere, substantial) in link-label writing. There is no maximum word count for links. They can be as long as they need to be to achieve those other three
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
User Experience vs. Customer Experience: What’s the difference?
For example, the claims process may function flawlessly and meet user needs when tested in the lab, but if the information provided in the confirmation email contradicts or confuses the messaging from the claim workflow, the journey breaks down. And if the entire claims process changes dramatically
StudioPress Theme Spotlight: Generate Pro
In an effort to help the WordPress community grow and prosper as well as expand and add value to the WP Engine Digital Experience platform, WP Engine recently acquired StudioPress. For our customers, this means, in addition to the Genesis framework, they’ll have access to 35 premium themes. All
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WP Engine All Hands Spring 2019: EMEA
Last week, WP Engine employees from our Limerick and London offices came together for the bi-annual All Hands event in Limerick. All Hands is a 2-day event where employees come to engage with, collaborate, and strategize with employees from other offices. This year’s theme was “Boldly
StudioPress Theme Spotlight: Generate Pro
In an effort to help the WordPress community grow and prosper as well as expand and add value to the WP Engine Digital Experience platform, WP Engine recently acquired StudioPress. For our customers, this means, in addition to the Genesis framework, they’ll have access to 35 premium themes. All
Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Conscious Mistakes
Another primary principle of preventing users from making errors is to acknowledge that they will make mistakes and slips from time to time, and provide a safety net that makes these errors less costly. Nearly everyone has experienced the utterly horrifying moment of realizing that you just
Small Pictures on Big Screens: Scaling Up from Mobile to Desktop
For example, as the screen gets wider, scale the image up in width, height, or both, but stop before the image becomes either disproportionately large or hard to understand. Then, crop the image so it works in the new screen dimensions and start expanding this version until the image needs
Web Page Footers 101: Design Patterns and When to Use Each
While satisfying these user scenarios may not be the absolutely highest-priority goal for a website, designing a good footer is still a worthy endeavor, because footers have a particularly wonderful usability characteristic: they will never get in the way of users who get their needs satisfied
3 Tips to Convert a Data Science Internship into a Job
Transitioning from an internship into a high-paying career is hard. In the data science world, the competition for employment is intense. While there still are a lot of unfilled roles out there, most of them require something slightly more than just a textbook education. The best way to make the
3 Tips to Convert a Data Science Internship into a Job
Transitioning from an internship into a high-paying career is hard. In the data science world, the competition for employment is intense. While there still are a lot of unfilled roles out there, most of them require something slightly more than just a textbook education. The best way to make the
Is more IoT driving more cyber attacks?
For general users like us, right now, there are two kinds of cyber attacks: inbound and outbound. Inbound cyber attacks target our smart devices like phones, tablets, or cameras directly. DNS Amplification Attacks are common outbound attacks, with over 80% of family level cyber attacks resulting
Digital Marketing Trends to Drop and Trends to Follow
In the digital earlier days — more was — well, more. Personal and professional brands were joining social networks just to join, post as much as possible, and use as many hashtags as possible. Then there came the “tag as many people as possible” craze. Marketing would churn
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Small Business Marketing Strategies that Will Work for You
Google is the largest successfully trending search engine, and at just one search, you can receive a lot of help for your small scale business. Taking your business in the digital world is always a good option as chances of profit are maximized. Google business accounts help in easy management of
How to Get Away From a Growth Mindset and Start to Scale
In a business’s early stages, hiring is an exciting prospect. You’ve grown to the point where you can afford to bring on full-time employees, and you can’t wait to pick from all the talented individuals who can help your business reach the next level. Then, you realize that hiring means
Defeated By a Dialog Box | The Same Link Twice on the Same Page: Do Duplicates Help or Hurt?
The Same Link Twice on the Same Page: Do Duplicates Help or Hurt?
The practice of adding safety nets can get out of hand quickly if you try to accommodate every situation. In many cases, making a link more noticeable by placing it prominently in an expected location on the page can yield better results than duplicating it elsewhere on the same page. Place common
The User Experience of Public Bathrooms
Additionally, many of these huge toilet-paper dispensers hold two rolls, but they don’t let users see which roll has been started. So, people spend time searching blindly with their hands to find the current, moving roll. Related, it can be difficult to see when there is no paper available at all
Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored
The Internet manager in charge of this losing design might defend the work by pointing out that it complies with #4 of my top-10 guidelines for homepage design: Offer a clear starting point for the main tasks users will undertake when visiting the site. Clearly, something was done right, with a
