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...
Help teens learn and stay focused by choosing your words wisely. Use words that teens understand. Write in short sentences and paragraphs. Format key points or steps of a process using bullet points. Teens generally have poorer reading and comprehension skills than adults. If your site targets a
It can also be helpful to add additional clarity for the user by including text that explains why the user is waiting (e.g., “Loading comments…”). One note of caution though: spinning gears can be dangerous for data that is loaded from a server, simply because the connectivity quality is
If your application has hundreds or even thousands of features, you have to put controls for those features somewhere, and furthermore, you need to prioritize and organize them so users can easily find and quickly access the most important ones. One consequence of this constraint is often an
A marketplace solution for IoT development through decentralized smart contract ledger
A smart contract, as shown in the infographic, is a digital contract or a protocol in the form of code that executes a function depending on the terms involved in a contract. The key here is that it enforces an action automatically depending on whether the terms in the contract have been fulfilled
5 Tips for Protecting Your FinTech Data Assets
Phone porting is a technique commonly executed by cyberthieves. For this kind of attack, hackers lurk on social media platforms where cryptocurrency investors might leave sensitive information, such as phone numbers and email addresses, to connect with other investors. After acquiring a target, the
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’
The Most Hated Online Advertising Techniques
The desktop and mobile wireframes of the modal advertisement, which were presented separately in the survey. The advertisements within the wireframes were bright purple for easy identification and contained placeholder text reading, “This is an advertisement.” The wireframes also had
defeated by a dialog box
Better Link Labels: 4Ss for Encouraging Clicks
The first few words are particularly important due to users’ tendency to scan web pages instead of thoroughly reading every word. To maximize the chance that they will find what they need, frontload links with information-carrying language. Then, the rest of the label text should work to
Intranet Design After a Merger or Acquisition
If radical changes (such as layoffs, moves, combining teams) occur, human beings need to have an outlet to discuss them. The benefit of encouraging discussions in a public forum on the intranet means that all questions can be asked and answered once, in one place. People who staff this forum can be
Store Finders and Locators
Ninety-seven percent is an astoundingly high success rate. Of course, finding an appropriate location address is a simple task compared to using other website services. Consider, for example, the much higher complexity of tasks such as managing your investments, researching car purchases and
Popups: 10 Problematic Trends and Alternatives
From conducting decades of user research, we know that people dislike popups and modals. I was reminded of this fact during a recent usability study. While attempting to complete a task, a participant tossed his phone across the table after encountering multiple popups, consecutively. Frustrated
Tesla’s Touchscreen UI: A Case Study of Car-Dashboard User Interface
Because the targets in the control panel are too close to each other, it’s sometimes too easy to touch the wrong target. For example, on many occasions I triggered the seat warmer while trying to change the temperature or tap the climate icon. The seat icon is also easy to accidentally touch when
Join WP Engine in Web Week 2018
During Web Week, we encourage our customers to take advantage of this low-stress time of year to create more personalized, dynamic, and better-performing digital experiences. For brands and agencies, this is the perfect time to kick your feet up, re-access, and get creative. It’s the ideal time
defeated by a dialog box
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
WP Engine Supports the Domain Connect Project .
To show our support for the Domain Connect project, WP Engine visited ICANN 63 in Barcelona to talk with DNS providers and Domain Registrars about the technology. We were joined by representatives from other companies who have adopted the Domain Connect technology, including GoDaddy, Google
Parallel & Iterative Design + Competitive Testing = High Usability
In the ideal process, you'd first conduct competitive testing to get deep insights into user needs and behaviors with the class of functionality you're designing. Next, you'd proceed to parallel design to explore a wide range of solutions to this design problem. Finally, you'd go through many
Top 10 Application-Design Mistakes
If your application has hundreds or even thousands of features, you have to put controls for those features somewhere, and furthermore, you need to prioritize and organize them so users can easily find and quickly access the most important ones. One consequence of this constraint is often an
UX Stories Communicate Designs
After you’ve collected stories from research, you can use them to prompt innovation. Take the existing stories and begin to alter them to uncover ways to enhance the user’s experience. The primary purpose of stories in this context is to be generative; thus, deferring judgement and embracing
Is Data the Next Front in the Trade Wars?
Even though recent progress has satisfied global investors to an extent, the optimism belies the next brewing conflict front. Just like the fact that most of a floating iceberg lies below the surface, the extent to which our personal data is prized still feels distant for many people. Personal
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
The Key IoT Security Questions You Need To Ask
Another question to ask is how you will prevent unsolicited inbound connections from wreaking havoc on your devices? Make sure that only devices are allowed to initiate connections and not the IoT hub. And speaking of the IoT hub: make sure that the one you’re using has the capability of
8 Major Legal Risks Faced By Startups
Failure to maintain adequate employment documentation can cause troubles for a startup. Companies must hire experts to draft agreements and contracts for formalizing the employment of permanent and temporary workers. These documents must contain the terms and conditions of employment and clearly
defeated by a dialog box
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
The Freelance Entrepreneur’s Guide to Surviving In The World of IoT
You do not need to gnash your teeth to be fierce. Fiercely protecting your boundaries means saying no when you want to say no, and sticking to it. It means creating rules everyone must play by when interacting with you. It sounds robotic and sterile, but it is what all the top entrepreneurs have to
Defeated By a Dialog Box | UX Guidelines for Ecommerce Homepages, Category Pages, and Product Listing Pages
UX Guidelines for Ecommerce Homepages, Category Pages, and Product Listing Pages
Another trend seen in this latest research is an increased amount of product information on product listing pages. As long as the information is well-curated and uncluttered, this trend allows users to make informed decisions about products without visiting each detail page. Especially on mobile
Ad Placement for Mobile
An additional benefit to the sticky-container treatment is that the ad is still readily available to users once they finish their task. While the user is focused on completing an activity or researching a topic, ads will be ignored because they aren't part of the goal. Assuming the advertisement is
Top 10 Enduring Web-Design Mistakes
Since 1996, we have been compiling lists of the top 10 mistakes in web design. This year, we completed a large-scale usability study with 215 participants in the United States and United Kingdom to see what today’s web-design mistakes are. After analyzing results across 43 sites that ranged from
