As the ways we collect data and the tools we use to analyze it evolve, our world is becoming incredibly data-rich. One of the most exciting challenges designers face in an increasingly quantitative world is how to translate data into a medium that is easily understood by a wide audience. Information graphics (better known as infographics ) are a powerful storytelling tool that allows users to comprehend, analyze, and explore data. The hope of social-media sharing has made infographics popular on websites that emphasize content marketing.
The distinction between data visualizations and information graphics is subtle, but important. Infographics often contain data visualizations, but a data visualization on its own...
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
Detailed parameters need the right controls — that is, controls that convey some information not only about how they should be used, but also about the range of values appropriate for the parameter they represent. The control should provide easy means to explore the range of possible values and
Imagine your goal is to improve an onboarding experience for new users. In this phase, you talk to a range of actual users. Directly observe what they do, how they think, and what they want, asking yourself things like ‘what motivates or discourages users?’ or ‘where do they experience
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
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
Robotics and Big Data are Transforming Nursing: 4 Key Insights
In healthcare, the robot’s role is to take over tedious, time-consuming, and dangerous or dirty jobs for nurses. Very few nurses dream of sanitizing equipment or dispensing medication when they enter nursing school. They want to be working directly with patients, healing the sick and providing
What B2B Designers Can Learn from B2C About Building Trust
A widespread misconception with business–to–business (B2B) sites is that they are immune to rules and usability standards that apply to ecommerce on business–to–consumer (B2C) sites. In fact, B2B design teams should account for their users’ needs and follow usability principles to address
designing effective infographics
Portfolios for UX Researchers: Top 10 Recommendations
Many of the researchers that I talk with feel pressured to create visually stunning portfolios, even if their work does not usually involve interface and graphic design. It’s true that presentation matters when it comes to portfolios, but visual appeal is a secondary concern. Trying to
Remote UX Work: The NN/g Case Study
But developing new UX talent is also a major challenge to remote work. New UX professionals often learn by closely shadowing or working alongside more experienced colleagues. Many people think that new UX employees shouldn’t be remote: they’ll feel disconnected from the organization, may be
Large Devices Preferred for Important Tasks
This bar chart shows the average activity-importance rating for activities performed on a computer/laptop (red) versus on a mobile device (grey). Computer activities had an average importance rating of 4.03 out of 5, with a 95% margin of error of 0.25. Mobile activities had an average importance
User Experience vs. Customer Experience: What’s the difference?
The widest scope of user experience is the relationship level (aka the customer experience). At the relationship level we focus on the lifetime experience that a person has with an organization and his cumulative impression as a patron of that organization. Rather than assessing the quality of one
Remote UX Work: The NN/g Case Study
UX design often requires collaboration to generate ideas. In-person ideation workshops are much easier than the remote equivalent. When ideation participants are in the same room together, they have a shared context — it’s easy to see what they’re sketching on a sheet of paper and what
10 Must-Have Features for a WordPress Website in 2018 .
WordPress is the most popular platform for websites and for that reasons it’s a key target for hackers and malware. The best way to prepare against losing your investment is to keep WordPress and plugin software up-to-date. Even more so, you need to have a website maintenance plan with a website
designing effective infographics
Recapping the State of the Word 2018
The list of improved capabilities with blocks is extensive. First of all, copy and paste has been improved. WordPress users can now copy and paste from Google Docs, Quip, Office 365 and Microsoft Word with ease. Developer tools have also been added to help optimize workflow. Users can export a
Hackathon 2019 Goes Boldly Where No Engineers Have Gone Before
Additionally, two unique awards are also handed out. For this hackathon, they were Customer Inspired, which recognized a project that has real potential to impact our customers in a positive way and was decided on by WP Engine’s Chief Customer Officer, Tina Dobie; and Warp Speed, a Star
Variable Fonts and Wide-Screen Layouts: Adopting Data-Driven Progressive Enhancements
To expedite page load time, we previously used just one custom font for headings, and relied on standard browser-safe fonts for most text, since browsers can render both normal and bold weights without needing to download any font files at all. This approach wasn’t ideal because it was a
Modal & Nonmodal Dialogs: When (& When Not) to Use Them
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
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
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
Five Best Open-Source Antivirus’ for Carefree Cyber-Threat Protection
You can detect a lot of different types of malicious software by using open source antivirus products. Experienced developers in both fields will tell you this is the most secure way to connect to the internet today. These programs simply make their code available for free so you can modify and
How to Improve Digital Security for Your Business
These breaches continue because small business owners think that basic security measures like antivirus software are adequately protecting their network infrastructure. David Wagner, president and CEO of Zix, a leading provider of email encryption solutions for financial institutions and
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
designing effective infographics
A Tale of Two Bubbles: Why Cryptocurrency Isn’t the Next Dot-Com
The similarities are fairly obvious. Cryptocurrency startups, much like the dot-coms, are experiencing an influx of capital that’s boosting the valuations of solid, innovative companies along with their relatively worthless counterparts — Dogecoin comes to mind as a cautionary tale. But
CSS conversion of my Radio weblog
I’ve done a re-design of my Radio weblog, using CSS. Look ma, no tables! Yes, it’s now a tableless design. I’m doing my bit for the web standards cause, although I haven’t yet achieved 100% XHTML validation. For my re-design I used a CSS Zen Garden design by Michael Landis
While page parking is a common behavior, it’s not ubiquitous. Regular browsing continues to account for a big share of web usage for both Millennials and older users. Thus, it’s important to continue to support regular navigation and search, as well as the Back button as a way to move to
Website Response Times
In a recent study for our work on Brand as Experience (now a full-day training course on branding and UX), we asked users what they thought about various websites they had used in the past. So, their responses were based not on immediate use (as in normal usability studies), but on whatever past
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
