The Internet may be virtual, but customers live in physical space and often need to visit companies in the real world. Given this, geography determines business success in a very simple way: Customers can either identify and find your location or they cannot.
Websites play a major role in helping customers find their way to company locations, including branches, stores, offices, dealers, and other outlets such as ATMs, package drop-off points, or facilities that accept return goods for e-commerce sites. Whenever customers need to transact business at a physical location, a company's website should help them find the most convenient location that offers the services they need.
Although we rant against vocabulary inflation and creating new names for old things, we can’t fight the way in which language evolves. Whether you use the newer term “customer experience” or prefer the older “user experience,” the point to remember is: there are multiple levels of
Pottery Barn’s oversized-product page (left) mentioned a delivery fee, but the popover gave no estimate or additional information. It was difficult to get an actual number for this cost without going all the way through checkout. Additional surcharge information further down the page (right) was
Another noticeable change over our years of research is users’ increasing reliance on external mapping tools such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Waze to provide turn-by-turn directions. Companies have reacted to this new state of facts. In Study 4, only two of the 11 sites tested used an on-site
Why Small Businesses Need to Be Vigilant About IoT Security Too
Their staff may not also be trained to apply the best practices in technology use. Untrained end users are likely to commit errors or cause incidences like inadvertently downloading and installing malware from their office devices. Small businesses are also likely to pay the ransom from ransomware
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
JS-Kit Score: Turn Your Site into a Localized Digg
Widget provider JS-Kit has released their latest widget this morning, Score. Score adds a thumbs up/thumbs down-style ratings widget to any page content, and then aggregates the data across the entire web site into an info box that can highlight a site’s top content. It can also integrate
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
Pre Uber we were all plagued with standing on the corner, possibly in the rain, belongings in hand while attempting to wave down one of the few free taxis. (The worse the rain, the fewer the taxis — that’s a law of nature.) An abundance of unknowns adding further anxiety: how much is it going
helping users find physical locations
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
As his pillaging continued and Blackbeard grew in craftiness, he realized it would be prudent to extend the essence of his menacing nature from afar. He devised a tool to extend his message — an early version of the skull-and-crossbones pirate flag we all know well today. The flag served as
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
Brand is a tool for influencing choice. Brand is not made of visuals or words alone — it’s not a logo or a slogan. Nor is it a figurehead, such as Steve Jobs. Those things are simply ways to communicate the brand. Although a figurehead such as Elon Musk or a logo such as McDonald’s golden
Overloaded vs. Generic Commands
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
7 Tips for Successful Customization
Such a “forced” customization in the beginning is more acceptable on an intranet, where site designers and developers know that the user will return over time. For most systems, return visitors are not guaranteed. Therefore, it is best not to interrupt their early interactions by asking
Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
Some of these quadrants may seem ambiguous or overlapping — for example, it may be difficult to distinguish between Thinks and Feels. Do not focus too much on being precise: if an item may fit into multiple quadrants, just pick one. The 4 quadrants exist only to push our knowledge about users and
StudioPress Theme Spotlight: New Breakthrough Pro
As we continue to showcase a sample of the amazing StudioPress themes now available to WP Engine customers, we’re extra excited to bring you this new StudioPress Theme: Breakthrough Pro, which is the first new theme to be launched since our acquisition of StudioPress in June. Breakthrough Pro
helping users find physical locations
StudioPress Theme Spotlight: New Breakthrough Pro
As we continue to showcase a sample of the amazing StudioPress themes now available to WP Engine customers, we’re extra excited to bring you this new StudioPress Theme: Breakthrough Pro, which is the first new theme to be launched since our acquisition of StudioPress in June. Breakthrough Pro
WP Engine Raises $30K for Central Texas Food Bank
WP Engine employees are rarely hungry. Our office kitchens are fully stocked with cereal and snacks, and lunch is catered Monday through Thursday, every week, for the entire team. Unlike the 46,000 people who rely on Central Texas Food Bank for food assistance every week, our employees don’t have
Why Zen Mode Isn’t the Answer to Everything
While zen mode is a well-intended UI feature, in practice, it can ultimately increase cognitive strain. To understand why, let’s step outside the world of UX for a minute and consider a painter. While the task of painting requires extreme focus, the artist must, occasionally, dip her brush into a
Dropdowns: Design Guidelines
A while back, as part of a presentation on web-usability methods, we ran a small user test for the audience. When completing a registration page, our test participant had to enter her address on a form with a text field for the name of the street but a dropdown menu for the type of street (Avenue
UX Retrospectives 101
At regular, but rare, intervals (maybe once a year), you can conduct a retrospective of your retrospectives: a meta retrospective. Are you running your retrospectives right? Do they help make subsequent projects better? Most important, do you see regular improvements in your design process, or are
Remote Access Solutions: Overcoming the Challenges
A significant investment of time and effort may be needed to deploy and manage the system, monitor and manage users and user access, and provide training so that internal staff can configure and maintain the solution. Moreover, these systems span many office locations and may also involve a hybrid
Is Workplace Privacy Dead?
Some years ago, employee monitoring wasn’t as popular as it is today. Surely, there were specific means of monitoring like punch cards. Today it seems we have punch cards, times a billion — on steroids. As technology is developing, so are the ways to monitor employees. Companies can now
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
Meet Meural, Fine Art on My Walls at Home
One person was offended by a painting — it was a Degas — some ballerinas, of course. Do ballerinas belong in a tech world? Come to find out — everything belongs in the tech world. Photos by Ansel Adams, Quotes from Shakespeare, Don Quixote, and Buddha. Pictures of fast cars
helping users find physical locations
JS-Kit Score: Turn Your Site into a Localized Digg
Widget provider JS-Kit has released their latest widget this morning, Score. Score adds a thumbs up/thumbs down-style ratings widget to any page content, and then aggregates the data across the entire web site into an info box that can highlight a site’s top content. It can also integrate
You Have a Great Tech Idea. Now What?
This may be a hard question to answer if you don’t have much firsthand experience in the tech field. Fortunately, there are a few approaches you can use to make this determination. If you have the time and inclination, you could research the possible development options yourself, learning about
Helping Users Find Physical Locations | Maximize Content-to-Chrome Ratio, Not the Amount of Content on Screen
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
Usability Testing of Advanced Homepage Concepts (by Jakob Nielsen)
Users generally liked having news stories on the home page as opposed to reserving the page strictly for navigation. Some users expressed a preference for limiting the news coverage to a small number of stories in order to avoid scrolling. Several users related recent experiences where they had had
Tesla’s Touchscreen UI: A Case Study of Car-Dashboard User Interface
Manuglick
Tesla’s Model S has few physical controls — all placed on or very close to the steering wheel. Driving-related functions like cruise control, autopilot, wipers, and lights are all accessible through these controls. But most of the “secondary” features (including rear-view camera, cell
