In-context descriptions or hints can help clarify what goes inside each form field, and therefore improve completion and conversion rates. There are many ways to provide hints. A common implementation is by inserting instructions within form fields. Unfortunately, user testing continually shows that placeholders in form fields often hurt usability more than help it.
Labels and Placeholders
Labels tell users what information belongs in a given form field and are usually positioned outside the form field. Placeholder text, located inside a form field, is an additional hint, description, or example of the information required for a particular field. These hints typically disappear when the user types in the field.
The opposite problem — having something that looks like a GUI control when it isn't one — can reduce usability even more. We often see text and headlines that look like links (by being colored or underlined, for example) but aren't clickable. When users click these look-alikes and nothing
The principle of aesthetic integrity states that the graphic design of the interface should be simple, clean, and consistent. Screens should be visually pleasant and easy to understand. Part of the need for aesthetic integrity derives from the limited expressiveness of current computers. If
Dealing with a third party that imposes rules on your content and design can be taxing both in terms of time and money. Native and hybrid apps must pass approval processes and content restrictions imposed by app stores, whereas the web is free for all. Not surprisingly, the first web apps came from
What Will Cryptocurrency Be Like in 10 Years?
The first was the importance of regulation. Many regulators fear that governments will lose the ability to control the flow of wealth, which is particularly concerning when it comes to the funding of illegal activities. While the argument was made that it would be a mistake to regulate something
How Blockchain Can Put an End to Conflict Minerals
Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of where their products are coming from. Ethically sourced materials have become a selling point for companies around the world. More and more companies are working on ditching conflict minerals and ensuring that their products are not associated with human
A marketplace solution for IoT development through decentralized smart contract ledger
In conclusion, given the potential of IoT to become a game changer in shaping the future of world economy, it is necessary to avoid stifling the growth of IoT. In addition, realizing its scope and the complexity involved, collaborative ways of development may be the only feasible solution available
Why Personas Fail
In order for stakeholders to use personas, they have to believe in them, feel invested, and have ownership over them. The most successful personas are created with involvement from their end users. Otherwise, people will have no understanding of the data behind them and the rigor that went into
placeholders in form fields are harmful
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
It used to be that you would buy two or three nice outfits to have in your wardrobe and would rotate them for special events. But in today’s era, with social media like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, all your friends will see what you wear, whether they go to the same event or not. And even
The Impact of Tone of Voice on Users' Brand Perception (Nielsen Norman Group UX research)
In this scenario, Zeta’s friendliness without an attempt at humor seemed to reassure users during a potentially stressful situation. One participant in the qualitative study compared the difference between Zeta and Epsilon to the difference between a doctor and a nurse. She described Epsilon as
The State of Ecommerce Search
Over 17 years, search success rates have improved steadily, when counting both the overall successful searches (including search refinements and multiple queries) and those searches that returned correct results the first time when the participants used the search. This analysis comes from more
Ecommerce Usability Improvements
However, user expectations for search quality are far beyond what today's websites actually deliver. As with most aspects of web usability, user expectations are set by their aggregated user experience from around the web. (As Jakob's Law states: users spend the majority of their time on other
Why User Interviews Fail
Your research question should always dictate which research method you use. For example, if you want to know whether users would be able to use a design, then you should watch them interacting with it instead of interviewing them. On the other hand, if you want to understand people’s thoughts
Hackathon 2019 Goes Boldly Where No Engineers Have Gone Before
Last week, our first hackathon of the year kicked off with more than a dozen teams and respective projects. After the 48-hour build period was up, those groups presented their cutting edge ideas to a packed audience of WP Engine employees. The presentations lasted an entire day, and only after all
placeholders in form fields are harmful
StudioPress Theme Spotlight: Daily Dish Pro
As we continue to showcase a sample of the amazing StudioPress themes now available to WP Engine customers, we’re shifting our focus to food with this new StudioPress Theme: Daily Dish Pro, which is designed to make your content just as appetizing as the best meal at your favorite four-star
It’s Time to Take Advantage of Amazing Web Week Savings
StudioPress offers world-class WordPress themes that excel in design, security, and performance. The whole range of themes are built on top of the world’s most popular WordPress theme framework, the Genesis Framework. With the purchase of the Pro Plus Package you receive instant and unlimited
Beware Horizontal Scrolling and Mimicking Swipe on Desktop
Scrolling and “swiping” horizontally on the desktop is a different experience than on touchscreen tablets and mobile devices. This is one more example of why it is important to understand that people use mobile devices, tablets, and desktops differently, and why it’s beneficial to optimize
Breaking Web Design Conventions = Breaking the User Experience
Of the few users that did, only one user tried to understand the feature (another user clicked a category, but did not see anything happen and quickly moved on to another area). This is consistent with other research that found that users typically don’t use customization tools; they leave the
Variable Fonts and Wide-Screen Layouts: Adopting Data-Driven Progressive Enhancements
The tradeoff between aesthetics and performance is especially apparent when it comes to typefaces: rendering text in a custom font can significantly increase the visual appeal, but comes with delays due to the extra time needed for browsers to load the custom font files. The delay is even greater
The future of tokenization and blockchain is not just ICOs
Voting and governance through tokenization has been done through Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). While in an ideal world the voting rights would work very similar to standard governance in companies, but there are again no regulations. This may prove to be an issue in specific
How To Secure Your IoT Devices And Why Should You Do It
Since 2015, when the IoT devices started to become more and more popular, the technology has been a controversial subject. Recently, the FBI released a statement through which they warned people in the entire world that these devices can be as dangerous as they are useful. Of course, we had the CIA
How to Put Big Data’s Superpowers to Work for Marketing
While your marketing team members will still need to create valuable copy, much of their strategy can be data-driven. Your marketers can use software to recommend the best next step based on the data they’ve collected on how individual customers have responded to incentives and messaging you’ve
Why Your Business Needs Copyrights
Copyright covers both published and unpublished works- so the subject matter doesn’t need to be circulating in the public. This distinction is important for companies that are spending tremendous resources, both time and money, in developing and producing training or marketing materials and
placeholders in form fields are harmful
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
Thomas Merton said, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Well, I sure didn’t want the peeps at work losing themselves in art. “Lose yourself in the next tech project, please — this is a tech company.” If you’re a writer, “Lose yourself in
Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful | Photos as Web Content
Photos as Web Content
This is a good example of why it's not always good to copy the biggest sites' designs. Because Amazon hawks a monstrously wide product range, they use a standardized gallery layout that sort of works for many different category pages, without being optimized for any individual category. In
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
Changes in Web Usability Since 1994
In early studies, I found that only 10% of Web users would scroll a navigation page to see any links that were not visible in the initial display. The vast majority of users would make their selection from those links they could see without scrolling. In retrospect, I believe this was due to people
