When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
When to Use Which UserExperience Research Methods
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
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The field of user experience has a wide range of research methods available, ranging from tried-and-true methods such as lab-based usability studies to those that have been more recently developed, such as unmoderated online UX assessments.
While it’s not realistic to use the full set of methods on a given project, nearly all projects would benefit from multiple research methods and from combining insights. Unfortunately many design teams only use one or two methods that they are familiar with. The key question is what to do when. To better understand when to use which method, it is helpful to view them along a 3-dimensional framework with the following axes:
The GUIs of contemporary applications are generally well designed for ease of learning, but there often is a trade-off between ease of learning on one hand, and ease of use, power, and flexibility on the other hand. Although you could imagine a society where language was easy to learn because
That mainstream corporate websites make blatant usability mistakes is understandable because most members of their teams aren't grounded in graduate degrees in human-computer interaction. (That's why I have recently added foundational courses, such as The Human Mind, to my usability conference
Studies on websites have shown that, much like the on-hold music and accompanying messages on DMV’s phone line, the graphical progress indicators mitigate the negative effects of waiting, and prolong the user’s attention on your website. In one study, conducted at the University of
CSS conversion of my Radio weblog
The hardest thing about the re-design was integrating the tableless CSS design into Radio Userland. I had to do some jiggery-pokery with the Radio Userland templates and macros, and the CSS implementation is not yet complete. I’ve had to temporarily remove my blogroll and topicroll, along
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
Why Small Businesses Need to Be Vigilant About IoT Security Too
Educate staff on proper use of devices and general cybersecurity best practices. Even ensuring that they don’t just write down account credentials on Post-It notes is a positive step towards securing the workplace. The US Small Business Administration has a free online course that business owners
Experience Design: Bridging Brand Intention and Brand Interpretation
The strengthening of consumer voices across a variety of channels (especially social channels) has led to an increasingly common conversation about who owns Brand: the company or its customers? While public consumer complaints often reach other customers and influence them as much as messages put
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Contextual Menus: Delivering Relevant Tools for Tasks
Rather than hiding irrelevant actions, disable them so that users won’t have to try to find where menu items disappeared, nor will they have to determine how to get the system back in the proper context to reveal a specific command. Also, make sure that you include all options (instead of just
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
Airbnb makes it easy to satisfy the needs of these travelers by connecting them with owners who want to make an extra dollar by renting out their property. Before Airbnb, sites such as Home Away and property-management agencies used to connect owners with interested renters, but these were focused
Teenager’s UX: Designing for Teens
Teenagers use the internet on many devices in various environments. For our research, we focused on web and app usability for laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Although teens spend endless time texting and on social media, we didn’t focus on these activities because our goal was to derive
Cognitive Maps, Mind Maps, and Concept Maps: Definitions
The idea of cognitive map originates from the work of the psychologist Edward Tolman, who is famous for his studies of how rats learned to navigate mazes. In psychology, it has a strong spatial connotation — cognitive maps usually refer to the representation of a space (e.g., a maze) in the
UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet
Low-fidelity maps are unpolished and often created with sticky notes in a flexible, unrefined manner. These maps are best in an early part of the process. Low fidelity means little commitment or creation effort and empowers people to collaborate, revise, and update as needed. Use sticky notes
WP Engine Sales and Customer Service Teams Recognized at The Stevie Awards
The Stevie Awards are a set of hundreds of business awards given annually by the American Business Awards organization. They were created in 2002 to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of companies and business people worldwide. Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Awards are given to
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WordPress for Good: The Price of Water .
In April 2017, the UNICEF Somalia and East and Southern Africa Regional (ESARO) offices were looking for a new way to raise awareness about the drought affecting millions of people in Somalia. The crisis was getting worse by the day, with thousands of Somalis fleeing home in search of water
Always Innovating for You: WP Engine Mid-Year Review 2018
As voice technology continues to expand and see greater adoption, expectations that digital experiences include voice tech are growing. The Amazon Polly plugin for WordPress, co-authored by AWS and WP Engine, lets users bring voice technology to their websites by turning text into lifelike speech
Minimize Design Risk by Focusing on Outcomes not Features
Take for example, the features offered by UnitedHealthcare, a health-insurance provider in the US. Its website offers a section for healthy recipes. While recipes are valuable on their own, most people visit health-insurance websites for information on their healthcare coverage, not for cooking
Parallel & Iterative Design + Competitive Testing = High Usability
Competitive testing is particularly important if you're using an Agile development methodology because you often won't have time for deeper explorations during individual sprints. You can do the competitive study before starting your development project because you're testing existing sites
Why Zen Mode Isn’t the Answer to Everything
For tasks like document-authoring or intensive reading, which require a significant level of cognitive function, it seems like minimizing visual distractions would be an obvious way to decrease the cognitive load and interaction cost. Less visual clutter means fewer elements competing for users’
The Way Forward: Responsibly Deployed Facial Recognition
This brings the industry to an inflection point: the choices we make today will fundamentally impact the direction we take in creating a safer and smarter world. Facial recognition companies and their clients must be held accountable for the implementation of the technology and more importantly
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
7 Companies Poised to Disrupt the Mobile Enterprise
Zenius took the top spot, winning three categories including best overall, most unique and best business model. Hive by Decode Solutions was right behind Zenius and won two categories for best design and best presentation. Zenius took home $20,000 and some hardware, one of the most substantial
5 Key Metrics You Should Be Tracking in Your Business
Ideally, your business will have a greater level of equity than debt, though this is rarely the case for new businesses or businesses that are planning a major expansion. Still, by using the debt to equity ratio, you will be able to determine your general financial status and current level of
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Top Outsourcing Destinations in Latin America for 2019
Affordable rates, English proficiency, and time zone similarities are indeed important when looking for IT partners in Latin America. However, as countries in the region increasingly throw support behind their individual IT industries, new technology hubs are forming and thriving. Today, there are
Small Business Marketing Strategies that Will Work for You
After getting in contact with the business community, attend their annual or weekly fairs. Set up your business posters and stalls to let the crowd know. Try to speak as a guest in the function. In your speech, share the success story of your startup. Share the mission and vision of your business
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods | The Role of Enhancement in Web Design
The Role of Enhancement in Web Design
Sometimes an enhancement proves so useful that it morphs from being something extra to being the main way of accomplishing an interaction. The scroll wheel is a good example of this evolution: early commercial mice didn’t include a scroll wheel (though a few research-lab prototypes did). The
Homepage Design Changes
Although both versions have 7 tabs, the newer design's tabs reached all the way across the page and the color scheme indicating the selected tab was changed. More important, the actual navigation categories were also changed. The 2002 IA categories were Front Page, Enterprise, E-Business
"Get Started" Stops Users
On the T-Mobile website, the information the user was really looking for was hidden in plain sight, just above the Start Shopping call-to-action, in small, thin text (With T-Mobile ONE™, get 4 lines of unlimited talk, text, and LTE data on your smartphone for $40 each with AutoPay. Plus, with
