Search by category: usability

Don’t break the user experience

Breaking web design conventions = breaking the user experience The esteemed Nielsen Norman Group has turned its attention towards the controversial redesign of the Bucknell University website. The redesign is high in…

Why audience-based navigation does not necessarily work

‘Hey, you there’: the trouble with audience-based navigation Gov.uk shared something very interesting about their experience with audience-based labels in their webpages. They found that people do not always identify…

Why we must augment focus groups

UX myth #21: People can tell you what they want I have written and spoken before about the fact that we cannot always take users’ word for it when they tell us what they want from a website. What people say they want…

The usability of homepages

Homepage usability: can users infer the breadth of your product catalogue? This article looks at the usability of shopping websites’ homepages. But there may still be lessons for us here, with our attention turning…

Do people use related links?

Rethinking related links Gov.uk have been looking at how often people use ‘related links’ areas on their website. It seems that they are not as popular as you might think. But looking at the analytics, just 0.5% of…

What we mean by user-centred design

User-centred design The University of Kent web development team blog outlines their perspective on user-centred design and the agile development process. This is a great overview of the concept. This article makes it…

Online marketers and user experience

4 things online marketers should know about user experience (UX) We found the final point about download times interesting. I know that this is a proverbial tough pill to swallow: perceived speed is more important to…

Accessibility for all

What are we doing about accessibility? An interesting audio interview and transcript about how the Government Digital Service is improving accessibility. This serves as a reminder of how important accessibility is, and…

Touch screen usability

How to adjust controls for touch This interesting video is a great explanation of some of the challenges we face when designing for touch screens. Over 75% of all mobile users use one digit to select options, and not…

Insights from eye-tracking studies

The 3 most surprising insights from a 200 website eye-tracking study I was surprised by some of the findings featured in this eye-tracking study. This research serves as a reminder of how young the web is as a medium,…