#ux (165 links)
Hear, hear.
- LukeW | Evolving E-commerce Checkout lukew.com
- Truth and Dare - Out of the echochamber into the fire slideshare.net
- LukeW | Touch Gesture Reference Guide lukew.com
Contains: 1) an overview of the core gestures used for most touch commands 2) how to utilize these gestures to support major user actions 3) visual representations of each gesture to use in design documentation and deliverables 4) an outline of how popular software platforms support core touch gestures.
- The Real Life Social Network v2 slideshare.net
Massive, quite useful presentation from Paul Adams at Google
- Pawned. Gamification and Its Discontents slideshare.net
Excellent presentation from Playful 2010.
- My First Week with the iPhone | Behind the Curtain behindthecurtain.us
Last Wednesday, my life changed forever. I got an iPhone. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. It offers unparalleled access to properly made applications, and changed my life in twenty-four hours. The iPhone only has one thing holding it back: iTunes. Nevertheless, I have fallen in love.
- Firefox Heatmap heatmap.mozillalabs.com
Rather useful insights into browser usage.
- Dark Patterns: Black Hat, Anti-Usability Design Patterns darkpatterns.org
Dark Patterns are [...] not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind. The purpose of this site is to catalogue various common types of Dark Pattern, and to name and shame organizations that use them.
At An Event Apart in Minneapolis, MN Dan Cederholm illustrated the potential of CSS3 to enhance the user experience in modern Web browsers by walking through The CSS3 Experience. Dan used a showcase site he created to illustrate CSS3 in action at: Things We Left on the Moon.
New eye-tracking system using webcams. Clever!
- Game Mechanics - the new black - Jon Carder joncarder.com
"Over the next decade we’ll see game mechanics become ubiquitous amongst companies. Consumers will migrate in droves to companies who properly deploy game mechanics because doing business with them is more fun, rewarding and even addictive." Makes me feel slightly queasy.
- What is the most clicked Firefox button? - InternetNews:The Blog - Sean Michael Kerner blog.internetnews.com
By a landslide the 'Back' button was the most clicked of all navigation buttons which include the Back, Forward, Reload, Stop, and Home buttons. Across Windows, Mac and Linux 93.1 percent of users clicked the button at least once over the course of a five-day period. In total the study reported that users clicked on the back button 66 times over the course of five days.
- cookin'/relaxin': A guide to building prototypes cookinrelaxin.com
This.
People will look very far down a page if (a) the layout encourages scanning, and (b) the initially viewable information makes them believe that it will be worth their time to scroll.
- THE MOVEMENT: Method Cards methods.themovement.info
The Movement Method Cards are a collection of strategies gathered to inspire, guide, and elevate the creative process. Use the cards to spark ideas, facilitate conversations, categorize strategies, or for designing your own design processes.
- Life Below 600px | I Am Paddy iampaddy.com
The fold is one of those guidelines that has been thrown about so much that it's now become a 'rule' of web design (or maybe more appropriately a 'ball and chain' of web design) with web designers blindly obeying without question.
- Google Code Blog: Introducing Google Browser Size googlecode.blogspot.com
I'm not sure I approve.
- Log in or sign up? - Leah Culver's Blog blog.leahculver.com
Sometimes I put my log in information into the register fields.
Me too! I hate that not only do I feel stupid, I have to retype everything again.
- BBC NEWS | Technology | M&S website voted user-friendly news.bbc.co.uk
"John Lewis maintained its third position while fourth and most improved was Boots." Yay and stuff.
- Coding Horror: Revisiting "The Fold" codinghorror.com
"Even today, people will cite the ancient, irrelevant rule of The Fold as if it's still law. In fact, I was just talking to a friend of mine who expressed his frustration at dealing with a middle manager who was using the "content must be above the fold" rule as a weapon, and demanding that all page content appear above the fold. It's terribly misguided."
- The Trouble with Lightbox (and its Variants) - Monday By Noon mondaybynoon.com
Breaking the back button, proposed fix.
"[Imaginary Landscape] performed a comparison of an 11-field Contact Us form with a 4-field Contact Us form. They found contact form conversions increased 120% when the number of fields was reduced from 11 to 4 (a 64% decrease)." Not surprising but metrics are useful.
- fivesecondtest fivesecondtest.com
A simple online usability test that helps you identify the most prominent elements of your user interfaces.
Summary: just be consistent, whichever way you go.
- Treejack optimalworkshop.com
A Treejack survey will show you the parts of your IA that work well, and the bits that need more work. Get answers to questions about which labels work best, whether a structure is too deep and where to put certain types of content. Think of it as analytics for a website you haven't built yet.
Get answers to questions about which labels work best, whether a structure is too deep and where to put certain types of content. Think of it as analytics for a website you haven't built yet.
- Tools of Engagement: The New Practice of User-Centered Design, by Robert Fabricant - Core77 core77.com
We have been operating under the assumption that the primary challenge is to convince businesses to focus on fulfilling user needs with higher quality products, with more meaningful experiences. But what if the 'users' themselves are the problem? What if users represent not a coherent set of needs but a messy mix of desires and influences? What, ultimately, is the role of the designer in sorting through these desires to determine which should drive our design decisions? And what frameworks, other than intuition, should we use to make these judgments?
Missing. The. Point.
Jeremy Keith's notes from Jared Spool's talk at An Event Apart Boston.
- Jared Spool: Revealing Design Treasures From The Amazon slideshare.net
Spool's excellent talk on Amazon from An Event Apart Boston.
- Writing Microcopy - Bokardo bokardo.com
The fastest way to improve your interface is to improve your copy-writing.
- Dear Dustin Curtis | Dustin Curtis dustincurtis.com
If the UX architect at AA.com is actually pretty good, then why does the site suck so much?
The power of faceted search lies in the ability of users to create their own custom navigation by combining various perspectives rather than forcing them through a specific path.
- Made By Many » Blog Archive » The future of wireframes? madebymany.co.uk
I’ve yet to meet a developer who would choose to build a screen from a wireframe over a Photoshop document, regardless of how many helpful and important details the wireframes may contain. Realizing this is human nature, we now annotating our PSDs rather than wireframes. Why hold the information in a document that’s no one wants to read?
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- OK/Cancel » Archive » A Review of UCLIC ok-cancel.com
UCLIC (pronounced You-Click) stands for the University College London Interaction Centre. I attended their MSc in Human-Computer Interaction and Ergonomics, a joint program between Computer Science and Psychology, this past year. As promised, to aid others in selecting their program in the future, I am giving a full review of the program.
- A New (Full-Page) Look for Online Ads adweek.com
"Back in February at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual meeting, Payne delivered a speech urging the industry to adopt bigger, bolder creative and to be less sensitive to user experience." Well gee, that's just what the doctor ordered.
- Creating prototypes with OmniGraffle | urlgreyhot urlgreyhot.com
I've used Visio and Axure Pro in the past to do quick and dirty demos of interaction. With Visio, it's been easy to link sheets together. But I've been spending my time primarily in OmniGraffle Pro lately, so I wanted to demonstrate to the other Mac-using IA's and IxD's out there how you can do the same thing.
"So, is Interaction Design a dead-end job? As an expertise, no. But as a discrete service offering or a career path, I say absolutely." Slightly inflammatory; read on for the significant caveat.
- Usable Accessibility: Making Web Sites Work Well for People with Disabilities :: UXmatters uxmatters.com
The concept of usability often seems to exclude people with disabilities, as though just access is all they are entitled to. What about creating a good user experience for people with disabilities—going beyond making a Web site merely accessible to make it truly usable for them?