usability 1
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Eyetracking Studies — 7 Traps to Avoid | UX Booth
In my last post I talked about eyetracking. I don’t actually do a lot of eyetracking work, but this past week I was asked to give a talk on a panel about eyetracking at the SES (Search Engine Strategy) conference in Chicago, so it is kind of on my mind. So one more post about eyetracking, and then I’ll move on to different topics! At the conference I talked about the 7 traps to avoid if you are contemplating conducting an eyetracking study. In my last post I briefly explain what eyetracking is: “Eye tracking is a technology that allows you to see and record what a person is looking at, and for how long.
The more I know, the less I need: Thoughts on web design | UX Booth
You may have noticed that I’ve been going through design changes like crazy over the past month or so. That’s because I’m tracking almost everything my readers do into web analytics. With the right web analytics tools , you can gain real-time empirical data on your website visitors’ habits in massive quantities. What I’m learning may shock some of you, and it may confirm ideas for others.
We’re seeing a boom period in the development of new tools for usability testing, which is a great trend that foretells better web experiences in the coming years. Today I’m going to look at Usabilla , which my friend Keri Morgret and I used on her site Strike Models , which sells products for building remote controlled battleships. Service description: Usabilla shows screenshots of your choosing to testers and asks them questions which they answer by clicking and/or annotating over the image. What the service isn’t: Usabilla does not recruit users for you from a panel that they manage. Instead, they give you a link to send testers to, or offer some JavaScript code to place on your site, which will invite users to take the test. 1.
Usability Testing Tool Review: Usabilla
Over the last two months we have been working on several iPad projects: Two news applications, a social network and a word processor. We worked on iPad projects without ever having touched an iPad. One client asked us to “start working on that tablet thing” even before we knew whether the iPad was real. The question Are we designing desktop programs, web sites or something entirely new? has been torturing us until that express package from New York finally crossed our door sill. A quick write up of design insights before and after the appearance of the iPad at our office.
iA » Designing for iPad: Reality Check
The Value of Good Design
Drawar has published a couple of interesting posts about the importance of design and aesthetics for online businesses last week. The main premise is this: businesses succeed and fail on the web regardless of how well designed their sites are. An ugly website will succeed if their product or service is good, so why bother making something beautiful? Now, Paul Scrivens' position on this is that you should care, and that pushing out something that’s just good enough isn’t what web designers should strive for. I agree. I also think that good design, and good aesthetics for that matter, oftentimes make business sense.
Andrew Parker - The Gong Show: Metric-Driven Design
Friday, March 19, 2010 Back in mid-2009, Douglas Bowman left Google for Twitter , and in the process a small meme developed about his exit blog post. He semi-famously wrote: Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case.
Ethnio :: Recruiting for User Research :: Index
How Levi’s Uses Ethnio With Ethnio, Levi’s was able to complete a research study involving moderated interviews and automated testing using Usabilla in one day. Having users at their own computers allowed Levi’s to see behavior across multiple websites and prototypes. How Autodesk Uses Ethnio
ignore the code: Realism in UI Design
The history of the visual design of user interfaces can be described as a gradual change towards more realism. As computers have become faster, designers have added increasingly realistic details such as color, 3D effects, shadows, translucency, and even simple physics. Some of these changes have helped usability. Shadows behind windows help us see which window is active. The physicality of the iPhone’s user interface makes the device more natural to use. In other areas, the improvements are questionable at best.How do you perceive Walmart’s ambience? Next time you go into a department store, look for a couple of things: signposts (detailing where items are located throughout the store), cashiers (ready to assist you should you have any questions), and muzak (that oh-so-good, yet oh-so-bad “elevator music”). Do you think you would find them? I imagine so. They’re not hard to spot.
Ambient User Experience | UX Booth
Brainstorm using Mockingbird, then use your mockups going into the building stage to make sure your team is on the same page — about every page.
Mockingbird | Wireframes on the fly
10 Beautiful Sketches for Website Prototypes – woorkup.com
When you start designing a new website it’s very useful to sketch out a first idea of page layout using paper and stencil. This approach help you define easily a working draft of the final version of your website. In general this is a top-down process: you can start sketching first the main sections and then adding more details progressively. In this post I want to suggest you some interesting examples of beautiful sketches for website prototypes for your daily inspiration. Early Ember Vimeo Video Browser ModuleMarriott Courtyard: Lobby Prototyping » UIE Brain Sparks
Mark Hurst interviewed Brian King, VP & Global Brand Manager for Courtyard by Marriott about the new design of their hotels. It’s a great read, talking about how you revitalize a cash-cow business by creating a great experience. One of Brian’s comments jumped out at me: We took our knowledge and created, in a warehouse in San Francisco, an entire lobby made out of white foam core.Essential Books for User Interface Designers « Theresa Neil
If you are looking to stock your library, you can’t go wrong with this list of books. These are the books that are literally on my desk, listed in order from top of the stack to the bottom. By David MccandlessPrior to becoming a senior UX designer at Popular Front Interactive, I spent two years as a mobile UX researcher within the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mobile Technologies Group – a lab tasked with both future-casting and then rapidly prototyping innovative mobile experiences. As I transitioned from academia to industry, I discovered that while mobile UX was discussed, it wasn’t discussed from the same broad frame of reference that I was used to within the confines of a research-based institution. Although more recent mobile UX conversations I have found myself in have undoubtedly benefited from the ongoing smart phone revolution, overall I still find these conversations to be needlessly driven by tactical adoration and lacking a conscious consensus regarding the fundamental principles of the mobile-user experience.