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10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines « Smashing Magazine

10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines « Smashing Magazine
Everyone would agree that usability is an important aspect of Web design. Whether you’re working on a portfolio website, online store or Web app, making your pages easy and enjoyable for your visitors to use is key. Many studies have been done over the years on various aspects of Web and interface design, and the findings are valuable in helping us improve our work. 1. A study by UX Matters1 found that the ideal position for labels in forms is above the fields. 2Tumblr3 features a simple and elegant sign-up form that adheres to UX Matter’s recommendation. Positioning labels on the left also poses another problem: do you left-align or right-align the labels? 2. People instinctively notice other people right away when they come into view. Eye-tracking heat map of a baby looking directly at us, from the UsableWorld study4. And now the baby is looking at the content. Here’s an eye-tracking study5 that demonstrates this. 3. 4. 12Basecamp13 makes great use of space. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

15 Valuable Usability PDFs You Never Heard Of Here’s a list of 15 valuable Usability Papers in PDF form that you might not have heard of, but should know and can use: I thought I’d list a few helpful papers I use from time to time when going about my usability work. Some of these you may have heard of, some not. I think you’ll find these very helpful from time to time. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, rather, it’s the list of the most thumb-worn papers I leaf through when needed. They are all free, and are publicly available. If you have a special usability PDF you find extremely helpful and it’s not listed here please do share them in the Comments (go ahead, share them right now), that way we can all grow smarter about usability together! I hope you find these helpful! Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines by the U.S. Usability.gov should be in any usability fan’s list. How well do web site usability questionnaires apply to the assessment of websites? Why Johnny Can’t Encrypt by Whitten and Tygar (1999) Google+

GUIStuff.com - Free Graphical User Interfaces 69 Free (or low cost) Tools to Improve Your Website Coding Up a Web Design Concept into HTML & CSS I’ve recently been working on a design concept for a WordPress theme as part of a personal project. In this walkthrough we’ll go through the process of converting the design concept from PSD document right through to completed HTML and CSS mockup, complete with clean and valid code, a few touches of CSS3 and some quick fixes to help out old IE6. The design we’ll be coding up is this WordPress theme concept I’m currently working on as part of a personal project. The design features a clean grey background, but with splashes of vibrant colour in the header, and throughout the page with links and buttons taking bright colour swatches from the main illustration. Overall the design has plenty of clean lines, and uses subtle shadows and inset text effects to add that touch of style. View the demo The job is started by slicing up the various images that make up the design. Each subsequent element of the design is cut up. <! The header The content The footer

247 web usability guidelines Web usability guidelines Home page usability: 20 guidelines to evaluate the usability of home pages. Task orientation: 44 guidelines to evaluate how well a web site supports the users tasks. Navigation and IA: 29 guidelines to evaluate navigation and information architecture. Forms and data entry: 23 guidelines to evaluate forms and data entry. Download an Excel workbook containing all 247 web usability guidelines You can also download translated versions of this checklist (in French, Spanish and Russian). How to use these guidelines Work through each of the guidelines in each list and mark your site as either conforming or not conforming to the guideline. Remember that all guidelines are context specific. The guidelines are purposefully expressed as positive statements, so that when you feed the results back to the design team you can identify some strengths of the design before you launch into the problems. And remember that guidelines can get you only so far. About the author Dr.

Zen Cart(tm) Wiki So you wanna be a user experience designer — Step 1: Resources - Pleasure and Pain by Whitney Hess Want to pursue a career in UX, but don’t know where to start? When you Learn the Ropes with Whitney Hess, you get in-depth training on principles, process, methods and techniques you need to excel in User Experience. Learn more > Pretty much every single day I get a tweet, email, or in person request for information on how to get started in the field of user experience. I’ve recently had a few people reach out to me even asking me to mentor them throughout the process. Given that I often find myself repeating the same answers over and over again, I decided to put all of my resources in a single blog post so that folks could easily access a consolidated version of my advice. So you wanna be a user experience designer? The best way to learn a new language is to go to a country where it’s spoken and immerse yourself in the confusion. If you’re interested in getting to know more about user experience, I recommend doing the same. …as well as any other topics that come up along the way. UX Books

Five Simple but Essential Web Usability Tips The web has become a part of our lives. Folks from all walks of life, from upscale parts of New York to dirt road villages you probably will never hear of in Burundi, are all a part of what we call "the internet". The reasons they use the web is highly varied: it could be to search for news articles, directions to the nearest pub, the winter/fall clothing trends, post-grad research, or shopping for a handbag, the list is endless. It could be anyone too. It’d be impossible to try to classify web users in any particular demographic range. On top of the web’s ubiquity, the web has gotten to an interactive all time high. And it’s only going to get better: we are seeing a myriad of emerging web apps and website trends that are revolutionizing the way we use and obtain information on the web. With this concept in mind, usability, how effortless it is to interact and use your website, is critical to its success. 1. A basic site feature nowadays is a search feature. 2. 3. 4. 5. Related Content

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