CategoryUsability

July 16, 2013 — The flat interface style is the manifestation of a desire for greater authenticity in design. The Modern design movement curbed the ornamental excess of the 19th century, making design fit the age of mass production. Today, we’re seeing the same desire for authenticity manifest itself in the “flat” trend, which rejects skeuomorphism and excessive visuals for simpler, cleaner, content-focused design. Read more…

June 14, 2013 — In this article, we’ll travel into the future and explore a world where Google Glass and a few other technologies are as much a part of our daily lives as our smartphones and desktops are now. We’ll be discussing a new paradigm of human-computer interface. The goal of this piece is to start a discussion with forward-thinking user experience designers, and to explore what’s possible when the mainstream starts to interact with computers in 3-D space. Read more…

May 24, 2013 — If you are a mobile UI or UX designer, you probably remember the launch of Apple’s first iPhone. It introduced a completely touchscreen-centered interaction to a individual’s most private and personal device. It was a game-changer. Today, kids grow up with touchscreens, and touch and gesture interactions have a lot of potential to make mobile experiences easier and more fun to use. Read more…

May 21, 2013 — We decided to conduct a large-scale usability study focusing specifically on m-commerce, and our subjects encountered 1,000+ usability-related issues during the testing sessions. These usability issues have been analyzed and distilled into a report titled “M-Commerce Usability.” In this article, we’ll share 10 recommendations from that report with you. Read more…

January 24, 2013 — Planning UX projects is a balancing act of getting the right amount of user input within the constraints of your project. This article explains how to choose the right mix of tools for the task at hand. Read more…

January 8, 2013 — If you’ve ever run a usability test before, you’ll know that it’s not as easy as it looks. In this article Damian Rees shares some of the lessons he has learned which should help you avoid your user test turning into a frustrating experience for you or the test participant. Read more…

November 8, 2012 — In which kinds of sites/projects is it better to use an adaptive layout (fixed break points)? Find some popular questions asked by our readers (and answered by Christian Holst) around good practices in designing smart and usable experiences. Read more…

October 26, 2012 — While masking passwords is a good security practice, there’s a chance it could jeopardize the user experience of your sign-up form. In this article, Anthony T explores how to balance security and user experience. Read more…

September 27, 2012 — In this article, Stefan Klocek introduces a strategy for fixing broken experiences that start with surface improvements. By diving progressively deeper into structural issues, he explains how to achieve a more successful organizational shift. Read more…

September 25, 2012 — How does a company like Apple make such great new things that people already know how to use? As Alan Cooper writes in “About Face”: ‘All idioms must be learned; good idioms need to be learned only once.’ Read more…