Usability

4 Mar

Content sliders are extremely versatile forms of navigation that can be used to display all sorts of information, such as images, popular posts, social information and product features.

Some have automatic slideshow capabilities or buttons to scroll sideways or up and down, and most of them feature a transition effect, usually a slide motion.

Sliders can be great focal points on websites and blogs as they instantly draw the audience’s attention and provide for an easy and sleek way for visitors to interact with a lot of information that can be sorted through quickly.

In this post, we have compiled a massive amount of content slider examples that you can use for inspiration on your own websites. Enjoy! Read more

7 Dec

Wikipedia Redesign: What’s in Store?

Design, Usability, Web Design

30

Wikipedia is currently undergoing a much needed redesign to improve the user experience.

Anyone can preview this redesign by creating an account, logging in and then clicking the “Try Beta” link at the top right of any page.

The “Wikipedia Usability Initiative” has been divided into two phases. Phase 1 was the prototype phase, and it ended in the summer of 2009.

The project team is currently in the second phase, which is the development and testing phase.

The project has also been separated into four releases; as of the writing of this article, the second release (Babaco) is currently in development.

In this article, we’ll discuss Wikipedia’s design changes and the reasons behind them.

12 Nov

Coding a Web Design for Speed and Quality

Code, Usability, Web Development

88

The beauty of being a web designer is creating a detailed, creative, and original web design in Photoshop, without having to (for the most part) think about how it will be coded.

During the design phase, it’s all about the look, and either the coding can be taken care of later, or be outsourced to a developer.

Either way, not thinking about the development usability or functionality is a great way for a designer to not feel limited in the design process.

This is a great way of thinking, and can lead to the best designs. However, once it does need to be coded, we as designers are in a tricky spot.

In this article, you’ll find a few simple tips that can help designers learn basic XHTML/CSS conversion efficiently for a quick-loading website that is accurate to the original PSD. Read more

5 Nov

Best Practices for 6 Common User Interface Elements

Usability, User Interface, Web Design

40

The appearance and usability of certain interface elements and functionality are crucial to the success any websites in today’s market.

Studies have demonstrated that even a split-second delay in thinking on the user’s part will weaken their perception and interest in a website and ultimately lower the website’s conversion rate.

In certain niches and industries, having UI elements that are not obvious in their use may be perfectly acceptable. The blogging and web development industry are perfect examples.

But when we design user interfaces for non-tech-savvy audiences—which is usually the case with client work—we have to ensure that certain UI elements do not stray too far from what users are accustomed to.

This article discusses some best practices and usability traits of six user interface elements and the conventions for each, so that developers can create user experiences that are both beautiful and simple. Read more

2 Nov

CNN’s New Website Design Deconstructed

Usability, User Interface, Web Design

99

On Monday, October 26, CNN.com introduced a new website design, making a number of major changes to their information-heavy layout.

The new design is beautiful, clean, organized and well-structured. It invites the eye to scan and find something interesting with the goal of clicking through to another page.

The previous design was somewhat cluttered and not very inviting; the content looked liked it was being forced into an unstructured space. The new layout is very different and embraces a number of modern web design and usability best practices and trends.

So, let’s look in more detail at not only the notable improvements, but some of the questionable design and usability decisions.

16 Oct

Preparing and Planning for a Redesign

Tutorials, Usability, Web Design

57

So many businesses out there set up a website and then think, “There, that’s done with” and never bother to re-evaluate their website’s design or position in the marketplace.

But looking at a website as a static, unchanging bit of advertising will put you at a disadvantage sooner or later.

Trends in website design change over the years (and even months). What looked cutting edge in 2006 is going to look incredibly dated in 2009.

Even things that were popular in 2008 are starting to look dated (glossy, Web 2.0-ish designs being one case-in-point).

In this article we’ll review some of the most important aspects of site redesign, so you can use the information below as a guide for your next redesign. Read more

14 Oct

An Analysis of the Amazon Shopping Experience

Review, Usability, User Interface

31

Designers of e-commerce websites today face a number of challenges in attempting to build a user experience that increases the likelihood of visitors making online purchases.

To battle fierce online competition and overcome the apprehension of skeptical shoppers, designers can take a number of steps to improve the usability of their online stores.

Since 1995, Amazon has established itself as the world’s leader in e-commerce. Its success is not a fluke, nor is it merely the result of being in the right place at the right time.

Amazon’s success is the direct result of a strong user shopping experience.

In this article, we will discuss a number of features of the Amazon shopping experience that will, either in principle or practically, offer a model worthy of imitation by e-commerce developers today. Read more

28 Sep

Interview with Web Usability Guru,
Jakob Nielsen

Interviews, Usability, Web Design

51

In this article, we’ll be focusing on web usability and more specifically, on the views of world renowned usability expert, Jakob Nielsen.

He’s been called “the guru of Web page usability” by the New York Times and “the king of usability” by Internet Magazine.

Through his Alertbox newsletter and useit.com website, he has been educating hundreds of thousands of web designers around the world since 1995.

While his views can be controversial, especially for web designers, he remains the top leader in the usability field.

I recently interviewed Jakob Nielsen exclusively for WDD and asked him a few questions that should be relevant to all web designers interested in creating user friendly websites.

25 Jun

10 Tools to Improve Your Site’s Usability on a Low Budget

Usability, User Interface

54

Testing the usability of your site is one of the smartest things you can do. Usability involves making a website’s interface easier to use and simpler to understand, so that the user’s experience is as enjoyable as possible.

The more usable a site is, the more satisfying it will be to interact with it — and happy visitors translate into happy customers.

Ideas about what makes for the best website design don’t always translate perfectly when put into practice. Elements that one person might consider easy to use may actually turn out to be confusing for someone else.

In this article, we’ll review 10 tools that you can use to improve your website’s usability even if you’re on a low budget.

4 Jun

10 Tips to Create a More Usable Web

Accessibility, Usability, User Interface

74

Whether it’s your portfolio, a blog, a marketing web site, or a collection of games, we all want to attract visitors to our website and to ensure that they have a pleasant experience.

Usability measures the level of a user’s experience and can be characterized by how easily a given task can be completed; whether it’s done with prior knowledge, or by having the user learn a new way to interact. I think Jakob Nielson probably explained it best when he said:

“Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word “usability” also refers to methods for improving ease–of–use during the design process.”

In this article I hope to give you some form of a usability checklist, covering topics from form design to simple navigation tips that you can apply to any Web project.

29 May

Apple vs. Microsoft – A Website Usability Study

Apple, Microsoft, Usability

244

Today we’re going to compare the websites of two monumental companies: Apple and Microsoft.

The two giants pride themselves for producing cutting edge consumer and business products, and are leading the developments in software and hardware.

But what about their websites? How do they both compare, and more important, which one is better and more usable?

Well, in this article we’ll take a look at both websites for closer examination from a usability point of view. Read more

1 May

Simplifying Website Usability: The 3 Step Approach

Inspiration, Usability, Webdesign

33

Simplicity is key to any successful website or web app.

If your site is too complicated, the user will have to go through too many hoops to find what they are looking for and won’t even bother trying it out.

The Jackson 5 got it right back in the 70’s when they sang “easy as 123″.

A simple and effective approach is to break down your services, signups and checkouts into 3 easy steps. This will improve usability, increase sales, signups and conversion rates.

In this article, we’ll take a look at 20 great examples of the 3 step approach for effective website usability. Read more

6 Apr

10 Tips to Design Usable Shopping Carts

Design, Usability, User Interface

57

The everyday tasks in our lives are being revolutionized by technology. One task that technology is helping to simplify is shopping: the task of buying products in stores is just not as convenient as online shopping.

With that in mind, it is becoming more and more important to pay attention to the usability of e-commerce websites.

When customers want to buy a product, they want the process to be quick and easy, without any hassles.

Here are 10 tips to help you create usable e-commerce checkouts and shopping carts. Read more

16 Mar

Best Practices for Designing a Social News Website

Design, Social Media, Usability

22

How do you get your daily news these days? Well… you may be visiting your favorite sites and blogs, but that’s inefficient since those blogs may not have any updates. Perhaps you subscribe to them using RSS, which delivers all the new articles straight to you, but in this case you’ll have to sort through all the new stuff to find what’s interesting to you. Another option today would be to visit a social news site.

Social news sites are link aggregators, which means their main function is to collect and share interesting links. This may be done through user submissions, or it may be done automatically by the system. The aggregation aspect is only part of it though because these sites also sort the links. Again, this may be done through user voting or some mechanical algorithm (although in this case, can we really call it a “social” news site?). The end result is the same however: the most interesting links rise to the top. This particular feature makes social news sites a great alternative to RSS.

In this article I’ll showcase some of the current top social news sites, will identify trends and patterns in their designs and suggest some best practices to follow when designing such sites. Let’s begin by looking at four popular social news sites and see how their designs compare. Read more

24 Feb

7 Interface Design Techniques to Simplify and De-clutter Your Interfaces

Design, Usability

73

What is simplicity? Simplicity is the quality of being natural, plain and easy to understand. It is not surprising then that simplicity is often thrived for in user interface design. Most people naturally dislike complexity in devices and software. Yes, some people find joy in figuring out how something works, but for most of us, being unable to operate a device leads to wasted time and frustration, and that’s not a good thing.

If you can take a complex device or a piece of software and somehow rearrange, reorganize and redesign the interface to make it easy to use and understand, then you’re well on the way to delivering a better user experience.

In this article I’m going to talk about 7 practical techniques that you can utilize in web design to make your websites or web applications simpler and less cluttered. Read more

29 Dec

10 Usability Tips for Web Designers

81

Simply put, usability is making your website easy for your visitors to find the information they need when they need it.

A common misconception about usability amongst web companies is that usability is expensive. Yes, there are multi-national companies that spend thousands of dollars on usability tests and research, but for an everyday company usability is achievable without the knowledge of usability experts or without expensive equipment for testing.

Web designers have an even easier job to do, just by reading usability articles they can accumulate a fairly good knowledge about usability basics and how to implement them on a website. Read more