User Experience articles

One of the most powerful tools we have in web design is consumer and industry data. It’s like a gauge that tells us whether we’re still heading in the right direction or it’s time to change course and adopt a new strategy or approach. Unless you’re combing the web for the latest news and reports in the areas of design, marketing, and SEO, it’s easy to miss this pertinent data. So, in this roundup, I’m going to take care of that for you....

And let’s be honest: perfection is a high bar to reach for any development team, especially when building applications that enterprises rely on for day-to-day operations. But it is worth aiming for perfect UX for enterprise apps every single time. Why? Because research shows every $1 invested in UX brings a return of $100, and 90 percent of users have quit using an application because of poor performance. (Other issues harming app retention...

Imagine the public excitement when, in 1951, William Edmund Hick (“Hickey” to his friends?!) and Ray (with an “a”) Hyman published research about people’s responses to a bunch of flashing lights. I’m sure no-one could imagine how important this work would be for the information age since, of course, at that time, a bank of flashing lights was pretty much the height of technological sophistication. More accurately known as the...

It’s always good to have a set of guidelines to follow when designing a website — especially if you have little to no user data to go on. Over the years, we’ve been introduced to tons of these guidelines and design trends; some of which have fallen out of favor while others have persisted over the years. One of those web design guidelines that’s persisted is the F-pattern. But is it still relevant today, what with mobile-first design practices?...

Unless you’ve been hiding under a tinfoil hat for the last few years, you probably know that UX and UI are not the same thing because “UX is more ergonomic”, or some such nonsense. But what about the unified part? Normally speaking, I’ve got very little patience for hipster acronyms and nit-picking, but actually it turns out there’s more to this than fake specs and chai latte. Imagine you’re standing outside two different coffee...

Once in a while, every professional comes across a challenge so great, so ridiculous, that they just can’t help themselves. They just have to go for it. It’s like the story of David and Goliath… if David was just bored and Goliath wasn’t threatening his entire nation. As for me, I’m about to argue for putting sounds on a website, and discuss how to do it right. Yeah, I know… I’m one of the “Never Ever Autoplay Sounds on Your Site”...

As a web designer, you may be starting with little to no data of your own. It’s not until a website has launched (or relaunched) that you can start gathering real analytics on its performance. Even then, it can take awhile to draw any meaningful insights from it. So, in many cases, what web designers are working with before and while they design a new website is industry data: audience insights; competitive research; keyword analysis; Google...

Iconic comedy duo Mitchell and Webb once asked a very important question: “Are we the baddies?” Given that, at the time, they were dressed in Nazi uniforms with skulls on their hats, and looked like rejected villains from a Wolfenstein game, the answer was something of a foregone conclusion. But what about us? No, no web or UX designers that I know of have ever invaded Poland, or done any of the more horrifying things that Nazis are known for,...

Let’s start with a common example: You’ve just finished a website design for someone. It looks and functions exactly like the wireframe. Everyone on the design team has praised the project. The client hates it, but they can’t explain why. The culprit might be color. Different colors can evoke such strong emotions that people have sharp reactions to them. It’s part personal preference, part psychological, and even part social norms....

The Internet of today is a highly competitive place. With so many individuals and businesses spending money and time on digital marketing and SEO — trying to outperform their rivals and sit at the top of the Google heap — it’s harder than ever to get users to visit any given website over another. Given the difficulty of acquiring new visitors, you might think that all the webmasters of the world would do everything in their power to provide...

Tricking people can be… well… tricky. The problem, at its most fundamental level, is that people only like to be tricked when they expect to be tricked. Obviously, if you trick them and take money they never intended to give away, well that’s theft. They rightfully get angry. If you say, “Hey, wanna see a trick? Give me a dollar.”; well then they expect some David Copperfield-level magic, don’t they? In fact, they demand it. And that’s...

Building a learnable website is much tougher than it sounds. One thinks one’s design is clear and comprehensible; however, a design that might be obvious for you, might be perceived totally different by a user with a different set of experiences. Therefore, the goal is to design a clear user path that visitors can quickly pick up and understand. Why Learnability Matters Learnability has a strong correlation with usability. It is vital for...

In 2014, I was a busy, young software engineer working full-time for a tech company in London. On a quest to be hyper efficient, I was always was on the hunt for user-friendly tools that would streamline my workflows and cut back on paper usage, which proved to be a challenge. I fell right into a market gap when I needed to edit and modify PDFs but none of the tools on the market offered a user-friendly interface with the functionality I needed or wanted....

The purpose of almost every web design is to entice customers into buying your products, or subscribing to your services. However, your website can’t accomplish that goal without providing a superior user experience, which is largely defined by a great user flow. User flow refers to a series of steps that will help your prospects interact with your website without any distractions or hindrances. Thus, it improves your conversion funnel...