User Experience articles

A dark user experience pattern is loosely defined as a way to trick users into performing certain actions. These actions always benefit the company employing these techniques, and often leave user out of pocket in at least one way. Sometimes this is monetary; other times it’s at the cost of privacy, time, or even user rights. Some of the most common dark patterns include disguising advertisements, sneaking additional items into a user’s...

Data Import & Notifications is the 5th Part of The Ultimate UX Design Guide to SaaS Customer On-Boarding SaaS Customer On-boarding is the process that users have to experience while initiating their journey on a company’s software application. Customer on-boarding initiates from the experience that employees previously had to undergo while joining a firm. The on-boarding process sets the tone for a good user experience. The SaaS...

The thing about human beings is that you can’t trust them with anything. Okay, maybe that’s a bit unkind. However, it’s a simple truth that even the most caring, careful, and diligent of us are going to make mistakes. The rest of us are going to make a lot more mistakes. Those mistakes, in relation to web design, could be as simple as mistyping a URL, putting the wrong information in the wrong field in a sign-up form, or as bad as accidentally...

Gamification as a concept has been around just long enough for a number of experts to come out of nowhere. There was a brief moment where everybody wrote an article or five about it, and then it more or less became the preserve of “gamification experts” and business blogs. The thing is, we should still be thinking about it. Buzzword or not, it’s often incredibly effective. So, for the beginners: gamification is the practice of putting game-like...

UX Design is almost synonymous with conversational interfaces, which are used left, right, and center from natural language messaging to voice-based action. Biggies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are neck-and-neck when it comes to taking conversation as a platform to the next level with their virtual assistants, that make it easy for users to take the next course of action. It is no different than talking to the next person...

When it comes to first impressions, design is everything. From colors, copy on buy buttons, to the layout of a website. Tapping into what makes brains tick is important for this, and certain aesthetics as far as design goes are much more persuasive if you want the visitors to take some kind of action on your website. When you combine behavioral and brain science with practical experience, you will get a much deeper insight into how and why humans...

Landing pages are probably one of the first pages you think about when it comes to creating conversions. But what about the contact page? It is after all the bridge between you and the outside world. As this page will probably be one of the most viewed pages on your site it is also one of the best areas to gain your conversions. Unfortunately you’re probably making a mistake that is costing you a convertion or two without you realizing it. Of course...

The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is still relevant to today’s experiences. People are attracted to visuals faster than text, and this natural property of photos and illustrations make them very useful for visual design. In modern user interfaces, both photos and illustrations became functional elements along with text and interactive elements. Illustrations are a versatile way to create a unique design. From...

Don’t try to be so damn subtle in web design. Okay, let me explain that… About a year or so ago, I made a terrible mistake: I tried to be funny; More specifically, I tried my hand at stand-up comedy. I sat down, wrote out a bunch of jokes that I found amusing; and collected some online acquaintances in video chat to try them out. I did it this way because I live in Mexico, but my first language is English. And here’s what I found out: Unless people...

For many of us, sound is an essential part of everyday living. Our day starts with a sound of alarm clock and ends with the subtle click of light switcher; sound is all around us during the day, we listen to our favorite music or receive vital information such as news reports on the radio as we drive to work. But what about the digital products we use on a regular basis? When we describe apps and websites, we usually mean how they look, not how they sound....

This is the 4th part of The Ultimate UX Design Guide to SaaS Customer On-Boarding. SaaS Customer On-boarding is the process that users have to experience while initiating their journey on a company’s software application. Customer on-boarding initiates from the experience that employees previously had to undergo while joining a firm. The on-boarding process sets the tone for a good user experience. Long story short, special emphasis...

Business owners and web designers are pulled in many different directions when determining what features and content they should add to their website. Variables like site colors, button designs, animations, copy and messaging, user flow, search engine optimization, fonts, photos and video, page performance and more all play a role in how an overall design and user experience come together. Of the variables mentioned—and there are...

Search is like a conversation between the user and system: the user expresses their information need as a query, and the system expresses its response as a set of results. Search is a fundamental activity and a critical element of building a content-heavy site. In this article, I would like to share 5 tips that will help you improve the search UX. 1. Put the search box where users expect to find it It’s not good when users have to search for search...

It has often been asserted by fans of pop-wisdom that there are only two distinct plots in the whole of western culture: a person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. A brief flick through your bookcase will disprove the rule—unless you permit metaphorical journeys, in which everything fits—but the frequency with which the idea is repeated, and the sense it seems to make, speaks volumes about the centrality of the unknown in...