Back in the 1970’s, 3 friends clubbed together to buy themselves a TV for the house they shared. Each of them managed to save £10 for the TV so out they went. Eventually they came across a shop that had, in the window, an excellent model with 3 preset channel buttons plus 1 spare. It… Read More Cognitive Overload
Temptation Bundling and Commitment Devices are rather like the carrot and the stick of personal motivation; Temptation Bundling is where you only allow yourself a particular treat when you’ve done something you don’t particularly like doing (like only watching your favourite trashy tv soap while working out at the gym). Whereas Commitment Devices are ways… Read More Temptation Bundling and Commitment Devices
Apps, websites and other softwares should be available to everyone regardless of their abilities; a system should work equally well for a sighted person using a standard mouse and screen, as it should for a blind person using a Braille output or screen reader. There are other issues too; audio cues won’t work for deaf people, features that… Read More Recognising Accessibility Issues
Whenever the subject of information flow in forms was raised I discovered conflicting evidence for vertical or horizontal flows, ordering and grouping. In trying to establish the definitive answer I carried out three different user tests: a sort test where users were asked to arrange data into a two-column structure, a flow direction test where users were asked to… Read More Form sequencing
I had a nightmare last night – a proper one where you wake up in a cold sweat. This is something I haven’t experienced for at least a decade or so but that’s not the strange thing. After all, lots of people have nightmares. What made this one unusual was what had made it so… Read More You know you’re passionate about UX when…
Humans have become extremely adept at recognising patterns. Long ago it would have been a survival trait: those who could spot the tiger before it attacked would survive. Pattern recognition isn’t often needed in that capacity any more but we still have the skill and it’s so hard-wired into our system that most of the time we… Read More What’s so great about Pattern Libraries?
Caroline Jarrett has written a great piece over on the UX Matters site: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/05/7-basic-best-practices-for-buttons.php For those of you with short attention spans here is Caroline’s own summary: Make buttons look like buttons. Put buttons where users can find them. Make the most important button look like it’s the most important one. Put buttons in a sensible order. Label… Read More Best Practice For Buttons
Here is a user test: “Where do we put the ‘Cancel’ button?” A form on a web page needs to have a way of clearing or submitting the data – traditionally this is handled with two buttons. One says ‘Cancel’ and the other says ‘Submit’. Of the two buttons, One is on the left and… Read More Meta-programming and leading language
There is a, now infamous, story of a famous rock band who demanded several bowls of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed and refused to perform if they found even one brown M&M. The story is true. The rock band was Van Halen whose shows relied on extensive power requirements, intricate stage constructions and… Read More Brown M&Ms and The Importance Of Small Details
In my twitter stream this morning I found a link to a page full of examples of responsive design (http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/02/01/10-beautiful-examples-of-responsive-web-design/) While these are undoubtedly beautiful and well-crafted examples of responsive design, I’m not sure how relevant the ‘responsiveness’ is to each site’s audience. Curiously, as available bandwidth increases for most users, the amount of bandwidth… Read More On Morality and Multi-screen
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