User experience: An alternative approach to personas
Personas are a great way to help visualise the people you are designing for. However, sometimes the traditional approach can be a bit overwhelming. Fortunately there is an alternative.
User experience archive
Talks: Social Media is a user experience issue
Integrating social media with our website should be more than just slapping some social media icons on the homepage.
User experience: Are you forcing your users into social silos?
As web designers and website owners we need to think long and hard about how we are using social media, especially how we introduce social elements into our websites
User experience: Three secrets to simplicity
Many website owners damage their sites by continually adding features and content when they should be simplifying. In this post I reveal why that happens and how to simplify your website.
User experience: Content is dead, long live context
No, content is not dead. Yes content is important, but there can only be one king and I am beginning to wonder if it is context.
User experience: Lessons from the O2 failure
I don’t want to start ranting about the debacle that was upgrading via the O2 website, from my iphone to the iphone 3G. However, there are a couple of things we can learn about good site design from their mistakes.
User experience: Defying conventions
As the web matures an increasing number of conventions are emerging. But should we always follow the crowd?
Development: Friendly web addresses
When redesigning boagworld considerable time was spent formatting the sites’ web addresses. In this post I explain why so much time was taken and introduce you to the tools I used.
User experience: What goes into a user testing script
I have talked before about the benefits of user testing. I have discussed how to user test on a budget. Now, I want to look at some basics that go into every usability test script.
User experience: The profit and loss of usability
We have looked a number of times before at user testing but have never really asked why it is important.
User experience: Common mistakes of site structure
Getting a sites’ structure right is hugely important and avoiding common mistakes is a good starting point to achieving that.
User experience: Quick and dirty wireframes
I am currently in the process of wireframing an internal project that we are working on at Headscape. It occurred to me that despite the fact that wireframes are a fundamental tool of web design, they are not something I have spoken about before.
User experience: Bargain basement usability testing
There is a lot written about usability testing both online and off. However, except for “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug they all seem to make it sound very complicated and expensive. So here is the boagworld guide to bargain basement usability testing.
User experience: Making the most of the footer
The footer is the graveyard of many websites. The place where links are sent to die. However it doesn’t have to be that way.
User experience: A new way to visualize your desktop
Bumptop is a new way to work with files that mirrors much more closing the experience of interacting with your desk in the physical universe. You can stack files, throw them around and even crumple them up in a 3D environment.
User experience: The importance of Undo
An easily available undo function creates a sense of simplicity because it instills in the user the attitude of “what the heck, I can always undo it”.
Design: Keeping your home page clean
In the fight for real estate, usability and design aesthetics are often the first causalities.
User experience: Non hierarchical navigation
By bringing together search, tagging and related links in a relatively automated process I really believe that active navigation provides a viable way of dealing with massive websites.
User experience: Dump your information architecture
Do you run a website made up of thousands of pages? If so, then you may want to consider listening to an excellent presentation by Russ Weakley. He proposes an interesting new approach to the information architecture of large sites.
User experience: Statstastic! Jakob loves his stats
I am currently reading Jakob Nielsen’s new book “Prioritizing Web Usability” and would highly recommend it for any user experience designer. The book is packed with some excellent statistics and I thought I would share a few of them with you.
User experience: Tag your pages
You can’t swing a cat at the moment on the web without hitting some form of tagging. From delicious to flickr, tagging is all the rage, but what about tagging the pages on your website?
User experience: Jakob Nielsen says AJAX sucks?
I know I was supposed to stop posting until after Christmas but I couldn’t resist telling you about this brilliant analysis of AJAX by Jakob Nielsen.
User experience: Don't break the default browser behaviour
Isn’t it fun how sometimes you think you are being helpful when in fact you are making things far worse? Take for example the small piece of JavaScript this site uses to focus the cursor in the search box.