• Avoiding Demographics When Recruiting Participants: An Interview with Dana Chisnell Jul 02, 2008
  

  Jared Spool talks with usability expert, Dana Chisnell, about what happens when teams try to use market research demographics as the basis for recruiting their participants and what the alternatives are.

• Interaction Design: It's All About the Subtleties Jun 24, 2008
  

  Pop-ups have earned a bad reputation, mostly because design teams often use them to distract users with unwanted advertising. However, a well-designed pop-up with useful information adds real value to a web experience.

• Hijax: Progressive Enhancement with Ajax Jun 17, 2008
  

  Jeremy Keith shares his strategy for creating applications with Ajax that do the right thing when JavaScript isn't available.

• The Wheres and Whens of Users' Expectations Jun 08, 2008
  

  In our research, we've looked to see how the users' expectations played a role in the effectiveness of sign-in functionality.

• How to Innovate Right Now Jun 03, 2008
  

  Scott Berkun, the author of the popular book, "The Myths of Innovation," talks about practical secrets to help you build new and innovative products.

• A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Evaluating Design Alternatives May 19, 2008
  

  Jared talks about a team who wants to evaluate several design prototypes with their first test, resulting in far more work than they originally realized. Jared proposes a counter-intuitive way for them to get the necessary feedback without having users compare each alternative.

• Doing More with Less: 4 Design Lessons from the Flip May 14, 2008
  

  The Flip video went from an unknown product to challenging an industry dominated by established big players, such as Sony and Canon, by focusing on creating a better experience.

• Can I Trust You? How Anticipating Problems Can Help Your Brand Apr 30, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool explores how simple problems can have a hugely negative impact on a customer's brand engagement.

• Two More Usability Challenges for Designing Web Apps Mar 11, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool shares two more challenges UIE's researchers have seen in usability tests. You'll want to look out for these challenges when users interact with your applications.

• 3 Important Usability Challenges for Designing Web Apps Mar 05, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool shares challenges UIE's researchers have seen in usability tests. You'll want to look out for these challenges when users interact with your applications.

• Playful Data: 3 Inspiring Interactive Web Sites Feb 11, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool discusses how to design tools that help designers explore their own data in a fun and interesting way.

• Getting The Most From Design Deliverables Jan 28, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool discusses how the best design teams go about successfully communicating their ideas to the development team.

• 8 More Design Mistakes with Account Sign-in Jan 14, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool continues his list of common design mistakes he's identified while watching users try to create accounts and sign into web sites.

• Playgrounds for Data: Inspiration from NYTimes.com Interactives Jan 09, 2008
  

  Every organization sits on a ton of data. Making that data useful is a constant challenge for designers. By looking at what the NYTimes interactive team has done, we can see examples of what is possible.

• Account Sign-in: 8 Design Mistakes to Avoid Jan 04, 2008
  

  Jared M. Spool discusses 8 common design mistakes he's identified while watching users try to create accounts and sign into web sites.

• Taking the Netflix Experience to a New Level: An Interview with Sean Kane Dec 17, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool recently had the chance to talk with Sean Kane, former Director of User Interface Engineering at Netflix, to discuss his initial efforts to bootstrapping his user experience team at his new start up, GetListed. He talks about how he's building the GetListed team and his initial strategy for creating a world-class design, much like he did at Netflix.

• Assessing Your Team's UX Skills Dec 10, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool describes the skills of successful UX teams and a simple method for assessing the skills of your UX team to identify areas of improvements for the team as a whole and individual members.

• Five Usability Challenges of Web-Based Applications Dec 04, 2007
  

  Jared explains five of the toughest challenges facing designers of web applications: scalability, visual design, comprehension, interactivity, and change management.

• 7 Critical Considerations for Designing Effective Applications, Part II Nov 27, 2007
  

  Based on research UIE has conducted on dozens of applications, we've assembled an essential set of questions teams need to ask about their design to ensure they are providing the best value to their users.

• 7 Critical Considerations for Designing Effective Applications Oct 22, 2007
  

  Based on research UIE has conducted on dozens of applications, we've assembled an essential set of questions teams need to ask about their design to ensure they are providing the best value to their users.

• Web Form Design in the Wild, Part II Oct 10, 2007
  

  Expert designer, Luke Wroblewski, shares tips for designing web forms based on his experience with the Boingo and British Airways sites.

• Web Form Design in the Wild, Part I Oct 01, 2007
  

  Luke Wroblewski recently had a difficult experience with the Fairmont Hotel web site. He emerged from his experience with eight best practices for web form design.

• The Power of Comics: An Interview with Kevin Cheng Sep 26, 2007
  

  UIE's Jared M. Spool recently had a chance to chat with Yahoo!'s Kevin Cheng about his work developing user experience concepts with comics.

• Time for Content to Become More Scientific Sep 18, 2007
  

  Gerry McGovern, one of the world's experts on delivering successful content, discusses how to develop a systematic formula for

• Making Personas Work for Your Web Site: An Interview with Steve Mulder Sep 06, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool recently had the chance to talk to Steve Mulder about how to create effective personas based on user research as well as valuable tips for convincing your organization to adopt personas into the design process.

• Thinking in the Right Terms: 7 Components for a Successful Web Site Redesign Aug 30, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool details the seven essential long-term components to reach a successful redesign project, and avoid costly changes that don't enhance the site's user experience or help the business.

• Five Survival Techniques for Creating Usable Products Aug 21, 2007
  

  Christine Perfetti details the five techniques crucial for design teams' success when creating designs and products that are truly usable, and looks at reducing the implementation time of the 4 stages every prototype must go through.

• Goal-Directed Design: An Interview with Kim Goodwin Aug 15, 2007
  

  In this interview, Cooper's Kim Goodwin provides an overview of the Goal-Directed Design method and discusses Cooper's groundbreaking user research techniques.

• Web 2.0: The Power Behind the Hype Aug 07, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool challenges the myth of Web 2.0, uncovering APIs, RSS, Folksonomies, and Social Networking, which suddenly give application developers a new way to approach hard problems with surprisingly effective results.

• Debunking the Myths of Innovation: An Interview with Scott Berkun Jul 26, 2007
  

  UIE's Christine Perfetti recently sat down with Scott Berkun to talk about his new book and his research in the area of innovation.

• Learning from the Facebook Mini-Feed Disaster Jul 16, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool examines the Facebook disaster that occurred when Facebook suddenly introduced a new feature, called the Mini-Feed, to their site that lead to a massive user backlash. By reconstructing the sequence of events that lead to user protests, Jared discusses what happens when a product or feature launch goes wrong, and looks at how to avoid similar results with our own designs.

• Communicating Concepts with Comics: An Interview with Kevin Cheng Jul 12, 2007
  

  UIE's Ashley McKee recently spent some time with Kevin Cheng discussing the increasing popularity of using comics in the design process, the five inherent properties of successful comics, the skills needed to create comics, and the best way to deliver comics to key stakeholders.

• Ten Ways to Kill Good Design Jul 03, 2007
  

  Kim Goodwin explains the ten most common reasons designs fail, from lack of consistent project ownership to having the wrong people perform design, and offers some solutions to these problems that she's culled from years of conducting hundreds of design projects.

• Web Application Form Design Jun 26, 2007
  

  Luke Wroblewski discusses how variations in the alignment of input fields, labels, calls to action, and their surrounding visual elements can support or impair different aspects of user behavior.

• Knowledge Navigator Deconstructed: Building an Envisionment Jun 19, 2007
  

  Jared Spool discusses how a successful envisionment that focuses on the user's ideal experience can lead a design team's direction for years to come, and explores the many creative techniques for making that vision clear to everyone involved on the project.

• Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web Applications and How to Avoid Them, Part I Jun 14, 2007
  

  Joshua Porter outlines 4 of the most prevalent mistakes designers make when creating social web applications, and explains how to avoid making them yourself.

• Field Research Fundamentals: An Interview with Kate Gomoll Jun 05, 2007
  

  UIE's Ashley McKee recently spent some time with Kate Gomoll discussing the immense benefits gained from performing field studies to understand users. While techniques such as focus groups, usability tests, and surveys can lead to valuable insights, none of them immerse design teams in users' natural environments to observe critical details quite like field research.

• Three Important Benefits of Personas May 22, 2007
  

  UIE's research has surfaced obvious benefits from the persona technique, such as better designer agreement on important features and an in-depth understanding of the user's motivations. But, it also unveiled some benefits that we don't see discussed anywhere. Read about these other benefits here.

• The 3 Steps for Creating an Experience Vision May 14, 2007
  

  How can design teams ensure they continue to focus on their users first? In our research, we've found that many successful teams are solving the problem by creating an experience vision.

• Why Invest in Social Features for Your Web Site? May 08, 2007
  

  Joshua Porter investigates the trend to design socially-enabled web applications, and examines the core benefits of investing in social features that apply broadly across many areas on your web site.

• The Problem with Dirty Data May 03, 2007
  

  Gerry McGovern details the critical role content management plays in allowing your customers to quickly and efficiently complete tasks on your web site, and explores why many companies do such a poor job of managing their content.

• Five Techniques for Getting Buy-In for Usability Testing Apr 24, 2007
  

  Christine Perfetti outlines the 5 best techniques for convincing management and key stakeholders of the benefits of incorporating usability testing into the formal design process. It's easier than you think.

• Simplicity: The Ultimate Sophistication Apr 09, 2007
  

  Is simplicity a bad design goal?

• Field Studies: The Best Tool to Discover User Needs Mar 13, 2007
  

  Jared M. Spool talks about why field studies are the most powerful user research technique for successful design teams.

• Usability Testing. Oh, The Things You Can Learn. Feb 27, 2007
  

  Jared Spool sheds light on the aspects of usability testing nobody ever talks about, and catalogues some of the things a team learns when they put together their own usability tests, starting with recruiting and ending with analysis.

• Streamlining the Design Process with Paper Prototyping: An Interview with Carolyn Snyder Jan 30, 2007
  

  UIE's Ashley McKee managed to get a bit of Carolyn Snyder's time to discuss the increased popularity of paper prototyping, what the technique is, who can use it, and how it's beneficial to the design process.

• Taking Time to Tour Jan 11, 2007
  

  The practice of designing web applications is so new that few formalized methods for studying them exist. In order to educate ourselves, we must take tours of various web apps to find out what works and what doesn't. Jared Spool explores why we tour web applications, which ones to tour, what to look for, and what we can do with the information we gather.

• Watch and Learn: How Recommendation Systems are Redefining the Web Dec 13, 2006
  

  People love recommendations because they are a useful shortcut, saving us the time of doing our own research. Powerful web applications are now helping us do that online, recommending music, movies, and travel options. Joshua Porter delves into some of the benefits and drawbacks of these systems that are spreading like wildfire on the Web.

• Designing Web Applications for Use Dec 11, 2006
  

  Larry Constantine, IDSA, of Constantine & Lockwood, describes several of the recurring problems with user-centered design and discusses how designing for use rather than for users is a way to focus design more sharply.

• Tips for Designing Powerful RIAs: An Interview with David Malouf and Bill Scott Dec 06, 2006
  

  UIE's Jared M. Spool and Joshua Porter recently had the chance to talk with expert web application designers, Bill Scott and David Malouf, to discuss Rich Internet Application (RIA) development, AJAX, and other important issues surrounding the creation of sophisticated web apps.

• The Freedom of Fast Iterations: How Netflix Designs a Winning Web Site Nov 14, 2006
  

  UIE's Joshua Porter describes lessons learned by one of the best web application design teams in the world.

• Discovering Web App Structure: A Discussion with Hagan Rivers Nov 10, 2006
  

  UIE's Jared Spool recently managed to get a little of Hagan River's time to discuss her newly published report about finding a web application's structure.

• Agile Development Processes: An Interview with Jeff Patton Sep 12, 2006
  

  We recently sat down with Jeff Patton to discuss how agile development processes can work with and enhance user experience design.

• An Interview with Barry Schwartz Aug 28, 2006
  

  UIE's Jared M. Spool recently talked with Barry Schwartz, the bestselling author of the "Paradox of Choice." In the interview, Barry discusses his research on how people make choices.

• Designing Powerful Web Applications: An Interview with David (Heller) Malouf Jul 27, 2006
  

  UIE's Joshua Porter recently interviewed David (Heller) Malouf, a premier Interaction Designer, to discuss the issues involved when development teams are thinking about designing web applications using AJAX and RIAs.

• Building and Managing a Successful User Experience Team Jul 11, 2006
  

  UIE's Christine Perfetti recently interviewed Sarah Bloomer and Susan Wolfe, two premier User Experience experts, to discuss how organizations can make their UX practices a success.

• Where Visual Design Meets Usability - An Interview with Luke Wroblewski, Part II Jun 28, 2006
  

  In part II of their interview, Luke Wroblewski and Joshua Porter discuss what makes a strong page hierarchy, what effect technology has on design, and the role of visual designers.

• Where Visual Design Meets Usability - An Interview with Luke Wroblewski, Part I Jun 22, 2006
  

  UIE's Joshua Porter catches up with Luke Wroblewski about the intersection between visual design and web site usability. Here is what Luke had to say.

• Lifestyles of the Link-Rich Home Pages Jun 15, 2006
  

  What's the difference between a helpful home page and a common site map? Jared suggests not much, and predicts that home pages with few links will soon become a thing of the past.

• The Importance of a Customer-Centric Design Approach: An Interview with Gerry McGovern Jun 08, 2006
  

  Gerry McGovern discusses how most organizations aren't focusing enough on the customer. Their cultures are inwardly-focused and so their web sites are as well. The problem with this approach is that these sites fail. The customer-centric web sites are the ones that succeed.

• Innovation is the New Black Jun 01, 2006
  

  Apple and Netflix gained insight by investing in understanding the current experience of their potential customers. Those insights led to industry-changing innovations that have made an indelible impression on businesses everywhere.

• Prioritizing Design Time: A Long Tail Approach Apr 24, 2006
  

  Does your homepage get too much attention from the design team or other parts of your organization? We find that is often the case. With a little help from The Long Tail, Josh finds ample evidence to suggest that other parts of your site might be more worthy of attention.

• Interview-Based Tasks: Learning from Leonardo DiCaprio Mar 07, 2006
  

  In interview-based tasks, the participants interests are discovered, not assigned. Because each task is drawn from the experience and interest of each participant, no two participants perform exactly the same tasks.

• The Elements of a Design Pattern Jan 23, 2006
  

  Jared discusses how a well-built design pattern library makes the development process substantially easier for design teams.

• The Road to Recommendation Jan 06, 2006
  

  For design teams to get recommendations for change, they need to slow down and go through the four steps of recommendation: Observation, Inference, Opinion, and finally Recommendation.

• Reassuring Users with Inukshuk Content Dec 14, 2005
  

  In UIE's research, we've seen that users on the web want reassurance that others have shared their experiences. This is where Inukshuk content comes into play.

• Intranet Portals and Scent are Made for Each Other Dec 12, 2005
  

  Organizations are becoming increasingly dependent (!) on their intranets. To lead users to the ever-growing available content and functions, intranet designers create Portal pages. In this article, Jared will talk about how the theory of information scent was made to help with the design of these pages.

• Galleries: The Hardest Working Page on Your Site Nov 30, 2005
  

  Jared M. Spool discusses what UIE has learned about building successful gallery pages, including the problems introduced by poor scent.

• Why eBay needs Standards-Oriented Design: An Interview with Eric A. Meyer Sep 12, 2005
  

  CSS expert, Eric A Meyer, discusses why organizations such as eBay should convert over to CSS and standards-oriented sites.

• CUE: A Usability Testing Bake-Off Aug 19, 2005
  

  In 1998, Rolf Molich held what we could call the first usability testing bake-off. He called it a Comparative Usability Evaluation or CUE. The CUE can help you improve your own usability practices by learning how others test their interfaces.

• Deconstructing Web Applications Aug 11, 2005
  

  Hagan Rivers is a recognized pioneer in the area of Web Application Design. UIE's Christine Perfetti recently had the opportunity to talk with Hagan about some of the biggest challenges in the web application space.

• Looking Back on 16 Years of Paper Prototyping Jul 27, 2005
  

  Jared M. Spool discusses the lessons we've learned from practicing paper prototyping for 16 years. He'll share what's new about this valuable technique and what's still the same.

• Using Ajax for Creating Web Applications Jul 14, 2005
  

  By combining the sophistication of screen-based apps to the relative ease-of-implementation of paged-based apps, Ajax is a solid alternative for new interface development.

• The Right Information Jun 28, 2005
  

  In our work, we often see many sites deliver information to the users, but it's not the right information. The absence of the right information takes many forms, but it always has the same results -- users can't accomplish their goals. To be successful, design teams must look beyond the navigation and links, and think about how users are going to use the information to accomplish their objectives.

• Thinking Beyond Conversion Jun 17, 2005
  

  Jeffrey Eisenberg discusses how teams need to change their design strategies to see dramatic improvements in site conversion rates. They must recognize that while their goal may be conversion, their practice must be persuasion.

• 5-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site's Content Pages Jun 09, 2005
  

  How can design teams be confident their content pages are understandable to users? How does a team ensure they've designed content pages that communicate the essential information effectively? A simple usability testing technique can help design teams quickly measure how a content page performs with users. We call it the 5-Second Test.

• Web Standards in the Real World: An Interview with Molly Holzschlag Jun 01, 2005
  

  UIE's Joshua Porter interviews Molly Holzschlag on the Importance of CSS, the Difficulties with Workflow, and Passing the Acid2 test.

• Streamlining Usability Testing by Avoiding the Lab May 25, 2005
  

  The usability lab, with its fancy cameras, one-way mirrors, and comfortable observation suites, is often considered a can't-do-without necessity for conducting serious usability tests. Even those who feel it's not required will jump at the chance to use a lab when available. However, while studying successful projects over the years, we've found that usability testing can often be more effective when the team eliminates the lab from the process.

• Web Content Management is Not Data Management May 23, 2005
  

  Web content management and data/document management require very different approaches. Data management is about storage; web content management is about using content to make the sale, deliver the service, and build the brand.

• Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content Apr 26, 2005
  

  Organizing content is one of the most difficult challenges facing design teams. In this article, Joshua Porter discusses a new strategy called folksonomies that may help alleviate those challenges by letting users organize content all by themselves.

• Identifying the Business Value of What We Do Apr 15, 2005
  

  Resources in our organization are usually tightly constrained -- not enough time, money, or people to accomplish everything we want to improve. Knowing how to identify and communicate the business value of a project will substantially help it get approved and supported by the organization. Jared talks about the key five business value areas and how to relate design improvements into the overall success of the organization.

• Designing Embraceable Change Mar 28, 2005
  

  Design is all about change -- hopefully changing for the better. None of us set out to make things worse from the get-go. Yet, as we know all too well, that isn't how it always works out. Jared M. Spool discusses how to introduce design changes that will be embraced, not resisted.

• Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content Mar 01, 2005
  

  Accurate search engines and other up-to-the-minute content aggregators are drastically changing the game of web design. It's turning into a situation where the information architecture that is most important isn't the one that's on your web site, but the one on everyone else's.

• Seven Common Usability Testing Mistakes Feb 15, 2005
  

  As we work with teams all over the globe, there are mistakes that we see frequently. These mistakes are very easy to prevent -- if only the team members realized they were making them. Here are seven of the most common mistakes.

• Six Steps to Ensure a Successful Usability Test Jan 18, 2005
  

  Ginny Redish, a recognized expert in the world of usability testing, and author of the book, "A Practical Guide to Usability Testing", has written a fantastic article with tips for ensuring you get the most out of each usability test.

• Perfecting Your Personas Jan 13, 2005
  

  Kim Goodwin has written an excellent article with great tips on avoiding the most common pitfalls of persona creation. Kim works for Cooper, a leading interaction design firm that has really brought personas to the forefront of everyone's attention.

• What Makes a Design Seem 'Intuitive'? Jan 10, 2005
  

  An intuitive interface doesn't happen by accident. It happens when one of two specific conditions are met. In this article, Jared describes the critical relationship between current knowledge (what the user knows when they encounter the design) and target knowledge (what the user needs to know to accomplish their goal), showing the two conditions that lead to an interface users will perceive as intuitive.

• Putting Context Into Context Jan 04, 2005
  

  Design happens at the intersection of the user, the interface, and their context. It's essential for interface designers to understand the gamut of contexts that can occur, thereby ensuring they create designs that are usable no matter what's happening around the user. In this article, Jared M. Spool explores the various components of context and how to integrate them into the design process.

• Preventing Usability Problems from the Get-go Nov 19, 2004
  

  UIE has been researching how designs are created in the first place. Our goal is to identify those places where usability problems are first put into the design and to come up with ways to prevent it from the outset. in the successful teams, the same three techniques pop up again and again: field studies, personas, and usability testing.

• The Right Trigger Words Nov 15, 2004
  

  When dealing with information, A web page only does one of two things: either it contains the content that the user wants, or it contains links to get them to the content they want. In this article, Jared shows how, when creating new content, the designer's most important task is to identify the users' trigger words--clues that will get them to the content they desire.

• Making Your Content Management System Work for You: An Interview with Jeffrey Veen Sep 29, 2004
  

  In this interview, Adaptive Path's Jeffrey Veen shares the reasons why many content management systems fail and what designers can do to avoid the common pitfalls associated with CMS installations.

• Designing Products That Work the Way People Work: An Interview with Kate Gomoll Sep 17, 2004
  

  While techniques, such as focus groups, usability tests, and surveys, can lead to valuable insights, the most powerful tool in the toolbox is the field study. We talked with Kate Gomoll, a User Research expert, about how she and her team at Gomoll Research & Design conduct their Field Research.

• Honing Your Usability Testing Skills: An Interview with Ginny Redish Sep 09, 2004
  

  Ginny Redish, a recognized usability expert, shares her insight into usability testing best practices.

• The Cost of Frustration Jul 08, 2004
  

  Clients tell us their frustration with trying to persuade their organizations to make a usability investment. They want to know the best way they can communicate the return on investment (ROI) of good design to their management. In this article, Jared M. Spool discusses how designers in successful organizations have convinced their organizations to launch and fund usability projects.

• The KJ-Technique: A Group Process for Establishing Priorities May 11, 2004
  

  UIE's researchers have one favorite technique for helping designers collaborate better with each other: The KJ-Method. UIE routinely uses the KJ-Method to help teams find patterns in large amounts of unorganized data. It quickly helps groups establish design priorities and reach consensus.

• The Top 3 Priorities of the Talking Horse Mar 30, 2004
  

  On your site, is everyone focusing on just "making it work"? Is it the only place people can accomplish their goals? Does making it easy-to-use seem like a low priority? If so, your site (or part of your site) may be a talking horse. Talking horses are important because they demand a different set of priorities than other types of designs. The three main priorities of a talking horse are: focusing on necessary features, reducing support costs. and looking for additional opportunities.

• Conducting Inherent Value Testing Feb 25, 2004
  

  In a past article, Jared summarized the benefits of Inherent Value Testing, a simple usability testing technique that can help you measure how your site communicates your product's value

• Inherent Value Testing Feb 19, 2004
  

  Is your web site chartered with encouraging people to buy or use your product or service? Is it succeeding? It turns out there is a simple usability testing technique that can help you measure how your site communicates your product's inherent value.

• The CAA: A Wicked Good Design Technique Nov 19, 2003
  

  Category Agreement Analysis is a 'wicked good' technique to help designers arrive at a usable information architecture.

• Iterative Design: The Power of Cascading Style Sheets Aug 08, 2003
  

  Read how you can use Cascading Style Sheets as a tremendously powerful prototyping tool. Jared M. Spool shares how CSS enables designers to make very fast changes of both the content and the control and flow of a page.

• Design Patterns: An Evolutionary Step to Managing Complex Sites Aug 01, 2003
  

  Read Jared M. Spool's commentary on why design patterns offer important advantages over traditional template, style guide, and guideline approaches to web design.

• Usability Testing Best Practices: An Interview with Rolf Molich Jul 24, 2003
  

  UIE's Christine Perfetti asked expert usability practitioner Rolf Molich his thoughts on the best practices surrounding usability testing. Here's what they talked about.

• The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch May 20, 2003
  

  Sites re-launch all the time in spectacular fashion. But this is starting to change. Jared points out how the best design teams are slowly evolving their sites, not drastically overhauling them.

• Getting Confidence From Lincoln Apr 25, 2003
  

  In a pivotal user test a couple years ago we found out one of the secrets of great web sites: they inspire confidence in users. Jared explores how to measure it and use it to your advantage.

• Testing the Three-Click Rule Apr 16, 2003
  

  Is all of your content available within three clicks? Does it matter if it isn't? We recently looked to see whether this popular design rule was really worth following.

• Usability Myths Need Reality Checks Apr 01, 2003
  

  UIE's Will Schroeder evaluates some common Usability myths and investigated whether these beliefs are truly accurate.

• Transitional Layouts in (X)HTML and CSS: An Interview with Eric A. Meyer Mar 11, 2003
  

  CSS guru Eric A. Meyer talks about some of the issues that face web teams as they transition their designs to the latest standards.

• Guiding Users with Persuasive Design: An Interview with Andrew Chak Mar 01, 2003
  

  Persuasive Design expert, Andrew Chak talks about how designers can create sites that go beyond being usable to being persuasive.

• Information Architecture the Adaptive Path Way: An Interview with Indi Young Feb 05, 2003
  

  Read our interview with Indi Young, one of the co-founders of Adaptive Path, where she shares her insight into how to build an information architecture from user data and business goals.

• Visible Narratives: Understanding Visual Organization Jan 20, 2003
  

  Luke Wroblewski discusses how a balanced visual hierarchy provides a clear path for your users to recognize and understand the information displayed on your web site.

• Designing for the Multiple Personalities of Users Jan 09, 2003
  

• iHotelier: Demonstrating the Potential of Flash for Web App Design Dec 10, 2002
  

  Read Christine Perfetti's article where she shows how one very innovative design built with Macromedia Flash gets past the constraints of HTML.

• 5 Things to Know About Users Dec 02, 2002
  

  "Know Your Users" is the mantra of any good designer. Yet, what should you actually know about your users? How old they are? How much they make? Or something else entirely? A recent usability test helps identify the 5 things every designer needs to know about their users

• The Search for Seducible Moments Nov 08, 2002
  

  If you offer something that is unique to your organization, (and chances are that you do--that's why you're in business) then how do you make the users aware of these benefits? Jared Spool discusses how to identify these "seducible moments".

• Understanding Users through Brand Research: an Interview with Mitch McCasland Sep 18, 2002
  

  Mitch McCasland of Brand Inquiry Partners is an expert in brand strategy and Account Planning and has worked with such clients as Proctor & Gamble, Dr. Pepper/Seven-Up, and Verizon/GTE. UIE's Christine Perfetti recently sat down with Mitch to talk about how Account Planning techniques can benefit designers.

• Evolution Trumps Usability Guidelines Sep 08, 2002
  

  Established design fields, like architecture, have time-proven guidelines. Web site design, on the other hand, is a new craft. While new rules seem to be emerging, few have been tested. Guidelines, such as “always include a Search box on the home page sound good, but do they actually produce better sites?

• No Standard for Migrating to Web Standards Aug 29, 2002
  

  In this article, we talk with Eric A. Meyer and Molly E. Holzschlag about the importance of web standards and why web teams should invest the effort to convert their legacy sites over to standards-compliant sites.

• Flash Strikes Back: Creating Powerful Web Applications Aug 20, 2002
  

  With the advent of Flash MX, developers now have the power to create web applications with more sophisticated client- and server-side interactivity. In this article, we highlight web applications that truly demonstrate Flash's benefits over traditional HTML-based applications.

• Words Drive Action: An Interview with Gerry McGovern Aug 12, 2002
  

  UIE's Christine Perfetti and Joshua Porter recently talked with Gerry about the importance of an editorial perspective in a web development process.

• Design For Community: An Interview with Derek Powazek Jul 29, 2002
  

  UIE's Christine Perfetti asked Derek Powazek, author of the book, "Design for Community", how best to create effective online communities to impact a site's success. In this interview, Derek gives advice on designing for community features.

• Why Amazon Succeeds--And Why It Won't Help You Jun 20, 2002
  

  Amazon is one of the best on-site search capabilities we've ever seen. But surprisingly, the reason why it works so well is likely to be the same reason why Search won't work well on your site. This article discusses how Amazon can take advantage of having "uniquely identified content", an advantage most sites don't have.

• Strategies for Categorizing Categories May 06, 2002
  

  How does a site containing thousands of pages of content get users to the content they seek quickly? There are many different strategies for organizing content on sites, and we recently took a hard look at five of them. How should mid-level categories (or departments as we call them) be designed? Does the layout of the information matter? By looking at how a particular category of e-commerce (apparel and home goods) solves the problem, we gained some valuable insights.

• Designing a New Information Architecture: An Interview with Peter Merholz Mar 12, 2002
  

  This is an interview with Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path. Last year, Adaptive Path, working with interactive media agency Lot21, took on a challenging project--the redesign of three PeopleSoft sites. The redesign involved over 40,000 pages as well as 40 divergent opinions from stakeholders! After four and a half months, the site's information architecture and navigation were transformed. Read about their redesign process.

• Determining How Design Affects Branding Feb 11, 2002
  

  Designers often tell us part of their responsibilities is to enhance the branding of a site, product, or organization. In recent years, we've focused our research on understanding how design can have a positive effect on a brand.

• The Customer Sieve Jan 31, 2002
  

  We've learned that using a web site is a progressive process. Each user transitions from one stage to the next, as they work to accomplish their goal. The most pronounced transitions we've seen are on e-commerce sites. When we watch shoppers focusing on buying a product, we can clearly see each stage and when the transitions fail or succeed. By understanding the stages and how they work, we can learn a lot about building better sites.

• Users Continue After Category Links Dec 04, 2001
  

  Over the last year, we've been looking at how to get users to find valuable content that they aren't aware of when they first come to the site.

• Users Don't Learn To Search Better Nov 27, 2001
  

  When we watched 30 users trying to search various sites for content they were interested in, we noticed a peculiar phenomenon: The more times the users searched, the less likely they were to find what they wanted.

• People Search Once, Maybe Twice Nov 20, 2001
  

  In a 2001 research study, we observed that users only found their target content 34% of the time with Search (less than with categories). We wanted to know why.

• Users Decide First; Move Second Oct 25, 2001
  

  Designers use interactive design elements, such as fly outs, rollovers, and dropdowns, to conserve space, make the screen less cluttered, and enhance the users' experience. We were surprised when users succeeded more often when they didn't encounter these design elements than when they did.

• Driving Innovation and Creativity through Customer Data Sep 01, 2001
  

  This article explores the foundations of designing for innovation. Karen Holtzblatt has created contextual inquiry, a practical, customer-centered approach that helps designers develop creative solutions that dominate the competition.

• Flash + Information Visualization = Great User Experiences Aug 01, 2001
  

  By combining tools like Flash and the little-known field of information visualization, designers can dramatically improve how users work with large, multidimensional data sets.

• Personas: Matching a Design to the Users' Goals Aug 01, 2001
  

  Learn how personas can help designers tackle the huge challenge of designing products and web sites for a large number of different users.

• Learning from the Work of Others Aug 01, 2001
  

  Rolf Molich has conducted two experiments comparing the work of different usability teams, examining their practices, and looking for patterns and differences. His experiments provide extremely valuable material for sharpening individual usability practices.

• Eight is Not Enough Jun 18, 2001
  

  How many users should you test? Christine Perfetti and Lori Landesman address this commonly-asked question.

• Are There Users Who Always Search? May 01, 2001
  

  Web designers often tell us that they spend a great deal of their time and resources working to improve their on-site search engines because, they believe, there are some people who always rely on the search engine to reach their target content. Here's what we found.

• The Truth About Download Time Jan 31, 2001
  

  We hear all the time from web designers that they spend countless hours and resources trying to speed up their web pages' download time because they believe that people are turned off by slow-loading pages. What we discovered may surprise you.

• Personas and Goal-Directed Design: An Interview with Kim Goodwin Jan 01, 2001
  

  UIE's Matthew Klee interviewed Kim Goodwin, VP of Design at Cooper. Kim discusses Cooper's design methodology, Goal-Directed Design, which emphasizes identifying goals of users before doing any formal design.

• Five Paper Prototyping Tips Mar 01, 2000
  

  Paper prototyping is a highly effective tool for creating designs that involve an interactive user interface. We often hear questions about paper prototyping: How does it work for existing systems, or for teams proficient with HTML and rapid design tools? How can technology-driven design elements like rollovers be incorporated in paper prototyping? We have some tips.

• Usability Labs: Our Take Jul 01, 1999
  

  Here at User Interface Engineering, we recognize that many people find usability labs to be valuable tools, but we have a different view. We're happy with our no-lab setup and confident that it gives excellent results.

• Observing What Didn't Happen Jan 01, 1999
  

  During usability tests, everyone notices when a user fails because a feature breaks down. But when expected things don't happen, or illogical things do happen, it can mean that developers didn't understand what the users needed, or how they would use the product.

• Docs in the Real World Nov 01, 1998
  

  When we watched users in their native habitats, we learned a lot about how they use documentation and some of the reasons they don't use it. Many of the issues we saw had little to do with the docs.

• Six Slick Tests for Docs and Help Sep 01, 1998
  

  Usability testing isn't just for software and web sites. Testing documentation can ensure that it includes--and accurately conveys--all the information users expect and need.

• Testing Web Sites with Eye-Tracking Sep 01, 1998
  

  Designers want their web site visitors to look over here, but, by following their gaze and analyzing their actions, we know that users more often were looking over there.

• What is Eye-Tracking Good For? Sep 01, 1998
  

  We learned a lot about web users by bouncing light off their eyeballs, but this useful technique can't answer some questions, such as why users look at something.

• As the Page Scrolls Jul 01, 1998
  

  Users say they don't like to scroll. As a result, many designers try to keep their web pages short. But one of the most significant findings of our research on web-site usability is that users are perfectly willing to scroll. However, they'll only do it if the page gives them strong clues that scrolling will help them find what they're looking for.

• Seductive Design for Web Sites Jul 01, 1998
  

  We used to think it was impossible to design a web site that successfully supported both information retrieval and browsing. We now believe a site can do both--but only when designers know what their audience is interested in.

• Paper Prototypes: Still Our Favorite May 01, 1998
  

  We've been creating paper prototypes and teaching others to use them for many years. In that time, we've learned a lot about what paper prototyping is all about and we're still pleased by what an effective and easy-to-use tool it is.

• Scheduling Hard-to-Find Users Jan 01, 1998
  

  Developers may hesitate to start usability testing because they worry that their product poses special problems in finding, scheduling, or compensating the right users. This shouldn't stop them. We successfully find and test hundreds of users a year and about 10% of these require special tactics for scheduling. Here are some of the things we've learned.

• How Usability-Focused Companies Think Nov 01, 1997
  

  Some companies build usable products through the heroic efforts of one or two individuals. Others establish strict processes that are supposed to promote usability, but usually don't. But the companies that are most successful at designing usable products are those in which everyone actually thinks differently. Here's how.

• Why On-Site Searching Stinks Sep 01, 1997
  

  Back in 1997, we watched users look for information on web sites. Users went to these search engines in almost half the tasks. As you'll read in this article, maybe they shouldn't have.

• When to Develop a Wizard Sep 01, 1997
  

  Some wizards work really well, and others confuse users more than they help. Here are some guidelines to help you figure out when to develop one, and the traits we found that make one wizard better than another.

• Market Maturity Jan 01, 1997
  

  Users' expectations of a product depend on the maturity of its market. By identifying what stage your product is in now, you can anticipate some of the pitfalls that lie ahead.

• Using Paper Prototypes to Manage Risk
  

  History is littered with the carcasses of failed products and the companies that built them--product development is indeed a risky business. Learn how we help companies create paper mock-ups of their product interface so that they can find out early on how to make it successful in the market.

• Surprises on the Web: Results from Usability Testing Sep 01, 1996
  

  We recently conducted a research study to find out what makes a web site usable. Here are the results from our early research.

• Bridging Conceptual Gaps Jul 01, 1996
  

  In the late '80s, WordPerfect owned the word processing market, but users needed significant training to master its functionality. Their mental model of the application didn't match how the application actually worked. We call this a conceptual gap. Learn to spot and repair conceptual gaps in your product.

• Tabbed Dialogs: Semantic Minefields Mar 01, 1996
  

  Tabbed Dialogs are popping up everywhere. Since they're so popular, they must be easy to learn and use, right? Well, not so fast! Our observations suggest that they may be creating more usability problems than they solve. Here's why.

• Making Online Information Usable Jan 01, 1996
  

  In the course of our consulting work, we've conducted dozens of usability studies that focus on how people use a variety of printed and online documentation, including manuals, help, cue-cards, and wizards. Here's some of what we've learned!

• Branding and Usability Jan 01, 1996
  

  Many web sites exist primarily to create or strengthen the brand for a product or service. We're finding that a site's usability can dramatically affect branding. And the graphical aspects of the site--such as logos or evocative pictures--have much less effect on branding than we expected.

• Harnessing the Power of Myth Jan 01, 1996
  

  Every development organization has its own myths about its users' knowledge, experience, and needs. Learn to cheaply and effectively capture and explore these myths, with the payoff being fewer “opinion wars” and a better understanding of your users.

• Getting from Research to Personas: Harnessing the Power of Data Apr 05, 200
  

  Kim Goodwin, Director of Design at Cooper, explains the process of creating personas from research.

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