Perception is the way users attain understanding about what is happening by interpreting visual and other UX clues.
98
votes
16answers
4k views
How to discover what users NEED and not what they WANT?
I have been thinking a lot about my favorite quote from Henry Ford:
If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said 'Faster Horses'. -Henry Ford
The trouble I have been having is that ...
31
votes
7answers
2k views
What is the impact of spelling mistakes for users?
My team developed a site that has a lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes.
Does this leave a bad impression for first time visiting users?
30
votes
10answers
2k views
What is the best email username to use for a myname.com domain?
Not sure if this is an UX question, well somehow it is, but I didn't know a better place to ask anyway. So I will just throw it in here.
Let's say I have the domain johnsmith.com and I want people to ...
25
votes
3answers
547 views
What to do when a page's content doesn't fill up enough of a fixed area?
An application has a fixed size, i.e 800x600 px. However, a problem I often run in to is that the page's content isn't enough. It's simply too little content on a big area.
Consider the mockup below, ...
22
votes
6answers
1k views
red checkmark vs. a red “X”
I am currently designing a panel in my business application that shows a table of data to a user. The data in the table is the company's percentage (this is equated by many different values), whether ...
18
votes
3answers
440 views
How to show progress towards goal?
On our intranet we display some numbers for our employees so they can keep track of their performance goals. Currently it's just a table.
We'd like something more visual, and this was the first ...
16
votes
7answers
2k views
The psychology of everyday shapes
We know a lot about colours and how they affect people, but what do we know about shapes? When choosing icons or logos, how do the shapes in them affect their perception?
Does anyone know of any ...
13
votes
4answers
555 views
Intuitive vs. Efficient: Which is more important?
When faced with a design decision in which one option is more intuitive, and the other is more efficient, what guideline should be used to prioritize one desideratum over the other?
13
votes
2answers
205 views
Are downvotes/dislikes useful if not highlighted?
I was watching a video on youtube and noticed their like/dislike bar. They have had this new design for quite some time now. In the earlier youtube, the dislike bar would be red and distinctly ...
13
votes
3answers
1k views
How many visually distinct colors can accurately be associated with a separated legend in a figure?
For charts and graphs it's a relatively common question by programmers to want to procedurally generate an arbitrary number of colors that are visually distinct.
Various research (or educated ...
12
votes
11answers
1k views
Why is it that all caps text looks like SHOUTING, but all caps handwriting is easier to read?
Specifically for UI -- handwritten mockups, comics, etc are always better all-caps, but the same is never true for printed text. Why is that?
Visual Studio 2012's all-caps menus are generally ...
12
votes
6answers
510 views
Show/Hide Password Icon - Eye/ Closed Eye? Is the “Eye” icon offensive to any cultures?
I am on a project where we are implementing show/hide password functionality, and after significant research I discovered the 'Open Eye'/ 'Closed Eye' to be fairly standard.
Once this was implemented ...
11
votes
6answers
248 views
How to present weighted values
I have a formula which is used to calculate certain scores. The formula has some parameters (shown in the image below) including a Weight parameter that is changed dynamically (the rest of the inputs ...
11
votes
2answers
181 views
Slanted cursor+background for italic text?
In most applications that I'm familiar with, a text cursor in insertion mode is universally represented as a vertical blinking bar:
As you can see, for some italic letters this creates visual ...
10
votes
3answers
326 views
LED flashing parameters to best let a human count flashes?
I need to indicate an error code with an LED. This is in case we have a really bad error in our embedded system where we can't reliably use higher-level GUIs to indicate a problem -- I have to fall ...
10
votes
6answers
391 views
What gives the impression of faster progress: progress bar or countdown?
Any thoughts on what would be a more effective progress indicator: a progress bar or a countdown? I've seen both used and get the feeling that with the countdown, time seems to pass faster.
9
votes
3answers
724 views
Are 3D icons better than 2D?
I've seen an increase of 3D icons in the recent past. I am not convinced they are better. Instead they may actually be worse because space is taken up by the projection.
Is there any evidence as to ...
9
votes
10answers
318 views
Is it better to represent simple labeled information as table or just text with subheadings?
I'm redesigning a website that has some simple information presented as a table like this:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
I read yet the again the Label ...
8
votes
4answers
387 views
Does SSL on a company's website make the company appear more credible?
I recently had a thought about the way many modern browsers display information about a site's security certificates. At least Firefox shows a very noticeable blue box in the address bar on sites that ...
8
votes
4answers
208 views
Is it still effective and appropriate to use psychological pricing for IT people?
I need to build pricing plan for service that will be used mainly by developers and designers. I can't decide what price to use, e.g. $20 or $19.
I'm afraid that well-educated and smart people ...
8
votes
5answers
284 views
What is the value of interface layout and its impact on the overall user experience?
I often have difficulty convincing people that the layout/design/visual-styling of an interface has impact on how the user feels about the product as whole. All to often the argument is that the user ...
8
votes
2answers
175 views
how can you improve the appearance of security
What are the different ways to make users (especially paranoid one's like me) feel safe about the security aspect of the site?
8
votes
3answers
237 views
How to differentiate icons for *client* from *server* IT services (mail, web, filesharing and so on)
I need to design a UI that includes widgets to control a server computer, and a client computer.
This means I'll be doing similar pairs of icons for mail (mail program vs mail server), web (browser ...
7
votes
3answers
151 views
How slow can an app be to keep feeling responsive?
I'm creating an editor to write requirements and I want to give suggestions to the user about what to write. How fast do I've to present the suggestion so that it feels responsive to the user. ...
7
votes
3answers
153 views
“Activate” / “Enable” + “noun verbing” or simply “Verb noun”?
A popular chatting application has the global option "Enable buddy icon animation". Would this be better phrased as "Animate buddy icon" or not? And if so, is this a general rule? For example, ...
6
votes
2answers
240 views
Is it ever good to slow down your app?
Although it's an extreme example, TDWTF's latest post shows an interesting concept: purposefully pausing an app to show a progress bar, to convince users that it's doing something.
This kind of thing ...
6
votes
2answers
299 views
Real vs perceived circle area in data visualisation
I am about to visualise some data using circles on top of a map but I am concerned about the real vs perceived circle size. I've read about a bias in the perception of the area of a circle. The best ...
6
votes
1answer
154 views
How do users use spatial memory?
I have some questions about how spatial memory works and the effects on user interfaces:
Do users seek items by spatial memory? What do they actually "link" to a position - a particular object ...
5
votes
5answers
290 views
“Millions of colors” vs “24-bit”: should technical concepts be simplified to ease understanding at the cost of precision?
Macs indicate 24-bit color depth by using the term "millions of colors", while Windows calls it "24-bit" or "32-bit". (I'm aware that Windows "32-bit" color simply adds an alpha channel that doesn't ...
5
votes
5answers
384 views
Will users understand the concept of “version zero”?
I've written a piece of software, and am trying to decide whether to call it version 0.0.0.0 or version 0.0.0.1.
Logically speaking, it is version 0.0.0.0, and the system tool I am using allows this ...
5
votes
3answers
3k views
Speech Bubbles meaning
I am developing a toon story to illustrate my company's offerings. May be I'll use a landing page, or just create it on the home page.
I have 3 actors in it, a cab driver, a bpo company owner and ...
5
votes
1answer
139 views
Is there a widely-understood visual metaphor for privacy?
On our profile page, we're giving users choices among three privacy settings for each field.
The checkbox choices will not appear until a user highlights a particular field, but we do want to convey ...
5
votes
4answers
246 views
rectangles Vs rounded corners of text fields on mobile
Do you think there is a difference in perceiving text fields which have round\rectangle corners ?
My goal is to establish a convention that round corners are fields which the user can enter input and ...
5
votes
2answers
60 views
content for information message
Is it better to display
a positive informative message
"You can only view and share links of icons. for additional options please login"
or negative informative message
"Downloading, Uploading or ...
5
votes
1answer
80 views
Formatting “days” in a timespan
When formatting timespans in short form for something like a stopwatch, I know the standard in most places is to use hh:mm:ss.ff (where "f" is "fractional second"). Some places will use mm' ss" ff, ...
5
votes
5answers
2k views
Easiest to read fonts
Has there been studies to determine what fonts make it easiest to read? I'm interested in the font type, but also size and color. For example, is dark gray better than pitch black?
Also of interest ...
4
votes
3answers
196 views
Norton Safe Web Verification — Impact on User
I have a client who insists on getting their website validated by Norton Security Verification and displaying the seal. However, I am skeptic and do not trust Norton products. I recall an impression ...
4
votes
4answers
160 views
Battery - what percentage range to use for each color?
I need to display battery with 3 colors: green, orange (or yellow?) and red.
This device's battery (like iPad, iPhone etc..) with a battery life of up to two days.
What percentage range to use for ...
4
votes
4answers
163 views
Is there a nice way to deal with geo-restricted access?
In a site which, by law (or otherwise?), cannot display certain content in a particular geographic region, what's a good way to deal with this?
Hulu is pretty terrible (click here, seriously?):
...
4
votes
2answers
388 views
What are the best practices for site-wide maintenance notices?
I manage a set of websites with a largely non-technical user base. We want to occasionally provide site-wide notices for forthcoming planned maintenance.
We've tried using a messages with red ...
4
votes
2answers
199 views
How can you show human element without showing pictures of people?
With a company that changes all the time, how can you show the personal touch of human interaction without showing pictures of humans? Essentially, blurring the line between technology and people, ...
4
votes
1answer
1k views
Why do my / sent text messages appear on the right of the dialogue?
When I read another thread why text messages on the iphone aren't displayed at the full width the following question came to my mind: Why do my text messages appear on the right and not on the left ...
3
votes
6answers
415 views
How can I improve the perceived performance of a desktop application?
We've build quite a 'large' and regrettably slow windows application for various financial planning business steps.
I'm currently trying to improve the performance of the application by slowly ...
3
votes
3answers
537 views
Usage of Golden Ratio [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Why does the golden ratio work? Or does it?
How is that to use the Golden Ratio for the design of graphical interfaces.
when I use it or should I?
and on designing ...
3
votes
3answers
254 views
How much time is lost by waiting for GUI?
After asking the question Will faster GUI always make one more efficient?, I understood that there is a lower limit to the amount of time lost due to the GUI not responding. My interpretation of the ...
3
votes
4answers
189 views
Positive connotation Icon for number of errors
We have a game where we need to count number of errors as performance criteria. We are looking for a way to positively note the scores. One idea was to make an association to golfing by naming it ...
3
votes
1answer
74 views
Displaying information in one dimension vs two dimensions (list vs graph)
A lot of work has been done in visual working memory and spatial memory but I am looking for resources that show displaying information in the form of a list is better than a graph.
Shneiderman has ...
3
votes
1answer
335 views
Metro Box Style Navigation
Train and Subway Information Design
Metro style refers to boxing information so that it's easy to digest. Windows 8 uses this, although they failed to make it usable.
Metro Style on the Web
I ...
3
votes
1answer
107 views
Is a layout with '3D' elements easier to parse?
Contemporary web applications favor designs that make heavy use of shadows and gradients to create the effect of 3D elements.
One justification for this practice is that 3D effects can be used to ...
2
votes
2answers
180 views
Is there any research indicating how users perceive certain design flaws, such as gradient banding?
Design paper cuts are frustrating to me, because I feel like they compound to create an overall poor user experience. However, has there been any research behind how these oversights from a visual ...
