for questions that specifically ask about academic papers or other scientific research
63
votes
7answers
5k views
To use or not to use “Zebra Stripes”, or Alternating Row Colors for Tables
Is there any research out there showing whether or not alternating the row colors for a table increases/impedes the time it takes to parse information? An example can be found at the following ...
50
votes
10answers
2k views
How does Gamification change User Behavior?
On Location Based Applications the use of Gamification is essential. As you move along and check in you earn badges and points. Users also find themselves in a leader board, which most certainly ...
33
votes
5answers
1k views
What research is there suggesting modal dialogs are disruptive?
It seems "Everyone" knows they're highly disruptive for many situations but often times clients don't. Particularly in desktop applications this form of dialog is often misused, often disrupting a ...
26
votes
10answers
2k views
Traffic lights: “yellow” is progress, not state
When thinking about how (real-world) traffic lights work, I wonder if there is a more intuitive way to display the yellow light. The meaning of Green and Red are states:
Green: Ok, you can go!
Red: ...
25
votes
5answers
718 views
Do we have a taxonomy of UX requirements for software products?
I am a researcher on UX. My research aim is to help software engineering practitioners in early stages, i.e. requirements engineering, to deal with UX requirements even if their knowledge on UX and ID ...
21
votes
4answers
718 views
Display comments order - best practice
I wonder what is the best comments order on the website. I assume there are two major methods to display comments:
from newest to oldest,
from oldest to newest.
Facebook uses method one and ...
19
votes
4answers
464 views
Any Research on User Experience Perceptions of Native Apps vs Web or Hybrid Apps
My organization is looking at developing mobile applications, we have a wealth of web development resources. There are many factors to consider in making the decision of how to develop this ...
18
votes
7answers
229 views
What's the biggest surprise you've had in a usability test? [closed]
Usability tests often present some real surprises where the participant's mental model does not match what they're presented with.
What are the biggest or most interesting surprises you've come ...
17
votes
6answers
1k views
Has Fitts' Law been adapted to Touch screens?
The question Is there any difference in element minimal sizes on 10 and 24 inch touch screens? made me wonder; has Fitts' Law been successfully converted to Touch related events? There's 3D movement ...
17
votes
6answers
1k views
Do people use `jump to top of page` links?
I'm talking about links or buttons at the bottom of the page or screen simply linking to the top of the website.
Is there any data on that?
Are they used more frequently on long pages?
What about ...
17
votes
4answers
1k views
Is viewport size a useful design constraint, and how are viewport sizes distributed?
I'm trying to support or falsify the hypothesis that desktop browser viewport size is distributed multimodally (that is, with "peaks" in the distribution that might make for useful website design ...
17
votes
1answer
237 views
Is there any in-depth data on tappability of touchscreen areas?
I'm looking for statistics or other objective evidence on the tappability of different areas of handset screens. When I say tappability, I'm referring to speed, accuracy, and general ergonomic fit for ...
16
votes
4answers
811 views
Are there any recent studies of the “Keyboard vs Mouse”-issue?
Back in the late 80's, Apple Human Interface concluded that the mouse is faster than the keyboard, objectively. But also that every test person subjectively thought that the keyboard was faster.
...
15
votes
5answers
2k views
Usability research on sticky headers?
Sticky (or fixed) headers are not so uncommon nowadays, and for a large website that relies heavily on catalog and search functionality it may be a good choice to aid the user.
As I am currently ...
14
votes
8answers
3k views
Should we provide “back” button for mobile website?
In mobile website for all smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows phone 7), should I provide a "Back" button inside the webpage even when the browser has functionality to go to back?
...
14
votes
5answers
577 views
UX impact of standard stock photos
It's pretty clear to me that standard stock images (examples 1 / examples 2) don't help to build a brand or identity. Are there any studies about the impact of stock images? Any other thoughts?
In ...
14
votes
2answers
797 views
Any data available on using Skeuomorphic Design in apps?
I've recently come across an article about Skeuomorphism that peaked my curiosity.
Skeuomorphism: ..."an element of design or structure that serves little or no purpose in the artifact fashioned ...
13
votes
2answers
445 views
Have usability studies been conducted on the use of alphanumeric characters as labels for controller buttons?
Controller Question
Over the years there have been a wide variety of home consoles each with their own (mostly) unique controller designs1. One thing that most consoles have in common is their use of ...
12
votes
5answers
601 views
Why Not Use a Real Person as a Persona?
My understanding of UX Personas is that they're descriptions of fictitious people designed to represent the common traits and attributes of a broader audience demographic.
If that's the case, in what ...
12
votes
3answers
480 views
Is Serious Games the same concept as Gamification?
When looking at this question, I was asking myself: Where are conceptual differences? Except that Gamification is a Game added to a serious topic, while a serious game approaches it from the opposite ...
12
votes
1answer
128 views
What successful/well known companies have a VP UX? [closed]
I want to research companies who value UX so much that they have their own executive arm within the company.
I've found these companies so far:
Wells Fargo
Yahoo
Intuit
Google
TiVo
Palm
Ebay
SAP
...
12
votes
3answers
253 views
Guidelines for browser page overlap?
When you press Page Down in a browser, there's usually a small number of lines from the bottom of the current windowful displayed at the top of the next windowful. The amount of this overlap is ...
11
votes
7answers
845 views
Academic Papers about UI [closed]
Are there any academic papers (thesis, dissertations, etc.) that discusses topics about User Interfaces? Best if you post links.
I am just curious if such topics are accepted for research...
11
votes
6answers
538 views
How would you create and validate personas for something that is not a person
There are a few questions here about personas, and research methods that you might use in order to create them, (some of which I've answered at length). Examples include:
What research methods can I ...
10
votes
3answers
277 views
How to minimise the biasing influence of stakeholders
I'm working on a large project where I am a UX consultant. The company I am contracted with also consult a domain expert (DE) but she is not UX.
More than a few times now I have noticed her insisting ...
10
votes
4answers
141 views
Keyboard navigation versus mouse navigation
The project: We're designing software that users will use all day long to perform 12 repetitive tasks. Each task has many steps and takes place in a different pane in the GUI. Some of the GUI is ...
10
votes
3answers
2k views
Mental model vs Conceptual model — what's the difference?
I'm reading Apple's Human Interface Guidelines about Mental models and I can't understand what is the difference between Mental and Conceptual models.
I prefer a short answer if possible :)
9
votes
8answers
205 views
Participant recruitment agencies - recommendations [closed]
Can anyone recommend a good recruitment agency for sourcing participants for UT?
I've used Saros, Criteria and Qualtel recently (London / South East England), they've all been OK, but I thought it'd ...
9
votes
6answers
57 views
How do you find the balance between what the users' want and what the clients want?
You all know that project...
After months of research, wireframing, prototyping, testing and workshops, there is that one client (normally the MD) that comes in at the end and knows everything better ...
9
votes
1answer
302 views
Is there any research on whether users understand ellipses (…)?
This GUI design pattern goes right back to the Apple Lisa in the early 80s:
Is there any research covering:
Whether people actually notice the three dots (...) at the end of a menu item or ...
8
votes
2answers
914 views
What research methods can I use to create personas?
My experience with personas has been from creating personas with data that already exists usually provided by the marketing team based on their research.
How do you go about conducting research to ...
8
votes
4answers
276 views
Is autotabbing in forms helpful or harmful?
I work in an environment that makes heavy use of mainframe systems. These systems are costly to maintain, so a decision was made years ago to replace the mainframe with web based systems.
As more ...
8
votes
3answers
258 views
Should we call our achievement system something else?
The company I work for has two public sites; one is just our main WWW site and the other is a site dedicated to our members. I'm a developer there and I'm working on an achievement system for our ...
8
votes
1answer
226 views
How should multiple services be integrated for one user?
The proposed Netflix Split into two separate companies with two separate websites got me thinking about how to distribute a service when multiple functional or legal entities are involved. In ...
7
votes
8answers
1k views
Is 10 search results per page the best?
When there are a lot of search results they often are paginated. Most search engines I know show 10 results per page. I guess this was born out of an easy technical solution or habit. But I don't know ...
7
votes
6answers
477 views
How do approaches for UX differ between intranets and normal websites?
I have been asked to offer advice for the development of an intranet for a large international company.
The client will be developing the intranet in Sharepoint and is keen to use a user-centric ...
7
votes
7answers
2k views
Opening website external links in new window — published usability tests
In usability discussions about opening website external links in new windows, with regard to the argument of "keeping users on the site" there are occasionally references to usability studies which ...
7
votes
4answers
357 views
Usability testing for open-source projects?
I'm working (slowly) on an open-source project, and I was hoping to do some usability testing once it's a bit further along. Also, hopefully the GIMP devs will notice this question ;-). I'm not sure ...
7
votes
4answers
144 views
How do you track new feature/product adoption?
Huzzah! You just launched your brand new feature/product X. You've been working on it for months, usability tested the crap out of it, and feel really good about how it all came together.
After a few ...
7
votes
5answers
354 views
Any value to gathering qualitative data from card sorts?
One of the best tools I've found for card sort experiments seems to be websort, mainly because you can just send out a link for participants to go through the exercise at their own convenience.
...
7
votes
3answers
388 views
Gender considerations in web usage
Are there particular gender differences in web usage/preferences? I'm about to start designing an information-based site with a predominantly female audience. I was wondering what research already ...
7
votes
3answers
165 views
Where to get my own Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)
Is there any (software) framework or company that offers "Customer Experience Improvement Program" (CEIP) like Microsoft uses it?
I think this should enable software vendors to do thinks like that:
...
7
votes
2answers
201 views
Studies showing the impact of response time variability on user experience
Have there been any studies, or results, focusing on the impact of variability in latency of response times on the overall user experience?
I'm aware of the research on the "generally accepted" ...
7
votes
1answer
167 views
Quoting time and effort for UX research
Edit : I've added a little more detail to the main question here.
There are many techniques and practices at our disposal to gain an understanding of the target audiences motivations and needs when ...
6
votes
3answers
262 views
Tips for ethnography
I'm doing my first ethnographic study next week and I was wondering if anyone had any tips, specifically for studying how people use things in their homes.
Are there any common pitfalls? Any good ...
6
votes
9answers
393 views
Isn't all user testing essentially a way of gathering how people think things should work?
When user testing is performed, users are often presented with a serious of variations of a product and observed to see where they excelled and where they had trouble. People will often click in areas ...
6
votes
3answers
318 views
What errors should users never experience?
I have come up with this question for 2 reasons.
Not all errors can be avoided. For example login information which might cause program to throw unhanded exception if login information is not ...
6
votes
3answers
844 views
How do you source your persona photographs?
Like many of you I'm sure, I consider the creation of user personas to be a crucial part of the UCD process, particularly when starting a new project.
While we all have our own techniques and styles ...
6
votes
3answers
178 views
Are there any studies of users getting jaded of dialog requests?
There are permission request boxes such as this one, or requests from other users as per online social networking sites. Are there any studies that show people becoming jaded of dialogue boxes of any ...
6
votes
2answers
309 views
What is the purpose behind mouse acceleration?
Windows XP enables it by default, I don't know about vista or 7, in Mac OS X you have to buy a shareware to remove both mouse acceleration AND accelerated scrolling.
Why are those things always ...
