a technique used to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system.
11
votes
6answers
862 views
full-color icons vs. greyed-out icons in menus
Icons in menus are often full-color. Even though the page an icon/menu item controls is not active, the icon still appears in its normal hues. To distinguish the icon which is active, a designer will ...
1
vote
2answers
322 views
Where can I find existing System Usability Scale (SUS) results to compare against?
I'm looking for a resource of existing System Usability Scale (SUS) study results to compare against.
I've read in a few papers/webpages that plenty of such data is available, unfortunately I can't ...
6
votes
4answers
139 views
Conveying that usability problems exist to developers, cheaply!
I'm a developer transitioning towards design/usability.
I'm giving a talk to the devs at my workplace on design basics and guidelines with a little sneaky UX teaching on the side.
My goal is to work ...
6
votes
4answers
142 views
What are factors to take into account when evaluating the effectiveness of symbols?
I'm mainly looking for referrals to studies that were objective in evaluating the effectiveness of a series of symbols, but open to opinions based on anecdotal experience too.
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 ...
9
votes
5answers
269 views
Research on Walk-up-and-use systems
I am interested in research on Walk-up-and-use systems.
From what I found so far, Walk-up-and-use systems are described as
"system that requires no explicit user training" (hci-hub, FH ...
47
votes
13answers
5k views
What is best practice for designing form error messages?
I've seen quite a lot of research on form design, but so far, I haven't come across any studies on error message design best practices. The only piece of advice seems to be that each error should ...
-1
votes
3answers
75 views
A/B or multi-variate testing as replacement for UX design?
It seems like in a business-driven organization (i.e. where the sales and marketing team has a bigger say) that offer software products or services, A/B testing is used as a way to improve and measure ...
38
votes
20answers
3k views
Do I really need a login button?
We've been having a discussion in the office surrounding a login page we're developing for a new web application. The web application is in intranet-based application, and is mainly used by users who ...
9
votes
7answers
450 views
Simplified facts or casual talk, which makes a better UX?
Which makes for a better User Experience: using copy that states the facts as simply as possible, or copy that speaks in casual language. (Context: a Web App )
Here are 3 examples as the answer may ...
4
votes
1answer
79 views
How to study competitive/equivalent interfaces efficiently?
Before starting designing a new interface, I usually study equivalent/competitive UIs to come up with some ideas in terms of functionalities and layout.
I would like to conduct this kind of study in ...
16
votes
5answers
489 views
Usability results: 5 users fly through UI, 1 user fails. What to do?
Which approach do you usually take when a majority (5 of 6) of users can easily complete a task during usability testing while one user fails? I cannot really describe the task exactly but it would be ...
3
votes
2answers
302 views
Enterprise Social User Interview Questions?
I am in the process of creating a questionnaire for user interviews for a HUGE Enterprise Social Initiative where the end product is going to be an Intranet/ESocial application.I am trying to get some ...
1
vote
1answer
76 views
Looking for best practice, articles, tests or studies on video placement on websites.
We are a publisher of many special interest (that doesn't mean x-rated! ;) news websites (tech, music, sport etc). The majority of our content is editorial but we obviously have a growing amount of ...
4
votes
4answers
200 views
How do I justify a “friendly view” when a department head is adding “table view” as a requirement?
So in the web app I'm currently working on, I need to display a list of objects. I opted for a "friendly" view, with each object being a div. StackExchange's question list layout is actually a good ...
3
votes
6answers
158 views
What's the best way to conduct user research at a trade show?
I've tried a couple of times to perform usability studies at an industry-specific trade show, and it's been largely awkward. In my experience, people are milling around and love to chat, but don't ...
7
votes
4answers
539 views
Is it good to hide url bar from Mobile websites?
Is it good to hide url bar from Mobile websites?
By default it shows. but there are some JavaScript tricks which can hide the bar on page load. but user can get back by dragging from top.
For a ...
9
votes
5answers
169 views
How can I produce an insightful, quick 'n' dirty usability report?
I was asked by the company I work at to make a usability report in a few days that shows the state of the current site under the following limitations:
I don't have any budget or gifts to give to ...
14
votes
1answer
322 views
Tufte's data density, readability and comparison
I'm intrigued by Tufte's data density. While I love his definition of data / ink ratio which can be easily measured, I have hard time measuring data density.
He defines data density in a graphic as a ...
0
votes
1answer
119 views
Mouse heatmaps in desktop applications [closed]
Do you any good software that can create mouse move/click/right click heatmaps in a desktop application like a game, office suite etc.? Preferably including key detection, heatmap image saving etc. I ...
1
vote
4answers
103 views
questions at the end of a user study (an online simple game) to see if they enjoyed the study or not [closed]
I have a question.
I am running a user study which is a simple online game. I am looking for a set of standard questions to ask the users at the end of the study to see if they enjoyed the study or ...
9
votes
5answers
615 views
UI Lag: What's considered “smooth”?
I'm building a drawing application that let's users annotate images and diagrams in a freehand style.
Not unlike a glorified MS Paint program, but there is heavy background processing going on.
...
7
votes
4answers
355 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 ...
15
votes
5answers
394 views
SUS Scores and Doubts
My team just started using the SUS to baseline our applications against each other. There are some doubts regarding the relation of the questions to web applications and web sites. At times study ...
4
votes
2answers
218 views
Better portfolio with 'case studies'
How can I make a better portfolio with case studies? I'm disappointed in peoples portfolios being like an art gallery, or not organized well. I probably just need a good example.
6
votes
5answers
389 views
How do you recruit users for usability evaluation?
Pick random people? Use a service like usertesting.com? What do you do?
7
votes
4answers
382 views
How usable are digital whiteboards?
I am building a whiteboard that records what is written to it and that is connected to the internet. One of my primary focus is usability.
The whiteboard is not like standard digital whiteboards. It ...
3
votes
3answers
203 views
What is the best way to approach usability testing an intranet?
In my mind, the biggest difference between testing an intranet and a public website are the users. You know exactly who will be using the intranet, because they have to. The roles and tasks are ...
4
votes
2answers
163 views
Opens in a new window icon placement
When using an icon to represent a link I believe the standard convention is [icon] [Link].
A colleague has raised the point that for links that open in a new window, the icon should appear after the ...
8
votes
6answers
1k views
Open source / free screen capture tools for user testing [closed]
What free tools are there on the Windows platform that I can use to capture what mouse movements and clicks a user makes during an evaluation?
Ideal product would:
Not be likely to crash and freak ...
9
votes
5answers
354 views
How should I introduce participants to a usability test?
I've been conducting usability tests for a few years now for a variety of products and interfaces. These have been in-person and remote, high-fidelity and low-fidelity, structured and unstructured. ...
9
votes
3answers
516 views
Usability testing and responsive web design
What are your take on usability testing and responsive web sites? The flow of page objects, hiding and showing different types of menus or the resizing of objects could have a big impact on ...
3
votes
0answers
27 views
Looking for any studies OR anecdotal stories on the usability of lightweight markup languages (like Markdown, MediaWiki or BBCode) [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is Markdown Friendly Enough for Non-Technical Users?
I need to create a simple markup language (none of the ones out there quite fit the bill). However, I'd really like ...
6
votes
4answers
453 views
Software to record a user completing a task
We are building a survey/testing website and one feature we would like to include is asking a user to research something on the internet. Give them a "fake" address bar to put the first URL they want ...
3
votes
6answers
188 views
Is a usability study on just a newsletter effective?
I'm doing a usability study in our lab next month to test a newsletter for a client. It will be my first test with only an email (instead of a website). I'll only have 3/4 tasks (open email, choose ...
3
votes
2answers
143 views
Cultural differences while usability testing
As a Briton, I realise there are cultural differences that I need to consider while testing. For example I have found that citizens from the Indian subcontinent are less likely to directly criticise ...
3
votes
3answers
266 views
Can web analytic tools track user's behavior across tabs?
I'm curious about logging user actions across multiple tabs; is a user's actions across multiple tabs within a browser trackable? So from user's point of view is there an additional element of privacy ...
3
votes
3answers
201 views
Are “view more” links still being used?
Some years ago, it was usual to see a list of articles in the homepage of any website with a link often called "View more".
Nowadays it's difficult to find a website using this link, I noticed that ...
14
votes
5answers
567 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 ...
3
votes
3answers
722 views
Let tester directly click on web site to report bugs, similar to bugherd? [closed]
I'm doing website User Testing and want them to report issues by clicking on web site and type text into a comment box. Similar to www.Diigo.com or www.bugherd.com
Bugherd is designed for this but it ...
5
votes
5answers
229 views
How can I measure why users never return to a web app?
I'm working on an application that's been in use for the past 3 years. It's a web-based product and we have been tracking its usage using Google analytics for the past 6 months (since the time I ...
23
votes
4answers
2k views
Studies showing that the more form fields there are the less conversions you will get
Same old story really; another client is requesting that they need x number of fields on their Contact Us form, and no amount of explaining that less=more will suffice without providing objective ...
4
votes
1answer
698 views
Studies showing significant usability differences between Windows and Mac OS X?
Everybody has their pet gripes about one or the other, but I'm curious if there is any actual science showing that "The Windows Way" or "The Mac Way" is significantly better for some task.
Just to be ...
12
votes
9answers
153 views
How do you ensure that you've covered the whole site in your work?
I'm a relatively recent practitioner, and although my work's quality is pretty good, I still have one big back-draw (in my opinion): I always miss something or two when making or fixing a web site.
...
7
votes
1answer
191 views
Applicability of Fitts law in expert user scenarios
Fitts law states that "the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the distance to the target and the size of the target.".
Simply put, if user is about to click/tap/press a ...
1
vote
4answers
305 views
Looking to create a good user interface to ask 4 questions to users in the best possible way?
I am trying to create a good UI for the main page of my website.
I need to ask 4 questions to users in easiest possible way-
Query terms - e.g toyota Corola
Category (optional) - e.g. Cars
Location ...
5
votes
3answers
684 views
Are there any tests that can be used to measure the quality of an UI?
What are the criteria that are used to measure the quality of an UI, or compare different UIs with each other?
2
votes
3answers
4k views
What should be maximum and minimum length of persons User Name & Password?
I am wondering because I am trying to make sure that person have right amount of spaces for their user name.
User Name and Password are security measures and should not be easy to guess. I have fixed ...
1
vote
1answer
159 views
How to measure the user experience?
recently I had the joy to be part of a new department in our company, the user experience department.
I'm really happy with my new work,but recently my bosses started to do some changes in our ...
14
votes
5answers
1k views
Do we really need a “Remember me” option on a Login page?
I'm wondering why do we need to ask user to make a decision, for how long he want to be authenticated? This is done by having "keep me signed in" option login page:
Why can't we simply "predict" ...
