The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
13
votes
5answers
560 views
Encouraging the user to enter a value in an optional field?
This is a follow-up question from the previous question Case-study for hiding the optional fields?
I have taken all the responses from my previous question and I have come up with this mockup, ...
13
votes
3answers
430 views
Web app keyboard shorcuts
Is it a good practice to give keyboard shortcuts to web apps that allows a user to do tasks that are repeated often. In my personal experience, I've rarely used keyboard shortcuts offered by GMail to ...
13
votes
5answers
449 views
Why do Juice cartons fail on opening?
When I open a simple juice carton I fail on opening. I always seem to waste some of the concentrated juice on the kitchen sink and I wonder – do I do it wrong or is it the package that does not have a ...
13
votes
3answers
362 views
Do people find someone in a list faster by name or a profile picture of the person?
I am looking for research to find out if when looking through a list such as a team list in a project management app people find it easier to find someone by their profile picture or their name?
I am ...
13
votes
4answers
254 views
Can user experience be mutually exclusive for two groups of users?
Is it possible for an item to have good usability and a positive user experience for one core group of users and, by virtue of that design, make the experience worse for another core group of users? ...
13
votes
3answers
293 views
A single, long load - or multiple short loads, which would provide a better experience?
I have a very large, modular web application.
When it starts I can do things one of three ways:
A moderately long load time (about 60 seconds) to fetch all of the modules from the server (presented ...
13
votes
6answers
279 views
Should usability testing of a competitor's website be a part of your usability testing routine?
I was reading up on best practices on usability testing for websites and a recommendation was that get your participants to do usability testing on your competitors website as well as that would help ...
13
votes
5answers
442 views
How to define/classify messages and notifications
I have seen content from various style guides and UX guidelines about this, and was wondering if there is a much more simple system to create a consistent and easy to implement design for various ...
13
votes
4answers
634 views
Making space for the “drop cue” in a drag-n-drop design
I'm developing a drag-and-drop reordering interface for books on shelves.
(You can try it live if you're on the latest WebKit.)
When you drag a book over a shelf, it accommodates space for it by ...
12
votes
10answers
716 views
Is UX the same as Usability?
The two terms have seemingly become synonymous, but is "user experience" really the same thing as "usability?"
It would seem that some sites, apps or products provide the user with an experience ...
12
votes
6answers
567 views
Dropdown vs map
Is it a good idea to use map for selecting travel destination?
At the moment we are using dropdown menu to select the country the user would like to visit. We are also using dropdown for duration and ...
12
votes
9answers
742 views
Dashed underline on required fields
I am working on a massive user registration form for a web application for my company. We have been discussing different ways of alerting the user that a field is required for registration. As of ...
12
votes
7answers
445 views
Does a large UX team tend to spoil a design?
Is there a rule of thumb for how many UX designers should be working together on a project? Factoring in things like the size of the project (e.g. number of functions/screens), timeline of the ...
12
votes
8answers
2k views
Responsive web design Vs Separate website for Mobile
Responsive Web design is buzzword these days. which means to create a same website and optimized for all devices.
There are also some website which convert the desktop websites into Mobile website
...
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 ...
12
votes
4answers
352 views
What is the best way to ask for a specific amount?
Consider the following simple scenario: User has 2,352 cookies in his account. Now, he is prompted with a message, "How many cookies would you like to eat?" Given he can enter any number from 1 to ...
11
votes
6answers
671 views
Is ReCaptcha a poor anti-spam mechanism?
As everyone knows, any website that allows users to submit content to be posted without moderation are subject to all kinds of spam.
One of the most popular methods of combatting this is using ...
11
votes
4answers
459 views
Should users be directed to a 404 page or a landing page?
We have two pages. One is a landing page, given by the route /region. The other is a detail page for a particular region, given by the route /region/summary/{id}. The landing page is the normal way by ...
11
votes
3answers
2k views
Design pattern or best practices for top notification bars?
The top notification bar on SE pops up to show messages like 'badge x earned'. What are the best practices for this type of UI?
Specific details:
On showing - Displace content downward (like on SE) ...
11
votes
6answers
446 views
How easy should I make it to delete content?
We want to make it easy for people to perform task in an application, but we also want to prevent them from accidentally deleting something. Where is the middle ground between these two opposing ...
11
votes
6answers
991 views
List vs tiles for links
I am designing a drop down panel which houses a collection of quick links / bookmarks to other areas of an intranet. Users access the intranet through a laptop or desktop pc running windows or mac ...
11
votes
4answers
150 views
Should you optimize mobile experiences based on individual handedness?
In abbood's question "How to implement a stack exchange style voting for mobile?" he answers his own question with the following mock-up:
My immediate thought was that the up-vote control was on ...
11
votes
3answers
152 views
Is a Q&A site a reasonable replacement for a forum for a software product?
I'm building a website for an open source piece of software that revolves around backups and cloning. I was originally going to use phpBB for the forums, but then thought about the possibility of ...
11
votes
4answers
412 views
Building logical criteria (with AND , OR, etc)
I am looking for inspiration on this. We have a Dot.Net web application, where we are building pretty complicated criteria. It works, but I would like to change this, re-shape this, possibly from the ...
11
votes
2answers
253 views
How do you decide when a website or application is “usable enough”?
I did see the related question
How do you know when an interface is complete - Though the answers in this question are very interesting,they are more from a product management perspective of what to ...
11
votes
1answer
714 views
Usability Concerns with Parallax Scrolling
I work for an agency that is very parallax happy. Clients seem to love it, so we keep pushing it.
My goal is to build solutions that end-users love, so I've been trying to push more user-centered ...
10
votes
2answers
690 views
Good UX for a page
I am working on a UI design. I have good CSS/HTML knowledge. But not good in UX.
Attached image is the UI I created for one page.
I tried alter it nearly 10 ways, still my customer says it looks ...
10
votes
8answers
1k views
My boss has a different idea of a website's UX
Let me explain the situation.
I started transforming an "old (.Net 2.0)" Application into a webapplication.
Problem here is, that no-one here is really acquainted with the UX of a website (simple, ...
10
votes
5answers
273 views
What do you wish you had known before your first ever user evaluation workshop?
What have you learned from the process of testing prototypes / products with users that you wish you had known before you went into your first workshop? Pitfalls, freak-out moments etc?
10
votes
7answers
467 views
How to mark an input field with text longer than its width?
Given a form with many input fields, some have long text which exceeds the input field width. I wish to mark those input fields in some way which indicates they have more text than is visible.
I have ...
10
votes
1answer
690 views
What are the “Big Three” Gestures in Mobile Development?
last week, our project manager mentioned that we needed to incorporate more of the "big 3" gestures in our mobile software. unfortunately, she's off on vacation now and none of us know what exactly ...
10
votes
3answers
178 views
Should general 404 page be shown to the user if he clicks one-time link second time?
There is a Sign up function in a web application. After user signs up, an email message with confirmation link is sent to his email address. This confirmation link is obviously valid only one time.
...
10
votes
4answers
240 views
Form Design: Mutually Exclusive Tabs vs. One Form
I am working on a form design that currently has two mutually exclusive forms accessible via tabs (Option 1). During usability testing my team noticed that users missed the tabs and only noticed them ...
10
votes
4answers
327 views
How can we communicate that UX work can't be done by just anyone?
About 2 years ago, I asked about a good usability/UX elevator pitch, so I can quickly explain what UX is whenever I need.
But, to this date, I still can't get over one little issue: lots of people ...
10
votes
4answers
167 views
Is it necessary to involve the user from the beginning of the software engineering process if we want to emphasize usability?
I have questions about usability.
Is it necessary to involve the user from the beginning of the software engineering process if we want to emphasize usability?
Also, I read this previous question ...
10
votes
3answers
997 views
Why do light switch buttons have up/down direction when it's really a toggle function?
If you do a quick image search on your favorite search engine on "light switch" you get a large number of images. Most of them have up and down direction, to represent state. Up for on in the US, and ...
9
votes
3answers
465 views
Why do Video Players Use the Space Bar to Pause?
Is there any good reason when creating an online video player to use the space bar as a pause control only when the user is fullscreen?
I notice quite a few big video sites follow the space used as ...
9
votes
2answers
318 views
Should images be given alt text if they contain no information?
Example: a biography page with a picture of the person. The image contains no useful information, yet it adds enough emotional value to the page that simply removing it is not the solution.
If you ...
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 ...
9
votes
1answer
368 views
Dice and Domino Dot Convention
I noticed dice and dominos both use the same convention for dot placement. Is there a reason for this? Is there any research on how to layout dots so that they are most readable?
9
votes
5answers
198 views
Using a back panel image as navigation
I wanted to get some opinions and feedback on using an image of a back panel for navigation. In our current UI we have a setup of a appliance. The appliance has a number of ports and some need to be ...
9
votes
5answers
506 views
Replace radio-input with “buttons”? (web forms)
Is it good (or okay) UX to replace radio input fields with something that looks kinda different (please look at the image to see what I mean). I think most people will understand that they have to ...
9
votes
6answers
598 views
Colliding icon meanings
In the interests of fitting in with design guidelines and not wanting to endlessly push icon pixels, I try and use Android's1 built-in icons as much as possible. Occasionally, that means combining ...
9
votes
3answers
549 views
How to explain to a client that User Experience and web/graphic design is different?
My client is absolutely sure that there is no difference between these topics. How do you explain that making a UX adjustment plan is not the same as a web design task?
You have to write a contract ...
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
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 ...
9
votes
4answers
397 views
automatically calculate contrast
A user can change the default design of his site by selecting a color. This color is applied to the menu background color. The problem is that I have to change the menu text color depending on the ...
9
votes
5answers
210 views
Should we prioritize use or linguistic?
I've been working on a project, and I found an interesting dilemma.
The application I'm working on has this filter, let's say something like this:
By default, none of the "options" are selected, ...
9
votes
3answers
93 views
Can we assume users know the devices they're working on?
I'm developing an iPhone app that uses pretty standard UI, follows Apple's human-interface guidelines, and in some cases imitates behavior as seen in stock iPhone apps. For example, a table view from ...
9
votes
5answers
234 views
Selecting many elements from a long list
I have a scenario where my 'create user' dialog has a very long list of options, of which the user needs to select many. The project manager has suggested a 'dual list' approach: a long (scrolled) ...
