the way user interacts with an artifact and the reaction and/or behavior to the environment
183
votes
25answers
30k views
How can users be prevented from pouring water into the bean compartment of a coffee machine?
Typical coffee machines have two user-accessible compartments: one for water and one for coffee beans. Pouring water into the bean compartment kills most machines, the repairs cost a fortune.
Now ...
112
votes
12answers
6k views
Why shouldn't we use words such as 'here' and 'this' in textlinks?
Over the years of surfing on the web I have found numerous examples of people saying that you shouldn't use the word "here" in a textlink etc. Personally I like the idea of using the word, because it ...
72
votes
18answers
6k views
Are age verification banners effective?
I'm curious as to whether or not these Age Verification banners that appear on some sites are really "effective". That is to say, do these really help to deter/prevent users that are underage from ...
67
votes
12answers
2k views
How do you give your user options without overloading them?
I was using WinSCP the other day for transferring files, when I came across this.. umm.. I'll call it a set of options, but it was more like an interview.
Oh boy. I just want to move a file. Now I ...
42
votes
10answers
2k views
What is the best way to inspire users to choose strong password?
Most of the users use weak passwords. They may use weak passwords even for services where they store sensitive information. I think it's because they don't believe that their password may be ...
41
votes
10answers
2k views
How to make a progress-speed bar more understandable?
I've just installed Windows 8 and noticed the brand new File copying dialog. When expanded, it shows the progress and the current transfer speed in one graph. However, the graph confuses me greatly. ...
36
votes
5answers
1k views
How should we prepare users for a site overhaul?
We've taken over a legacy web application that has been running without anything changed for the past 4 years.
We are currently re-writing the application because the original source code has severe ...
29
votes
8answers
1k views
Save, Favorite or Star?
I'm working on a job app and I would like to offer our user the possibility to save a job and let them find it quickly later.
First I thought using a star icon to let them "star" a job like starring ...
29
votes
4answers
2k views
Where should the GUI light source come from?
I know that historically the light source on GUIs is in the upper left, casting a shadow on the bottom-right of buttons and the upper left of fields. Now, I see some places (like Apple) use a top ...
28
votes
6answers
1k views
A better condom user experience
The lack of use of condoms is one of the most critical issues in global health today. However the problems with condoms have little to do with how effective they are when used. Instead the problems ...
27
votes
6answers
4k views
Why is Google's “I'm Feeling Lucky” button still next to the search bar?
I'm sure that Google must put a lot of thought into the display of its homepage. With such a minimalistic design, every element matters.
So what's up with the "I'm feeling lucky" button? Why is ...
26
votes
5answers
1k views
Is database too technical a term for user?
Are these terms 'Database', 'Record', 'Table', 'Field', 'Row', and 'Column' too technical (or even relevant) for a normal online banking application user, especially when talking to a customer service ...
26
votes
7answers
962 views
How patient are users at wait dialogs?
What is the length of time the average user will wait at a wait indicator (i.e. a spinning circle, beach-ball-of-death, egg-timer) before they think something has gone wrong?
If anybody can point to ...
26
votes
8answers
1k views
Do people actually use tooltips?
I know I use them, and my peers use them, but how much does the average user actual use tooltips to figure out functionality?
25
votes
6answers
1k views
Should offensive/vulgar usernames be banned?
I'm making a new site, where there will be a lot of public comments hopefully, and this thought crossed my mind. Is it right to ban usernames with swears in them? Do people even create usernames like ...
25
votes
3answers
543 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, ...
23
votes
7answers
981 views
Should progress bars show percentage
In the application I am designing we are currently just displaying a circle that rotates clockwise from gray to green. Inside the circle is a number indicating where in the process it is (20, 50, 90). ...
23
votes
15answers
1k views
Should personal data be asked at the beginning or end of an online survey
Given a 10-step online survey (mostly yes/no radio buttons), where is it best to ask for the users' personal data e.g. name, age, contact details?
My intuition says putting it at the end will yield ...
23
votes
6answers
1k views
activation email message optimization
I've got a site (e.g FooBar) and 1 out of 2 users registering never activate their account (via clicking on an email link) so I'm trying to improve this.
The flow is pretty standard:
user lands on ...
21
votes
6answers
1k views
Deliberately annoying users to discourage certain behaviour. Is this a bad idea?
In my software, some users deliberately disable certain security provisions or practice bad security practice (such as running the software as root/admin). In the former case there a couple of ...
21
votes
9answers
893 views
How can you make a user experience addictive? [closed]
What factors and techniques contribute to making a user experience addictive?
I ask this in the context of websites, games and other software. What makes people want to keep coming back for more?
21
votes
1answer
394 views
Are activity alerts effective? example: 5 people are viewing this hotel right now
For example, Expedia (and other hotel sites) have alerts that come and go that say things such as, "17 people have booked this hotel this week." Is there any documentation out there concerning this ...
20
votes
2answers
359 views
What's better for invitation emails: a temporary password or a one-time login url?
Our web app allows our customers to invite their collaborators into their account. They can submit the new user's email address, and our app sends the new user an email inviting them to login. Once ...
19
votes
7answers
953 views
Is it ok to style a label as a link to “trick” users into hover it?
The title alone would probably result in a chanting "NO!" as a popular answer, but please let me elaborate.
Background
We have a table of Something:s. Each Something can hold 1-5 Items. In the table ...
19
votes
5answers
435 views
What makes people vote?
What drives people to upvote or downvote content? I'm looking for the je-ne-sais-quoi quality on successful voting systems and I just can't put my finger on. Let's look at three examples:
...
17
votes
3answers
553 views
Which users actions are worth logging, to gain better perspective on their behavior?
I am currently implementing a "User action log", that will keep interesting actions of users within our system.
Any advice on what to log? Of course, the answer is "everything you feasibly can", but ...
14
votes
6answers
601 views
With 'OK' button, 'Cancel' should appear as secondary button or link?
When I make web application designs, every time I style form or overlay boxes with OK and Cancel button. I think of making them different. But is it a good practice?
Some people recommend primary and ...
14
votes
6answers
684 views
Consistent UI experience
Shouldn't a user interface be as consistent as possible?
I believe when a user uses an interface, he experiences certain behavior from the interface, and tries to couple those experiences to the rest ...
14
votes
3answers
316 views
Tags or hashtags?
I have a website at www.flickwit.com. I would like to introduce tags to allow users to search for content more specifically than channels. I have been wondering which option would be more acceptable ...
14
votes
4answers
1k views
When is a right-handed navigation sidebar appropriate?
When is a right-handed sidebar for navigation a good choice? If possible, I would like some examples where it has been used, such as this sidebar from Google's official blog.
14
votes
4answers
341 views
Is it good UX practice to have a website generate a password for the user?
Is it good UX practice to have a site generate secure random passwords for users and send it to their email or is it better to have them enter their own one each time?
14
votes
4answers
324 views
What are the pros and cons of skeuomorphic design in payment transactions?
The check out or payment process in an application is critical and has to perform smoothly to make the inexperienced users feel that they fill in forms correct. I’ve seen numerous of examples where ...
13
votes
7answers
750 views
Are hover menus in headers easy to use?
Do users find it easy to use headers/menus like the one displayed below?
13
votes
5answers
1k views
What is the UX strategy behind Facebook forcing users to use the timeline?
A few months back facebook took the unusual step of forcing most users to switch to the timeline view of their profile page.
I am interested to work out what the strategy was behind this move. On ...
13
votes
5answers
559 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
7answers
504 views
How do you go about convincing the stubborn “powers that be” to let you change a clumsy layout that users are used to?
How do you go about convincing the stubborn "powers that be" to let you change a clumsy layout that users are used to?
Say there was a layout in a previous version of software from years back and ...
13
votes
6answers
518 views
Greyed-Out vs Invisible
What is a good criterion or rule-of-thumb for determining when a control should be greyed-out and when should it be completely invisible?
13
votes
3answers
360 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
251 views
What is it about our mental models that app-centric seems more intuitive than content-centric?
I always thought that content-centric was the easiest for people to deal with, i.e. "I want to change this document", and not "Let's run this app so I can then change that document".
It seems that ...
12
votes
6answers
799 views
How did multi-touch interfaces become natural when it should have been unnatural?
After stumbling on a webpage that rants about the fallacy of "picture under glass", I began to wonder what was it that made multi-touch interfaces seemingly become so natural to all of us today?
We ...
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
4answers
392 views
A/B Testing Technique
My friend and I were having a discussion about different ways of A/B testing. His technique was to make a single small change (e.g. changing the colour of a button) and then perform A/B Testing to see ...
12
votes
6answers
509 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
2answers
162 views
How to realistically test blog headlines before publishing?
I'm currently writing a post for my company's blog. I'm agonising over the headline, as I really, really want people to read this post (I'm trying to convince our users to opt in to our customer ...
11
votes
9answers
692 views
User behavior that caught you off guard?
How about a nice community wiki we can learn from? Please post an example of user behavior that caught you off-guard and forced you to redesign an interface. One example per answer please!
Mine:
On ...
11
votes
4answers
664 views
Why is the “dislike” button going into extinction?
I've noticed that Facebook and now Google+ only have a "Like" (or +1) button, in spite of users wanting a "Dislike" button. This seems to be a bit of trend. Disqus also dropped their dislike vote - ...
11
votes
4answers
447 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
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
4answers
651 views
“Shaking” button leading to increase in conversion rate?
I'm just running an experiment on the UX Pin homepage. One group got a "shaking" button (the big orange sign up starts to shake after few seconds) and the other group got traditional "static" button.
...
11
votes
3answers
686 views
How can the classic footer elements be integrated into an infinite scrolling layout?
Infinite Scrolling is a fairly new and effective way to display practically infinite amounts of data in a user's window, but one page element simply does not suit itself to this method; the footer. A ...
