Website design involves the structure of the website including the information architecture, layout, content, and the conceptual design with branding.
36
votes
4answers
4k views
When to use icons vs. icons with text vs. just text links?
Are there any rules on when to use icons vs. icons with text vs. just text links in a web application?
For example:
vs.
save
vs.
save
Extra question: Is save -or- save preferable?
42
votes
10answers
3k views
Home button vs Logo link?
Is a "home" button on the navigation required if there is a link to the homepage using the company's logo?
Increasingly I have noticed more and more websites using the logo as a link to return to ...
37
votes
2answers
6k views
Ideal column width for paragraphs online
There is nothing worse than coming across a website with paragraphs that span the width of your screen resolution. They are usually so hard to read, I don't even bother.
A lot of web designers use ...
17
votes
10answers
1k views
Is there a usability reason for centering a website's content area on a page?
A lot of websites these days have content area's which are centr aligned, http://ux.stackexchange.com is an example. However some sites are left aligned e.g. http://forums.adobe.com/index.jspa, ...
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
...
26
votes
3answers
4k views
Do users understand the browser back button?
You hear a lot about not breaking the back button on websites, but can you assume that most users know and use the back button?
Is it redundant to add a JavaScript or HTML back button/link on a page?
...
11
votes
7answers
1k views
“Sign Up” vs “Create an Account”
Which pick is better for a service? Especially if I would like the website to resemble American style.
Gmail and Dropbox say: "Sign In or create an account"
Yahoo says: "Sign In. New here? Sign ...
52
votes
16answers
4k views
Do you need a search button with a search box?
On websites with a search box, should you add a button they can click on, or will users understand a search box like on this site?
The target group is not very technical, such as women aged 40-60.
13
votes
6answers
1k views
Blinking, bouncing and flashing elements
I'm responsible for the UI/UX in a software development company.
During my absence, some developers decided to implement a "bounce" effect on a button of a website that they think should have more ...
9
votes
5answers
5k views
Pagination Best Practice [closed]
I am not sure on the best way to handle some pagination I need to perform on a table that could potentially get very big (5,000 rows plus).
My first question is should the amount of rows shown per ...
7
votes
3answers
2k views
Why are most social networking sites in blue?
Why do most social media websites use blue as the main color? e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, foursquare, ...
I am only interested in answers based on some scientific research.
7
votes
3answers
387 views
What are some advantages of left-aligning columns within the browser window?
Youtube and Google Plus have changed their layouts such that in a very wide browser window, the content columns are left-aliged, leaving a large white space on the right side. This is a change from ...
8
votes
3answers
576 views
Design recommendation for a button
I have a form in which the user requests a report to the system by clicking the Send Report Request button. The system then produces scheduled reports according to the interval the user selected ...
50
votes
10answers
4k views
How do rounded corners affect usability?
How do rounded corners on buttons and containers affect usability? Do they make buttons look more clickable? When used on other non-button elements, do they make the site look more friendly? I'm ...
27
votes
11answers
4k views
Most User-Friendly Form Fields for Entering Date/Time?
What are the different ways to have fields in an application for date, time, or both? What are the pros and cons for each?
The most common seem to be a combination of 2–3 drop-downs, or some form ...
30
votes
9answers
2k views
Can ugly be good UX?
It's heresy I know, but look at DrudgeReport.com. It's raw, hand written HTML, it's plain, boring typography, it's something any UX or Graphic designer would scoff at if you handed it across their ...
29
votes
11answers
2k views
For websites, is it better to have a variable width layout or a fixed width layout?
Due to different screen resolutions, the user experience browsing a website might be different. Is it better to layout the website with a fixed width? (and if so should there be different static ...
20
votes
6answers
2k views
Why does the golden ratio work? Or does it?
This is just one example of an article promoting use of the golden ratio in design. Over the past few years I've seen quite a few similar articles, but none of them really seem to go into depth beyond ...
28
votes
10answers
1k views
Should you place the “add a comment” form above or below the list of comments?
There seems to be very little consistency across most sites when it comes to placing the comment form.
Which do you think is the most usable, above the comments list or below?
Above the list:
...
21
votes
8answers
3k views
Should hyperlinks be blue?
I've built a site where all hyperlinks have the default colors: blue for links, purple for visited links. They turn red on hover.
I believe that always using blue for hyperlinks is a good thing, so ...
12
votes
6answers
390 views
Minimalism, Maximalism(?) or whatever?
Tufte & Nielsen believe that screen real estate is one of the most important asset for a (UX) designer. Utilize available screen space - Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox: May 9, 2011 & The Visual ...
10
votes
4answers
1k views
HTML buttons vs hyperlinks for navigation
When creating an overall site style guide, how do you determine when a button or a hyperlink should be for something other than navigation?
I see many time with the heavy usage of jQuery and AJAX, ...
8
votes
3answers
362 views
“Selling” the management on need for UX focus
After the novelty of finding this SO section wore off (and being rightfully shamed of asking a duplicate question), I'd like to rephrase this question so it would target what I feel is a gap in ...
4
votes
4answers
978 views
Usability of hiding the submit button (and using the enter key to submit)
More and more commonly, I find that websites elect to hide or remove the submit button from forms. One obvious example is this site (along with other StackExchange sites), whose search field lacks a ...
59
votes
31answers
4k views
Common web app usability gotchas? [closed]
What are some common mistakes regarding usability for web applications?
29
votes
6answers
2k views
Which do users like more as of now, 'Flat Design' or 'Skeuomorphic'?
I have read multiple articles on-line that say that the era of Skeuomorphic design on the web is over, and that a new era of so-called 'flat design' is now the new thing for developers, but do users ...
14
votes
7answers
1k views
Designing for the iPad
I'd like to make my site accessible to people that have the iPad or other iOS devices.
What considerations do I need to take into account when designing a user interface that is compatible with the ...
28
votes
45answers
1k views
What tools (ideally affordable ones) would folks recommend for creating a website wireframe? [closed]
What tools (ideally affordable ones) would folks recommend for creating a
website wireframe? What tools have you used, and did you find them better than pen and paper?
26
votes
8answers
942 views
Is it a good idea to have a large footer containing many links?
In recent years, it's become quite a common design pattern to have a large footer on every page, containing a 'mini sitemap'.
For example:
This has supposed SEO benefits, but would also seem to ...
18
votes
6answers
1k views
Why is there a convention on the web for dropdown menus on hover instead of on click?
This is something I've always wondered. On all major operating systems, application menus (File/Edit/View etc) only appear on click. However, nearly every web site that uses a drop-down menu ...
8
votes
3answers
3k views
Best design for displaying list under a list of items ?
I have a list of items in a database and i display 10 items with some additional details at a time(as table rows). I use next & previous buttons to fetch the remaining items.
This part has been ...
12
votes
8answers
1k views
Which side of a web page should a side menu go on?
Many websites have side menus and I seem some have the side menu on the right and some on the left.
Which side is better?
6
votes
3answers
257 views
Placement of delete button on form
I have a form which edits a flight, and it should be possible to delete them. I have considered putting a delete button in the index page, which lists all the flights, but the table rows are clickable ...
2
votes
4answers
986 views
Use subdomains or directory structure for URLs?
I'm curious if it's considered better practice to use a subdomain (e.g. store.website.com) or a directory (e.g. www.website.com/store) when linking to separate sections of a site.
Assuming both ...
23
votes
9answers
2k views
Your download will start in X seconds
Is there any reason why many websites - including very mainstream ones such as microsoft.com and sourceforge.net - show a page with "Your download will start in 10 seconds; if you don't want to wait ...
12
votes
4answers
341 views
Is it ok to add content when the users selects and “copies” something on the page?
Some websites (using tools like tynt) have started to add something a little surprising at first : When the reader copies part of the article or blog post, something, say the url of the piece, is ...
8
votes
9answers
788 views
Drawbacks of auto “focusing” on a web page's text field (JavaScript)
Do you guys know any drawback of focusing on a text field on a web page ?
It's pretty useful when you know users will use this text field more than others (like on the google homepage), but it's a bit ...
6
votes
3answers
127 views
Select as title vs. Tabs
I'm trying to decide between using a custom css select as a title versus using tabs on a page I'm working on. I drew up two wireframes below:
1. Using Tabs
2. Using Select
As you can see, the ...
6
votes
3answers
253 views
Would it be bad design (and unsafe) to put password guidelines next to a login box?
Different websites have different password requirements
Some are content with a combination of just lower case words
Some require a combination of lower case and upper case words
Some require ...
5
votes
5answers
598 views
Pros and cons of a Single Page site versus a Multi page site
I am working on trying to re-design the site for the agency I work for and a recommendation was made that we should move to a single page site with a vertical scroll which which walks through all the ...
5
votes
3answers
898 views
How to show password reset option
In my website I put password recovery option hidden. I know there are two options to deal with it.
Classical way, Show it as the next sentence to the register link. Example, "Want to try? Sign up ...
3
votes
2answers
192 views
How should I allow my members to delete their membership from my site?
What is the best way to allow a member to delete their account if they wish to not be a member of our community? Should I simply have them click a delete button on the site? What other measures should ...
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.
11
votes
3answers
684 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 ...
10
votes
4answers
915 views
Better approach to blue/underlined for link?
We have a web application that allows users to query a database.
The results are returned in a breadcrumb style interface.
We brought this change in at a new version, and assumed it was ...
8
votes
5answers
490 views
Most intuitive way to offer manual sorting?
all. I'm designing an online form builder (think Forms in Google Docs / Spreadsheets). The functionality is complete, but I'm not happy with the sorting capabilities. Everyone that I have done ...
6
votes
2answers
643 views
Guidelines for when to auto-save settings vs “save” button
In our web application we have a number of pages to do with user settings, in different categories. For most of them we have a display page with an edit button/link, which takes them to a form which ...
5
votes
3answers
513 views
Websites aligned to the left of the page
I always thought that it makes better sense for websites to be centred horizontally to the browser window. But even an Adobe website like http://www.adobe.com/products/kuler/ is left aligned. Is this ...
4
votes
5answers
536 views
How can I represent “under construction” pages usefully?
We are developing a new web application that will be launched within the next 6 months. We have also purchased the domain for the same.
Question is how can we usefully or efficiently show the "under ...
3
votes
2answers
360 views
Landing page vs Home page
We are currently having a "discussion" in our company about Home pages. We have some users who express the opinion that "The home page should always be the home page, and never change". Thus, when a ...
