103
votes
Accepted
Why show the user 'There are n updates since page load, refresh to see them' rather than adding new data
Sudden rearrangement of content is disturbing
Dynamically updating data while user is looking at it may (depending on type of data) be disturbing to the user workflow - for example, if you're reading ...
- 1,163
83
votes
Why do some users complete forms all in capital letters?
I've seen this occasionally in usability tests. When I ask it's usually because they have filled in many paper forms where there is a request to 'fill out in block capitals' or similar — so they think ...
- 10.3k
73
votes
Cumulative percentage between 4 controls
You could use a single bar, partitioned into four sections, labelled (or possibly coloured, as I've used in my example image) accordingly. The area where each partition meets would be resize handles, ...
- 689
67
votes
Accepted
Why do some users complete forms all in capital letters?
Users enter information in upper case either intentionally, or unintentionally (e.g. they happen to have CAPSLOCK activated). Several other answers mention a variety of reasons for why the user may be ...
- 788
55
votes
What kind of chart is this?
This is an absolute 'No no' in creating charts. This is a very bad way of representing data, to make it look like Donut chart but non-functional. It doesn't matter if the thickness is proportional to ...
- 3,186
51
votes
Accepted
For death year, should I use N/A or --- if person still alive?
Well, you can write the predicted year of death based on user research, or you can say "TBD" :).
And more seriously - it would be a good idea to develop two templates for this item, one for dead ...
- 30.3k
50
votes
When is an exception message too big?
tl;dr:
Some of the invoices are not eligible for payment. They were excluded from payment processing. [details]
Error messages should separate two things:
Information for the end user (What they ...
- 7,553
34
votes
Cumulative percentage between 4 controls
Is it necessary to use sliders? Note that a slider is a good choice when you know that users think of the value as a relative quantity, not a numeric value. For example, volume or brightness control. ...
- 3,410
34
votes
What kind of chart is this?
The most approximate chart to the provided images is a Donut Chart. Refer to this link about how to use donut charts.
- 5,008
33
votes
How To Display Too Much Data
what data does the user actually need to see?
If only we could get a straight answer to that. Instead of "it depends".
I keep on running into this problem, and every time I Google I end up back here ...
- 670
33
votes
How should I visualize the average of two bars in a bar chart?
You could show the average in a large bar, and put the separate categories inside in smaller bars.
If you use Excel and use two axes, make sure they both have the same scale.
- 439
22
votes
Cumulative percentage between 4 controls
There is also possibility using four sliders to normalize the results, that is, if they sum up to x%, multiply each value with 100/x. Then you wouldn't have to worry the user with constraints while ...
- 321
21
votes
What kind of chart is this?
Topologically, it looks the same as a Spider chart with 4 variables, but each variable is displayed as a quarter-circle instead of a point.
- 1,816
19
votes
Why do some users complete forms all in capital letters?
This is because early Teletype and computer systems had no provision for lower case. Mixed case Teletypes came on the market in the 1930's, but the standard US military Teletype of World War II only ...
- 290
19
votes
Accepted
Cumulative percentage between 4 controls
Make the user's job easy
Ask yourself if it's the system or the user that's concerned with 1% accuracy. Does the user really want to think about the distributed percentages, or just the priority of ...
- 21.1k
18
votes
What kind of chart is this?
That looks like a form of polar area diagram.
Also known as a ‘rose diagram’, this is almost 200 years old, and was popularised by Florence Nightingale to highlight death rates in different months:
...
- 311
17
votes
Why show the user 'There are n updates since page load, refresh to see them' rather than adding new data
Additionally, it's less data intensive, and if you're designing with a mobile first philosophy, that's got to be a consideration.
You're going to need to consider that the screen size is constrained
...
- 535
15
votes
How should I visualize the average of two bars in a bar chart?
If you really just mean the average of the two numbers, why not just leave the gray bars out, with nothing in their place? It's pretty easy to estimate visually. I think that's why there are few ...
- 301
14
votes
Accepted
Why do histograms not have spaces in between bars (as opposed to a bar graph)?
From Wikipedia:
In statistics, a histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of data. It is an estimate of the probability distribution of a continuous variable.
The emphasis is on ...
- 32.1k
14
votes
Why do some users complete forms all in capital letters?
[Flippant] End users are strange creatures, period. There's no accounting for what makes sense to them and what they'll do (even with explicit instructions). [/flippant]
A good rule of thumb is to ...
- 257
14
votes
Why do some users complete forms all in capital letters?
I used to work for a company which paid for a behemoth third party software.
So on a typical work day, Peggy would enter a client name and save it to the database, hunky-dory.
On the following work ...
- 5,619
14
votes
How should I visualize the average of two bars in a bar chart?
A simple idea would be to show the average as a line graph, like this:
- 3,152
14
votes
How should I visualize the average of two bars in a bar chart?
Your second one seems fine to me to be honest. It's the least extra 'ink', and it's how single series bar charts show averages, you're just doing it for the items at each x value. You can see an ...
- 1,773
13
votes
How To Display Too Much Data
I'm a bit surprised, that none has suggested the Master-Detail pattern yet.
We have exactly the same problem in several of our own products: Too many columns to fit on a screen, however, every piece ...
- 397
11
votes
Accepted
What is the best way to show the user large amounts of data?
Exporting data can be more time consuming
Ultimately it depends on how your users feel about it but exporting data requires users to think more and can add friction to their work flow. If I could ...
- 15.8k
11
votes
Cumulative percentage between 4 controls
When one slider is adjusted, auto-adjust the remaining unlocked sliders to keep their total at 100%
- 1,615
10
votes
Why do some users complete forms all in capital letters?
For names, all capital letters is sanitization normalization.
Take the name "Macdonald" for example. It can also be spelled "MacDonald". If you aren't typing your own name into a form, this kind of ...
- 341
10
votes
Would having a generic waveform be too confusing for users?
I think a problem with a generic waveform is that it will be "moving" and indicating sound when there is none (the audio is playing a silent section) and this disconnect would be bothersome (to me, at ...
- 11.5k
10
votes
Accepted
What kind of chart is this?
Since the attributes are not distribution, you could show the initial score, and place a severity breakdown below. Allow hovertips and details for drilldown.
Instead of focusing on the current chart (...
- 22.8k
9
votes
Cumulative percentage between 4 controls
You can present a simple UI that allows all four values to be set at once. I created a mockup that illustrates this principle. Note that I haven't particularly focused on making sure that the UI doesn'...
- 1,127
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible