140
votes
Accepted
Why do many sites leave half of each webpage empty?
There are many reasons, but the main ones are visual cluttering and hierarchy of information on one side, and structural consistency on the UI side.
Visual Cluttering
Clutter is an important ...
- 36.5k
100
votes
Accepted
Why does the cursor have a tail?
To add to DA01's great answer, here's the history of cursor arrow.
The link also links to a well known document from Xerox with further explanation, from which I took the image below.
However, this ...
- 36.5k
96
votes
Best error color on blue color?
MD guidelines aren't rules
The Google Design team wanted to provide a good selection of colors for app devs who can't think in color. It's a solid palette (the whole UI framework is great), but it ...
- 21.2k
93
votes
Why do most of us wear wristwatches on the left hand?
It is a matter of:
Usability
Comfortability
We wear it on our less skillful arm.
It makes sense for right-handed people to wear it on the left wrist because it is easier and gives more precision to ...
- 16.8k
87
votes
Most User Friendly Color Picker
Basic users first
I assume this isn't a color theory app. If this is intended to support quick color selection with a sub-set of power users, a hybrid palette chooser / builder will work well.
Make &...
- 21.2k
85
votes
Why do many sites leave half of each webpage empty?
The optimal line length for your body text is considered to be 50-60 characters per line, including spaces (“Typographie”, E. Ruder). Other sources suggest that up to 75 characters is acceptable.
...
- 9,344
84
votes
Accepted
Why is bright pink background a bad UX/UI?
It hurts the eyes
Certain colors and color relationships can be eye irritants, cause headaches, and wreak havoc with human vision.
Yellow, pure bright lemon yellow is the most fatiguing color. Why? ...
- 15.3k
80
votes
How to enforce shoes removal in a lobby/house?
Instruct
Having something like this doormat outside your front door will 'permission prime' your guests on your expectations about shoe removal.
Reinforce
Having your shoes on a shoe-rack on the ...
- 6,537
77
votes
Why do many sites leave half of each webpage empty?
There is a reasonable limit in the amount of information the user should see at once.
If the view is filled with more information than the user can assimilate/understand it becomes overwhelming. This ...
- 16.8k
76
votes
Accepted
What's the point of a delayed popup on a webpage?
It is about increasing the chance of the user having a look at the popup.
Task-completion mode
Users in task-completion mode are eager to fulfil their goal (eg, "Is the product/information/answer I'...
- 32.4k
57
votes
Why does the cursor have a tail?
It's an arrow:
pictograms of arrows have mostly always had at least the arrow head and the shaft:
Whoever drew the cursor as we know it was drawing an arrow. It became the default standard.
You ...
- 41.8k
57
votes
Accepted
Why do we prefer shiny finish on cars and dull finish on devices?
Practical origins defined our tastes
When car finishes became shiny (because they weren't always) [1,2] due to the availability of the required technology and paint materials, it was mostly for ...
- 11.6k
53
votes
Background for black and white chart
White is giving the appearance as the absence of data. Data visualization is not about what you intend, it's about what they perceive.
Black and white have connotations as opposites. Some cultural ...
- 24.5k
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 ...
49
votes
Accepted
What is such a presentation of music cover art images called?
It's called Cover Flow.
It's used by Apple in OS X (among others).
Cover Flow is an animated, three-dimensional graphical user interface
element that is integrated within the Macintosh Finder ...
- 7,905
47
votes
How to enforce shoes removal in a lobby/house?
It is not uncommon to take your shoes off in Europe (at least in the UK and Belgium where I've lived).
However, just sticking up a sign might be seen as rude / impersonal. If all else fails it's best ...
- 7,228
47
votes
What is such a presentation of music cover art images called?
It's an ordinary Carousel with a fancy 3D touch to it.
Image source: Yahoo design pattern library
Carousels are often used on webpages, in this context a carousel often shows a single item at any ...
- 1,649
42
votes
Ways to improve readability of recipe ingredients?
First of all, if you are just looking at a text list of ingredients then I would say that it probably isn't going to matter too much which option you go for.
Out of the 3 options I would personally ...
- 7,061
40
votes
Why is bright pink background a bad UX/UI?
Is it true?
No.
Nor is it true that it's good UX.
It's a visual design question that can only really be properly answered in context...and part of that would be how it works with the overall page ...
- 41.8k
38
votes
Why are most pens (that we use to write) blue in color?
Because the first widely used ink was iron gall which had purple-black or blue-black colour.
And the color remained as a standard until today.
text written with iron gall ink
Detailed explanation:
...
- 11.5k
35
votes
Background for black and white chart
Stacked bar charts often use a darker colour at the bottom and lighter colour at the top. Bolder darker colours look strong and more supportive of what's on top. Your chart bars looks top heavy, with ...
- 70.9k
32
votes
Is it crucial for a UX designer to understand the principles and concepts behind Object Oriented Programming?
No.
Those are two fundamentally different jobs. Except in the scenario that the UX design is for a product the primary purpose of which is OOP development (e.g. an IDE).
Otherwise, of course, ...
- 601
30
votes
Why do most of us wear wristwatches on the left hand?
There are a number of reasons.
Firstly:
Your dominant hand can manipulate things easier than your non-dominant hand, e.g.
To put on/take off the watch
To use the crown (the thing to wind it up and ...
- 8,904
29
votes
Most User Friendly Color Picker
I'm not sure there's any objective answer to this one, because it'll depend too much on the demographics of your clients. I'll give my subjective two cents though!
If they're not graphic designers or ...
- 849
27
votes
Accepted
How can I improve the UI/UX of this form?
I feel you might be coming at this from the wrong angle. A form shouldn't excite you (or a user), it should get the job done quickly and painlessly.
Boring can sometimes (usually!) be best.
You ...
- 704
24
votes
Lighter color for a secondary same action button?
Keep the color of your action button consistent in your web application.
I like the idea of a lighter color if you go to a deeper level. It's cool.
However... usability comes first.
Users will ...
- 7,905
24
votes
How can I improve the UI/UX of this form?
I'll start by saying this will probably be an unpopular opinion because, for reasons I can't comprehend, what you've done is done a lot. My complaint is that you've made 5 text fields and 3 multiple ...
- 363
23
votes
Design process : which is the best moment to include developers in the process of software development?
You've somewhat discovered the answer to your own question. The best time to include development in the design process depends on the development team you are working with.
Your initial intuition is ...
- 41.8k
23
votes
Why rounding odd font sizes to even?
I think your fellow developer is somehow correct. To be honest, as far as I know there's no "set in stone" rule for this, so nobody is right or wrong as an absolute. However, depending on ...
- 36.5k
22
votes
Accepted
Where exactly should I put a search box in this form?
Place the search box above, right
Since the search applies to the list, place the search box and its label at the top of the list, on the right. The magnifying-glass icon is optional.
Here are some ...
- 6,386
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible