When I recently went to citizensbank.com, instead of seeing their normal homepage as I expected, I saw something else…something scary.

Yahoo’s frustration with focus groups isn’t that surprising. At UIE, we rarely use focus groups in our research because they just don’t work very well at unvovering user needs.

Site maps have been popular since the invention of the web. Site indexes are more in vogue these days. Are they worth the effort?

Christine Perfetti discusses what we know about providing users with reassurance online.

For those folks still wrapping their heads around the whole “Web 2.0 thing”, Josh has created a page called simply:

Introduction to Web 2.0

Whenever we start talking about the scent of information (which we do a lot– have you noticed?), a question we always hear is, “Does this apply to intranets the same way?” The answer? Yes. And No. Jared explains.

Organizations are becoming increasingly dependent on their intranets. To lead users to the ever-growing available content and functions, intranet designers create Portal pages. In this article, Jared will talk about how the theory of information scent was made to help with the design of these pages.

While the 5-second test technique is an essential part of UIE’s usability toolbox, it still has limits in what it can tell us.

• Presenter: Jared M. Spool
• Recorded at: Web Design World Seattle on July 18, 2005
• Program: #002 (Length: 54:38)
• Audio mp3 (25.6MB)
• Presentation PDF (3.7MB)

Here’s a challenge for you: go to Last.fm and try to resist their music recommendation tool.