Online banking is notorious for poorly thought-through interactive experiences. Chase Online is no exception. Their mortgage screen contains this list of menu options, with one of my most favorite menu options ever. As asked in the comments, this is the default presentation when you first view the menu. (Some commented it would make more sense [...]

For years, the mobile web experience was little more than an afterthought as most design teams focused on catering their designs to the desktop. As Luke Wroblewski explains in his session “Why You Should Design for Mobile First” from the User Interface 15 Conference, this is becoming an increasingly backwards way of thinking.

For years, we’ve been touring the world talking about designing web sites. At every presentation we’ve given, someone approaches us and asks the tough question: “Does this apply to web-based applications?” It’s a tough question because the answer often is Yes and No. Yes, good design practice is good design practice and it applies no [...]

Web applications live in this strange world, half application, half web site. Something as simple as making a command look like a command, becomes difficult quickly. Do you make it a button? Should it be a link? Visual design problems affect an application’s success in a variety of ways. In the mildest form, they slow [...]

The AIGA recently published the online version of their 2009 Salary Survey. I was really disappointed with their 1996 approach to the salary survey. The AIGA is filled with talented designers, yet they opted for an impossible-to-use book reader to display their hard work. Locking the survey up in a proprietary, unusable reader was a [...]

Web applications can get wild. You know the kind; something that’s on your corporate intranet with an obscure purpose, hundreds of screens and some kind of navigation kudzu growing in every direction. Hagan Rivers is one of our favorite wranglers of such apps.

Listen to a sample of Hagan’s Escaping Navigation Hell from the Web App Masters Tour in this episode of the SpoolCast.

Web-based applications are quickly becoming critical strategic components for many organizations. In our research at UIE, we’ve found that creating usable forms is essential to the success of these applications. Forms are crucial for users to complete many online transactions, ranging from sign-up forms for introducing new customers to your site, to checkout forms for [...]

Ken Kellogg, the Director of User Research at Marriott International, sits down with Jared Spool to discuss the process of design and research that lay beneath a web site that generated $6.5 billion in revenues in 2009.

Jason Fried brings a unique viewpoint to any design discussion, one informed by years of success with his company, 37signals. Recently, Jared Spool was able to chat with Jason about 37signals’ current work. If you’re joining us at the UIE Web App Masters Tour in Minneapolis or Philadelphia, Jason will go into even more detail

Julie Zhuo is the principal designer behind the Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect experiences, and has contributed to the last two major site redesigns. She sat down to chat with our Jared Spool.