UIE's Ashley McKee recently spent some time with Kate Gomoll discussing the immense benefits gained from performing field studies to understand users. While techniques such as focus groups, usability tests, and surveys can lead to valuable insights, none of them immerse design teams in users' natural environments to observe critical details quite like field research.
UIE's Jared M. Spool recently talked with Barry Schwartz, the bestselling author of the "Paradox of Choice." In the interview, Barry discusses his research on how people make choices.
UIE's Christine Perfetti recently interviewed Sarah Bloomer and Susan Wolfe, two premier User Experience experts, to discuss how organizations can make their UX practices a success.
In part II of their interview, Luke Wroblewski and Joshua Porter discuss what makes a strong page hierarchy, what effect technology has on design, and the role of visual designers.
UIE's Joshua Porter catches up with Luke Wroblewski about the intersection between visual design and web site usability. Here is what Luke had to say.
We hear all the time from web designers that they spend countless hours and resources trying to speed up their web pages' download time because they believe that people are turned off by slow-loading pages. What we discovered may surprise you.
Design happens at the intersection of the user, the interface, and their context. It's essential for interface designers to understand the gamut of contexts that can occur, thereby ensuring they create designs that are usable no matter what's happening around the user. In this article, Jared M. Spool explores the various components of context and how to integrate them into the design process.
In a pivotal user test a couple years ago we found out one of the secrets of great web sites: they inspire confidence in users. Jared explores how to measure it and use it to your advantage.
Is all of your content available within three clicks? Does it matter if it isn't? We recently looked to see whether this popular design rule was really worth following.
UIE's Will Schroeder evaluates some common Usability myths and investigated whether these beliefs are truly accurate.
Over the last year, we've been looking at how to get users to find valuable content that they aren't aware of when they first come to the site.
Designers use interactive design elements, such as fly outs, rollovers, and dropdowns, to conserve space, make the screen less cluttered, and enhance the users' experience. We were surprised when users succeeded more often when they didn't encounter these design elements than when they did.
Users say they don't like to scroll. As a result, many designers try to keep their web pages short. But one of the most significant findings of our research on web-site usability is that users are perfectly willing to scroll. However, they'll only do it if the page gives them strong clues that scrolling will help them find what they're looking for.
We recently conducted a research study to find out what makes a web site usable. Here are the results from our early research.
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