Having to make choices with limited information is not unusual — especially in complex projects or with brand new products. But, at some point, though, these choices start to feel like pure guesses and the ground under your feet feels shaky. What can you do about it? Approaching potential users for research, such as interviews and usability tests will help your whole team build a solid foundation for product strategy and design. You’ll find that the skills you develop will give you confidence to pursue the answers you need, leading you to better experiences for yourself and others.
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The reason why app store reviews aren’t as effective as they could be is that they’re a one-way conversation, asking the user to say something positive to everyone else. There should be something better, something more conversational. In this article, Joshua Mauldin will investigate the various tactics of prompting for app reviews and ratings and how to make them better. He’ll also talk about how to ask users for feedback in a way that benefits everyone. Getting feedback on your app is important. How else can people tell you that your app is doing well or poorly?
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Interface designers use affordances all the time. They have to. Unlike physical objects, web and mobile interfaces must gain all of their affordance through design. For most designers, this is intuitive and instinctive, based on the thousands of design patterns we see every day. But have you ever thought about the qualities that make an object afford clicking, sliding, pulling or pushing? By deeply understanding how affordance works, you’ll better master interface or product design. Better affordance can have a dramatic impact on conversion rates, registration rates and the user actions that matter most to the website, app or product you’re designing for. This is why “affordance” is the most underrated word in web design.
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Some of us were born with this feeling of what feels and looks right. But other people also have a gift of aesthetic feeling, a gift to recognize beauty. Ordinary users, then, just like designers, recognize beauty and know what’s right and not right. This is not where the problem of handing over creative control arises. The problem is that they don’t know the principles that designers do. But there is a way. We can guide users simply by limiting their creative control, which also makes for a simpler tool.
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As designers, we must understand the role of momentum in effective user interface design and create experiences that keep our users moving forward. How do you know when your design has enough friction to be understood but is not overly complicated? In this article, Martijn van Tilburg considers different design scenarios and how to manage the user’s momentum by speeding up or slowing down their flow according to the situation. He will also discuss a framework for thinking about friction in your next design and when to be strategically innovative in order to maintain momentum.
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The best mobile web applications are the ones that excel at handling mobile processors, network connectivity, bandwidth, latency and touchscreen keyboards. In this article, Nick Gauthier will look at how to identify the tasks your users want to accomplish on a mobile device, memorize your users’ situation, presume that their actions will succeed, and also how to predict your users’ next actions, and prepare accordingly. The mobile web is a harsh environment, but by simply focusing on what matters, you will find a clear path to a superior experience.
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A 2013 survey of adults with disabilities found that 91% of people with disabilities use a “wireless device such as a cell phone or tablet.” Among these users, screen reader usage is common, even on mobile devices. However, many basic best practices for accessibility are forgotten on mobile websites. Therefore, disabled users are frequently presented with interfaces that are frustrating or impossible to use. In this article, TJ VanToll will show us a few practical measures that address the most common issues disabled users encounter which leads to a better experience for everyone.
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Anyone with an idea could turn out the next Facebook. Technology takes no heed of gender, creed or race, but is reduced down to code and the desire to create. Everyone you meet has an idea for the “next great website or app.” However, there is a harsh reality: many new products fail. But what should you do if your product does fail? How do you close a product with dignity, so that both you and your users leave on good terms? In this article, Kevin Stone will answer this questions.
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Ajay Revels is always looking for novel ways to present information to the audiences she works for. Her collaborators and clients aren’t limited to UX designers, software developers and UI visual designers. It was only recently that she thought a comic book would make a fine user-research deliverable. Sure, it might seem strange to create a comic book in a staid corporate environment, where they are thought of primarily as light entertainment. But it’s not strange at all.
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The second part of this series addresses the third step into making navigation as simple and predictable as possible, and discusses which type of navigation menu is best suited to which content. A navigation menu is any area of an interface that presents navigation options to enable users to find content on the website. A common distinction in navigation models is between a primary, traditional navigation system and secondary, alternate navigation models. Exactly defining this distinction is difficult.
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