They are everywhere. Confusing and frustrating design patterns that seem to be chasing you everywhere you go, from one website to another. Perhaps it’s a disabled submit button that never communicates what’s actually wrong, or tooltips that — once opened — cover the input field just when you need to correct a mistake. In this new series of articles on UX, we take a closer look at some frustrating design patterns and explore better alternatives, along with plenty of examples to keep in mind when building or designing one. Don’t miss the next ones: subscribe to our newsletter to get updates.
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Sometimes it’s the little things in web life that make us look twice. From carousels to documentation to cookie disclaimers, here are some sites taking the mundane and sprinkling in a little magic. Great ideas in web design come so thick and fast that it can be easy to miss them if you’re not careful. In this article, Frederick O’Brien brings you a small antidote to that, piecing together splashes of inspiration that caught our eye.
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As designers, we are often burdened by the responsibility of producing and managing website content. It’s not our job to write it, but it’s not the client’s either. In many cases a vacuum emerges which ultimately gets filled with poor content. In this article, Matt Saunders will show you that you can avert disaster by including content production in the design process.
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Where to put the label in a web form? In the early days, we talked about left-aligned labels versus top-aligned labels. These days we talk about floating labels. Let’s explore why they aren’t a very good idea, and what to use instead. Some people assume float labels are best because Google’s Material Design uses them. But in this case, Adam Silver recommends using conventional text fields which have the label outside the input (to tell the user what to type), and a distinct border all the way around (to make it obvious where the answer goes).
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Tooltips are powerful design patterns implemented to enhance the design experience by providing additional information precisely when users need it. The key to designing tooltips that fit seamlessly into the overall design is to plan for them early in the design process. Specifically, designing useful tooltips requires proper timing and proper implementation. In this article, Eric Olive will show you how to design tooltips that will amplify your mobile designs and explain where mobile tooltips are most effective.
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2020 was anything but normal. The world has changed, and so has our role as designers. We never know what the future will bring, but ultimately we shape it, and we can contribute more positive change to the world than we often think we can. Consumers had their lives shaken up and many businesses experienced new challenges as well as opportunities thanks to the novel events of the year.
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The goal of e-commerce design is to create interfaces that won’t get in the way of the overall shopping experience. In this post, Suzanne Scacca is going to look at three key parts of a digital store and show you what you can do to design each to help customers more quickly and effortlessly get to the checkout stage.
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How can you convince your clients to make a faster (and easier) buy-in? Better serving citizens means improving a frustrating website experience — the primary way Californians access necessary services. With the help of a guided design exercise, Kelly Schummer explains how the Design Shopping workflow can help guide you throughout the design phases.
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In some instances, privacy policy, terms of use, and cookie consent pages do have to be ugly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t improve upon how easy they are to read or navigate (which visitors will definitely appreciate). Today, we’re going to look at four ways that web designers can contribute to getting more policy disclosure pages read and terms actually agreed to.
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“Intuitive design” is one of those overused phrases that we as designers hear all too often from stakeholders and their requirements. In this article, Carrie Webster explores what intuitive design actually means, why it doesn’t make sense, how we can better approach design solutions, and what the future of interfaces might look like. It is aimed at user experience designers and anyone interested exploring these concepts in greater detail.
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