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UX Tips

UX Tips: Effective Use of Video

Usually I like to do one tip at a time, but certain situations call for more of an all-inclusive approach.  Chief among them: video.

One of the objectives in our political candidate website usability study was to investigate the extent to which video had an impact on… read more

UX Tips: Distinguish Between Intuitive (Unconscious) & Learned Behaviors

Recently I was sitting at a table at a restaurant, when a man pushing a walker approached the empty table next to mine.  He was much too young to normally need such an aid, but his leg was heavily bandaged as if he’d recently had surgery.

It was in… read more

UX Tips: Eliminate Points of Confusion

Recently, we were leaving, or should I say trying to leave, our local Ikea when we were confronted by this paradox: how do we get out of the parking lot where the only exit is to the left, but we are forced to turn right.  No matter what,… read more

UX Tips: Identify Opportunities to Reduce Friction

Friction is anything that gets in the way of getting tasks done. And one of the best ways we make an experience better is by looking for opportunities to reduce friction.

For example, this is the automated attendant at a parking garage near our offices. There’s soread more

UX Tips: Provide Sufficient Form Field Lengths

It’s incredibly frustrating for user to have a form that needs to be filled out, only to be thwarted in their endeavors by thoughtless form field length issues.  And no where does this happen more than it does with last names.

Those with names that are quite long – like Stephanopoulos,… read more

UX Tips: Keep Icon Metaphors Obvious & Direct

It’s really a shame when the icons that designers so carefully choose to make applications intuitive for users have the absolute opposite effect.  It goes without saying that users expect an obvious relationship between an icon and the concept it represents.

For example, the “New Tab” page for theread more