Home
Frederik Van Zande's Library tagged → View Popular
Powers of 10: Time Scales in User Experience (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
"From 0.1 seconds to 10 years or more, user interface design has many different timeframes, and each has its own particular usability issues. "
A List Apart: Articles: Testing Search for Relevancy and Precision
Despite the fact that site search often receives the most traffic, it’s also the place where the user experience designer bears the least influence. Few tools exist to appraise the quality of the search experience, much less strategize ways to improve it. When it comes to site search, user experience designers are often sidelined like the single person at an old flame’s wedding: Everything seems to be moving along without you, and if you slipped out halfway through, chances are no one would notice. But relevancy testing and precision testing offer hope. These are two tools you can use to analyze and improve the search user experience.
Losing Customers At The Register: 12 Checkout Blunders | Get Elastic
We’ve all heard the adage, “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” For many e-tailers, both large and small, the weakest link lies in the checkout process. Mistakes at this critical juncture are costly and unnecessary. Below, I’ve gathered 12 of the most common mistakes I see with checkouts.
A List Apart: Articles: Inline Validation in Web Forms
Web forms aren’t great conversationalists. They ask a bunch of questions, then wait until you answer them all before they respond. So when you register for that cool social network or use an e-commerce site, it’s pretty much a monologue.
You can blame most forms’ poor etiquette on the way they’re built. Web forms that use a basic submit-and-refresh model of interactivity don’t respond until you hit the “submit” button—but it doesn’t have to be this way. Real-time inline validation can help people complete web forms more quickly and with less effort, fewer errors, and (surprise!) more satisfaction.
Inline validation gives people several types of real-time feedback: It can confirm an appropriate answer, suggest valid answers, and provide regular updates to help people stay within necessary limits. These bits of feedback can be presented before, during and / or after users provide answers.
Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic title, but a most intriguing conclusion: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
When Landing Page Optimization Isn’t Enough | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog
As I was preparing for my SES Extreme Makeover session, analyzing the lucky businesses that were chosen for a free makeover, I became fascinated with a particular e-commerce site.
There was no question that the pages on this site performed exceptionally well. Bounces were under 20 percent and the exit rates were very low. I also knew this company had been testing using Google Website Optimizer.
Google Research - Using Video as a CAPTCHA
We present a technique for using content-based video labeling as
a CAPTCHA task. Our CAPTCHAs are generated from YouTube
videos, which contain labels (tags) supplied by the person that uploaded
the video. They are graded using a video’s tags, as well
as tags from related videos. In a user study involving 184 participants,
we were able to increase the human success rate on our video
CAPTCHA from roughly 70% to 90%, while keeping the success
rate of a tag frequency-based attack fixed at around 13%. Through a
different parameterization of the challenge generation and grading
algorithms, we were able to reduce the success rate of the same attack
to 2%, while still increasing the human success rate from 70%
to 75%. The usability and security of our video CAPTCHA appears
to be comparable to existing CAPTCHAs, and a majority of
participants (60%) indicated that they found the video CAPTCHAs
more enjoyable than traditional CAPTCHAs in which distorted text
must be transcribed.
Read It: Search User Interfaces
"Search is an integral part of peoples' online lives; people turn to search engines for help with a wide range of needs and desires, from satisfying idle curiousity to finding life-saving health remedies, from learning about medieval art history to finding video game solutions and pop music lyrics. Web search engines are now the second most frequently used online computer application, after email. Not long ago, most software applications did not contain a search module. Today, search is fully integrated into operating systems and is viewed as an essential part of most information systems." (Marti A. Hearst
15 Best Techniques For Implementing Autosuggest With AJAX Into Your Site - TZ
Making your site as user friendly and easy to navigate as possible is every developers goal and implementing autosuggest is one way to help achieve it. Not only is it helpful to the user but is also somewhat expected now that most of the top sites have already built this functionality into their own sites. This collection includes standard auto suggest scripts, del.icious tag suggestion, autosuggest control to search images on Flickr, and advanced table filter with auto suggest control.
UI Pattern Documentation Review - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design
User interface (UI) patterns have the potential to make software development more efficient. The prospect of such efficiency gains has led to interest in user interface (UI) patterns by individuals and organizations looking for ways to increase quality while at the same time reducing the costs associated with software development.
Let's make the web faster - Google Code
What would be possible if browsing the web was as fast as turning the pages of a magazine? We invite you to join us in exploring and innovating across the entire spectrum of performance - from Internet protocols to the browser to website development. Together, let's make the web faster!
A List Apart: Articles: Visual Decision Making
User interface experts are often suspicious of the role of visual aesthetics in user interfaces—and of designers who insist that graphic emotive impact and careful attention to a site’s visual framework really contribute to measurable success. Underneath the arguments, I see a fundamental culture clash. In academia, text (and lots of it) is the only way serious people make serious arguments, and very polished presentations are often seen as prima facie evidence that the presenter may be hiding a weak argument with graphic frou-frou.
Know Your Core: Providing Focus for Web Applications :: UXmatters
As barriers to entry for Web applications continue to fall, clearly defining, developing, and maintaining the core essence of Web applications matter more and more. To ensure you are creating a differentiated Web service that people can understand and identify with, know your core.
Using Content to Grow Customer Relationships :: UXmatters
Want to keep your customers despite tough economic times? Don’t add yet another feature to your Web site. Stop worrying about redesigning it. Instead, take a hard look at improving your site’s content.
Make Your Web Analytics Actionable in 5 DIY Steps | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog
I’ve written about this before, but new reports keep reinforcing the point that most organizations don’t know what to make of their Web Analytics, meaning they can’t take action to improve their site based on the information they have. And while the best bet in these situations is simply to hire an expert guide, that may not be an option for you (or maybe you’re just a hard-core DIY-er when it comes to website improvement). If that’s the case, here is a quick and dirty 5 step process to get you started:
Web Strategy: A Definition | WelchmanPierpoint
Despite the simplicity and some would say obviousness of the concept of “Web Strategy,” it is a definition that I’ve struggled with for many years. Frequently, when organizations and individuals talk about Web Strategy they are talking about the organization’s approach to creating the outward facing Web site-- that with which the general public or the employee (in the case of intranets) interacts. However, I’ve come to understand that in order to be effective, a Web strategy should address not just how an organization will address the wants and needs of its customer or user base, but also how the organization will make that user experience happen operationally.
Study Finds 76% Want to Chat About Checkout Problems | Get Elastic
BoldChat recently released research on The Effectiveness of Live Chat Technology which surveyed 264 US shoppers who consider themselves regular online shoppers.
A List Apart: Articles: In Defense of Eye Candy
We’ve all seen arguments in the design community that dismiss the role of beauty in visual interfaces, insisting that good designers base their choices strictly on matters of branding or basic design principles. Lost in these discussions is an understanding of the powerful role aesthetics play in shaping how we come to know, feel, and respond.
Starting from Zero: Winning Strategies for No Search Results Pages :: UXmatters
Search results pages are some of the most visited pages on typical e-commerce sites—to say nothing of a search engine like Google. Many articles appear each year about optimal search algorithms, database performance, and the like. In contrast, very few publications focus on improving the search experience from the customer’s perspective.
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Sponsored Links
Top Contributors
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo