Back to Basics: Gestalt and Proximity
I had an ah-ha! moment today, one for which my instinct was to immediately chastise myself, and say “duh Lauren”. But then I took a second thought and reminded myself that while like most users I tend to blame myself…
Form over Function
In my attempt to order lunch this afternoon I was rendered stupid. One of those moments, where a website literally made me feel like an idiot. Then after a brief smack of my palm on my forehead I decided to…
Error: Please contact me at (xxx) xxx-xxxx
I’m giving a talk on forms tonight and to get my head focused I was scanning over some last minute articles on the subject when I came across the best error message idea ever. It’s not for every error message,…
Designing Deliverables – The UX of Communication
Too often I will see a report or set of recommendations for the user experience of something that in and of itself is not usable. This couldn’t be a more ironic and sad thing. We are the people who make…
5 Steps for Facilitating a Remote Usability Test
This post breaks down facilitating a remote usability test in 5 steps: Pre-Planning, Study Setup, Pre-Study Survey, The Study and Completing the Study. You’ll probably notice that most of the steps are very similar to an on-location usability test, but…
Annoying Interactions at Target.com
I had an annoying experience at Target.com today, enough so that it inspired me to write a post about it. To be clear, I love Target and shop there all the time. However, the website I think could still use…
Action Buttons, Designing for Use
A couple weeks ago my email subscribers received a link for a “new post” that didn’t go anywhere. It’s not that the page was broken, or that the post didn’t exist. Instead the problem was that I was working on…
10 Web Design and Layout Principles Every Designer Should Know
I recently gave a presentation at the South Florida User Experience Meetup on the top 10 web design and layout principles you should know when designing your website. Below is a summary as well as the presentation with some screen…
Take Advantage of Existing Standards
What are standards? Standards are agreed upon conventions for a particular process or visual pattern based on research and proven best practices. They provide a basis for commonality across many diverse things. They allow us to learn something once, and…
Design Review: Lotus Notes 8 vs. MS Outlook 2007
Design Review: Lotus Notes 8 versus Outlook 2007 Recently our office started upgrading some employees to Lotus 8 and I decided to give it a try. Before I get started, let me give you a little information on my email…