#20677
Transitional Layouts in (X)HTML and CSS: An Interview with Eric A. Meyer
In a pivotal user test a couple years ago we found out one of the secrets of great web sites: they inspire confidence in users. This article explores how to measure it and use it to your advantage.
Porter, Joshua. User Interface Engineering (2003). Articles>Web Design>XHTML
#14212
We hear all the time from web designers that they spend countless hours and resources trying to speed up their web pages' download time because they believe that people are turned off by slow-loading pages. What we discovered may surprise you.
Perfetti, Christine. User Interface Engineering (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability
#18720
Usability Myths Need Reality Checks
Not so very long ago, it was agreed that five to eight users was enough for a good usability test. Somehow, this idea achieved mythic status. We believed it. We preached it to everyone who would listen. It survived in areas where it had been disproved, and was introduced into new situations where it didn't even apply. What gives some ideas such staying power? What did the five-user myth accomplish? It reconciled test plans with testing budgets! If five to eight users are enough, then it's safe to act on the results of a test series with only five to eight users.
Schroeder, Will. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing
#19750
Usability Testing Best Practices: An Interview with Rolf Molich
If you’ve done any usability testing, design evaluations, or heuristic inspections, then you’ve been affected by Rolf Molich's pioneering work.
Perfetti, Christine. User Interface Engineering (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing
#14190
User Interface Design Bibliography
Chauncey Wilson of BMC Software, Inc. has compiled this excellent list of resources. We are grateful to him for allowing us to post it here. To contact Chauncey directly, send e-mail to chaunsee@aol.com. This bibliography was last updated in December 1998.
Wilson, Chauncey E. User Interface Engineering (1998). Resources>Bibliographies>User Interface
#14203
Users Continue After Category Links
Over the last year, we've been looking at how to get users to find valuable content that they aren't aware of when they first come to the site.
User Interface Engineering (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability
#14205
Users Decide First, Move Second
Designers use interactive design elements, such as fly outs, rollovers, and dropdowns, to conserve space, make the screen less cluttered, and enhance the users' experience. We were surprised when users succeeded more often when they didn't encounter these design elements than when they did.
Ojakaar, Erik. User Interface Engineering (2002). Design>Web Design>Interactive
#14204
Users Don't Learn to Search Better
When we watched 30 users trying to search various sites for content they were interested in, we noticed a peculiar phenomenon: The more times the users searched, the less likely they were to find what they wanted.
User Interface Engineering (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search
#10585
Using Paper Prototypes to Manage Risk
History is littered with the carcasses of failed products and the companies that built them — product development is indeed a risky business. Learn how we help companies create paper mock-ups of their product interface so that they can find out early on how to make it successful in the market.
#23982
What Causes Customers to Buy on Impulse? 
This paper studies the design elements within e-commerce sites that motivate impulse purchases online.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>E Commerce
#10581
Development teams sometimes ask us about adding a wizard to their application. Should they use a wizard or a cue card? Isn’t a wizard just a patch for a bad interface? We conducted a usability study of several wizards in popular software and have some ideas about which situations can best be solved with a wizard.
User Interface Engineering (1997). Articles>Usability>Online
#14198
Why Amazon Succeeds -- And Why It Won't Help You
Amazon is one of the best on-site search capabilities we've ever seen. But surprisingly, the reason why it works so well is likely to be the same reason why Search won't work well on your site.
User Interface Engineering (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search
#10580
In our most recent web-site studies, we watched users look for information within web sites. Our goal was to gather data about what makes a good link, but we did not tell users whether or not they should use the site’s search facilities. Users went to these search engines in almost half the tasks. Maybe they shouldn’t have.
User Interface Engineering (1997). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#14196
Words Drive Action: An Interview with Gerry McGovern
Gerry McGovern is a world-renowned content-management expert and author of the books, 'Content Critical' and 'The Web Content Style Guide'. User Interface Engineering's Christine Perfetti and Josh Porter recently talked with Gerry about the importance of an editorial perspective in a web development process. Here is what Gerry had to say about his experiences.
Perfetti, Christine and Josh Porter. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Content Management>Web Design
#32923
The KJ-Technique: A Group Process for Establishing Priorities
In design, our resources are limited. Priorities become a necessity. We need to ensure we are working on the most important parts of the problem. How do we assess what is most important?
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2004). Articles>Information Design>Project Management>Charts and Graphs
#32969
We’ve seen in testing that users make important judgments very quickly when they arrive at a web page. That’s one of the reasons we use 5-second tests as our primary technique for evaluating users’ first impressions.
Perfetti, Christine. User Interface Engineering (2006). Articles>Web Design
#33066
Intranet Portals and Scent are Made for Each Other
How does the intranet designer ensure that employees can productively find the important content and functions, with minimum frustration, with a network growing that quickly? Many designers are turning to Portals -- a set of pages that act as a launch point for every dive into the intranet's ocean of content. We've found that some designers confused portals with a site's home page, but they actually function differently. Home pages guide users to content within a specific site, but because the intranet is actually a collection of sites, (such as human resources, sales, or individual project information,) they each have their own home pages.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2005). Articles>Web Design>Intranets
#33112
Five Things to Know About Users
Over the years, we've studied the usability of hundreds of product and web site designs. We've seen designs that were incredibly effective for users and designs that fell tremendously short. One emerging pattern in our ongoing research is that design teams that know a lot about their users are more likely to produce user experiences that are usable, effective, and pleasing.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design
#33203
Years back, we compared successful clickstreams (clickstreams that resulted in users accomplishing their goals, as observed in tons of usability tests) with unsuccessful clickstreams (clickstreams where users abandoned their goals before completing), looking for any clues that would help us predict behaviors in one that we didn’t see in the other. One factor we looked for was whether the clickstreams contained image links versus text links — does one type of link show up more often in successful clickstreams than the other. Our finding was when users clicked in image links they were just as likely to succeed or fail as when the clicked on text links. There was no statistically-meaningful difference.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Hypertext
#33225
Lifestyles of the Link-Rich Home Pages
Contrast the Dove home page to the Dove site map. Using 5 times as many links, this page gives a real picture of the content of the site. Even with 148 links, it is well designed and organized nicely. It's easy for users to find what is available quickly.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2006). Articles>Web Design>Hypertext
#33230
Users say they don’t like to scroll. As a result, many designers try to keep their web pages short. But one of the most significant findings of our research on web-site usability is that users are perfectly willing to scroll. However, they’ll only do it if the page gives them strong clues that scrolling will help them find what they’re looking for.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (1998). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#33388
Using Ajax for Creating Web Applications
In the past few years, developers could choose between two approaches when building a web application. The first approach was to create a screen-based system with very rich interactions using a sophisticated, powerful technology such as Java or Flash. The alternative approach was to create a page-based system using easier-to-learn core web standards like XHTML and CSS whose more basic capabilities force less-rich interactions. A new technological approach, dubbed Ajax, might just be the right mix between the two.
Porter, Joshua. User Interface Engineering (2005). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Ajax
#33415
Documenting Design with Dan Brown
If you ask designers what the most frustrating parts about designing a project are, one of the top answers would be undoubtedly be “communicating and documenting the design process.” And with good reason… it’s not easy. That’s why I interviewed Dan Brown for this week’s SpoolCast. I don’t know of anyone who knows more about solid design communications than Dan.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2008). Design>Collaboration>Communication>Podcasts
#33427
Guiding Users with Persuasive Design: An Interview with Andrew Chak
An easy way to define persuasive web design is to contrast it with usable design. Usability focuses on giving users the ability to complete a transaction if they so desire. A usable site makes it easy for users to complete transactions, from buying products to convincing users to read featured articles. Unfortunately, having a usable web site is not always enough to convince users to transact. Even if a user can complete a transaction on your site, doesn't mean that they will transact. To be successful, sites must go beyond Usability by focusing on Persuasive Design.
Perfetti, Christine and Andrew Chak. User Interface Engineering (2003). Articles>Interviews>Usability>Persuasive Design
#33853
Yes, if you do it right, using Ajax techniques can improve accessibility. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Ajax is like most techniques and technologies on the web—they are what you make of them.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Ajax
