10 User Experience Related Resources & Findings

The Five Competencies of User Experience Design

Throughout my career as a user experience designer, I have continually asked myself three questions:

• What should my deliverables be?
• Will my deliverables provide clarity to me and their audience?
• Where do my deliverables and other efforts fit within the spectrum of UX design?

Useful Glossaries For Web Designers and Developers

In a day in age where there are just as many freelancers as there are university educated designers, developers, and all around web gurus, it is amazing to me how much many of us don’t know or have forgot about our trade. As a self-taught designer, I will admit to you upfront that there is a lot I don’t know when it comes to official jargon or certain aspects of things like typography and graphic design. It is these reasons that I call upon glossaries from time to time.

Quick Usability Checklist

After reviewing websites for a few months, I’ve begun to see general patterns emerge that make a site more or less usable. In this post, I’d like to highlight some of the more common problems designers should address on their own sites in a Usability checklist of sorts.

Optimizing Conversion Rates: It’s All About Usability

In eCommerce usability improvements usually have a huge impact on conversion rates. However, usability doesn’t only mean better visual guide or better site hierarchy. It also means a better communication with potential customers using a professional, trustworthy design, delivering the right information at the right time and communicating with users instead of throwing ad-slogans at them.

10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines

Everyone would agree that usability is an important aspect of Web design. Whether you’re working on a portfolio website, online store or Web app, making your pages easy and enjoyable for your visitors to use is key. Many studies have been done over the years on various aspects of Web and interface design, and the findings are valuable in helping us improve our work. Here are 10 useful usability findings and guidelines that may help you improve the user experience on your websites.

iPhone Needs a New Home

The guys over at Teehan + Lax seriously made some awesomerness for the iPhone home-screen. This is a proposed home screen design that I think would work better then what the iPhone has now, which in turn, give you a more seamless experience.

Confirming Passwords is Annoying: Is here a better way?

The defining characteristic of a password field is that it abstracts text as dots. While the intention of this behavior is understandable (it makes users feel secure and protects from prying eyes), the unintended effect is that it creates a usability problem. Users can’t tell if they’ve entered a password incorrectly until after the site’s validation informs them. It’s like typing with your eyes closed.

Convert and the Evolution of a User Interface

An awesome post about the usability design of Convert. Just a constant reminder that experience design is always changing and the finished product is not going to the be the first.

Testled – Usable Usability Testing

See where your users spent their time, what they missed, and where they had problems. Analyse what they typed, where their mouse moved, and even what they are saying and feeling, with data straight from their webcam.

Off the Desktop and Into the World

Great post that “makes you think”. Dane Peterson talks about how Experience Design isn’t just “on a computer” and there are experiences everywhere.