Web clicks: new decision every 10-120 seconds

“When surfing the Web, you make a decision every 10–120 seconds: leave or stay on this page; leave or stay on this site. Where to click now? Where to click next?”

Jacob Nielsen:Velocity of Media Consumption: TV vs. the Web

The end of the family tree logic

“It turns out that so much gene-swapping has been going on between different kinds of bacteria that neither family trees nor the idea of species make sense.”
Matt Ridley in Wired UK, December 2009 ‘Open Source Evolution’

The Myth of Usability Testing

“Simply put, usability tests can provide huge insight into the patterns and nuances of human behavior.”

… but they fail to deliver lots of things that we often praise them for. Great read, definitely recommend it!

Robert Hoekman Jr.: The Myth of Usability Testing

Sounds familiar …

“You know the story: User experience brings the structural framework and behaviors of the interface; creative brings the visual design; client marketing brings the copy; business brings content; our engineering folks were sometimes bringing error messages. When each of these more tangible elements are cooked up in separate quarters without a shared vision or intent how can we possibly deliver an optimal experience, let alone agree on what that experience should be? It’s not that the meal is bad–it often makes a lot of people very happy–it just seemed that we were missing out on a chance to serve up something better, something that would distinguish itself as a dining experience people would remember in a marketplace of potluck dinners.”

Cindy Chastein: Experience Themes – great article on how to use narratives for integrating tasks and teams in Web and App development!

Cognitive appropriation: Blooms hierarchy of cognitive abilities

Bloom argued there are six levels of domain expertise, and his concern was that education systems at the time were rooted firmly on knowledge, the lowest level. (…) The objectives are a hierarchy showing your ability with a specific domain. Informally you can think of them like this…

1. Knowledge — The ability to recite lists, rules, formulas, specific facts.
2. Comprehension — The ability to understand the reasoning behind said rules/facts, and translate and re-state where necessary
3. Application — The ability to apply acquired knowledge in new situations to produce solutions
4. Analysis — The ability to recognize patterns, question reasoning, distinguish facts from inferences.
5. Synthesis — The ability create new knowledge, methods, formulas, based analysis of problems.
6. Evaluation — The ability to create multiple solutions and select the most effective in a given situation

Des on the contrast blog

Search results best practices

For easy reference, here is a list of some of the best practices that have been gleaned from different search results pages:

• User should have easy access to the search box for follow-up searches
• Where possible, search terms should be clearly indicated at the top, and in context in the results
• Related sponsored links can be included below the search box, near the bottom, or on the right
• Titles should be clickable and clearly differentiated from details
• Visited links should be indicated
• Pagination units should be visibly block-shaped and have a hover effect, to easily differentiate from one another
• Related products, tags, or keywords should be displayed in a non-obtrusive section
• E-Commerce sites should allow the “view” to be toggled between “list” and “grid”
• Advanced search options should be easily accessible
• Should allow re-sorting or filtering of results
• Where possible, results pages should have RSS feeds or “subscribe” options
• For complex interfaces, clear, easy-to-access search tips or instructions should be provided
• Sorting and Filters should be JavaScript or Ajax-driven, where possible
• Popularity or star-ratings should be shown for individual results
• Include an option to increase the number of results per page
• To monitor future improvements, request feedback from users after searches are conducted
• If results span different sections of the website, indicate this by sub-headings or other dividers

Louis Lazaris: Search Results Design: Best Practices and Design Patterns

UX principles for CMS Drupal:

UX design principles for Drupal 7:

1. Make the most frequent tasks easy and less frequent tasks achievable.
2. Design for the 80%
3. Privilege the Content Creator
4. Make the default settings smart

Drupal 7 User Experience Project

5 Core usability principles

Usability principles – it’s probably been said a thousand times, with far too many words. This is my take on it:

1. Accessibility
   Interfaces that do not comply with average accessibility standards will most likely cause usability issues for everybody.
2. Visibility
   In digital systems, everything is hidden by default. If something is not visible or made explicit, I cannot use it.
3. Consistency
   Almost every visit of a site involves some learning (which is good). Within one site or application, however, I do not want to unlearn or re-learn the visual language, the labels, or the underlying structure.
4. Hierarchy
   Visual hierarchy and semantic hierarchy allows me to quickly establish a logical system and to carry out tasks quicker.
5. Recoverability
   It’s great to be able to do smart things. It’s essential, however, that I am made aware of any changes made (feedback) and that I easily can reset a default/previous state (recover).

Usable/user-friendly CMS

A usable CMS will:

1. minimise the number of options
2. be robust and error-proof
3. provide task-based interfaces
4. hide implementation details
5. meet core usability guidelines
6. match authors’ mental models
7. support both frequent and infrequent users
8. provide efficient user interfaces
9. provide help and instructions
10. minimise training required
11. support self-sufficiency

James Robertson: 11 usability principles for CMS products

Faceted Search

1. Decide on your filter value-selection paradigm—either drill-down or parallel selection.
2. Provide an obvious and consistent way to undo filter selection.
3. Always make all filters easily available.
4. At every step in the search workflow, display only filter values that correspond to the available items, or inventory.
5. Provide filter values that encompass all items, or the complete inventory.

G. Nudelman: Best Practices for Designing Faceted Search Filters