Looking for design inspiration? Take a sneak peek at Usabilla Discover close
Theory
This is a guest post by Ben Snyder
Microsoft has bet the future of Windows on a risky strategy of creating an operating system that works on both tablets and desktops. This seemingly smart strategy is doomed for a number of reasons, but mostly, they just forgot the basics.
They didn’t know their customer. They didn’t solve a problem. Their messaging is unclear and they ignored user research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
As a UX designer I used to get frustrated when I had the feeling my designs didn’t really get built in the fashion I designed it. That’s the reason why I started to explore the way my UX designs get built. I learned about agile & lean, but also a lot of code. My biggest lesson so far: Think outside the box, but design within the framework.
In this post I would like to discuss different frameworks that impact our work as UX designers. I also would like to explain which frameworks you can use and how you can use them to create better user experiences.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
This is a guest post by Richard de Vries
Every medium has its architect. When we talk about brick and mortar it’s an architect, when the medium is film, it’s a director and for printed media it’s the editor in chief. For interactive media, I believe the architect is the interaction designer. With that belief, I try to get inspired by architecture in my work as an interaction designer. So when I stumbled upon “101 Things I learned in Architecture School” by Matthew Frederick I immediately bought it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
This is a guest post written by Mark Oleszczak.
Have you ever had an itch inside of your head? If so, you probably realize that every possible scenario of how to relieve that obnoxious tickling sensation would end up in a painful death.? Long pointy tube directly through the ear: death. Jumping straight up into a spike: death. Pulling your head off: death.
Read the rest of this entry »
Case Studies
Your homepage is an important portal for potential customers. It is therefore crucial this portal is not only friendly and inviting, but at the same time clear and engaging. You need to quickly communicate the main benefits of your product and give people a reason to engage with your site.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
This is a guest post by Jeffrey van den Dungen Bille.
When you read the Usabilla blog, there is no need in saying that UX is all about touch points. Neither do I need to tell you that your support center is a very important point of contact for your customers. Too bad that support centers are often overlooked, leaving aside the potential they bear for improving the user experience.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
With the advent of modern technology and new standards, the face of the Internet has evolved and so have our beloved websites. Websites are no longer limited to being informational portals for business firms that are in need of a communication channel for sharing information with their end-users. In order for a website design to be successful, you have to consider much more than this initial functionality: your visitors and the user experience of your site.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
Failure is unacceptable. Or so it seems in our success driven society. A meritocracy that has taught us to see and judge each other by our achievements. It has become a central aspect of our lives to be successful, or at least not to fail in what we do. But why is that? Is failure really something evil that we need to avoid by all means?
Personally, I think there is more to failure than the obvious. Failure also bears a lot of potential and chances for improvements and even greater success. If we can stop to project failure on to ourselves, and instead see failure in our actions and decisions, maybe we can learn to embrace failure as something good.
Read the rest of this entry »
Design
Content is king! It probably doesn’t take much convincing from my side to tell you that your content is the most valuable asset of your website. Be it that you offer information, services, or products, your content is the reason you have a website at all. People visit your website because they are looking for something and it should be your main goal to help them find it.
We talked about content presentation a few times lately. For example, we discussed how you can write better web content, how to improve the readability on your site, or how to increases your web credibility through content presentation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Theory
While multimedia is becoming increasingly popular on the Web, there is no way around classic text to effectively communicate with your visitors. I admit, the Internet has been around for awhile now and you might think: “Text, don’t we all know by know how to handle it?” And I agree, we’ve had enough time to internalize the basics about written web content. For some reason, however, there are plenty of sites that still struggle with their text presentation.
A while back we looked at how to write successful web content and we gained insights into how to make content targeted, attractive, and effective. Now, let’s zoom in closer and look at how you can make sure that your content is readable. Did you know that reading online is 25 percent slower than reading from printed material? According to a study by Nielsen, your visitors read only between 20 and 28 percent of the words on your site.
Read the rest of this entry »