User Experience - The Usabilla Blog

Why Embracing Failure Makes Us Better Designers

on October 4, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 1 Comment

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.
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Design

How The Left/ Right Brain Theory Improves The User Experience

on September 13, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 6 Comments

Sometimes, it’s very easy to convince us. Be it in a discussion with friends, when buying a new pair of shoes, or when searching for a web service on the the Internet, if our intuition tells us to go for it, we feel confident that we are making the right decision. Then, other times, it seems like our intuition deserts us and it takes a lot more convincing to win us over for something.

It’s not a secret that our brains are capable of two different types of thinking. While the “left brain” can be considered rather objective, focusing on logic and analytics, the “right brain” is more subjective, emotional, and intuitive. Whether we use the left or the right part of our brain does not only affect our decision making, but also the way we perceive a website and how we interact with it.
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Design

The Power Of Visual Context In Web Design

on September 11, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 2 Comments

Visuals are super important in web design. We just talked about images last week and how they can help to improve the user experience of your site. A while back we discussed how infographics can help you to inform, engage, or even entertain your website visitors. And our guest author Nikolaj explained how icons can improve your web design.

But why is that? Why are visuals so important for how we perceive information and why do they have such an impact on the user experience of a website? It’s simple. Visuals deliver the context you need to communicate your messages effectively.
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Design

10 Things To Know About Images In Web Design

on September 6, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 6 Comments

Web standards rise continually, changing our expectations towards a website. We want to find information quickly, we want to socialize, we want to get entertained, and we want all of it to happen on a personal level. The key to designing efficient, attractive, and personal websites is the use of a wide range of engaging media.

What kind of media? Basically anything you can use on your website to convey a message, such as videos, audio, graphics, or images. While any of these can help to improve the user experience, the media you choose should be appropriate for your main target group with all their expectations, abilities and limitations. Also consider the devices people will use to access your site and technical limitations that come with it.
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Links

Our 5 Favorite Articles On UX (August 2012)

on August 30, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / No Comments

Again, an incredible month of increasing awareness for the user experience is coming to an end. While many of us were on vacation, others did an extraordinary job in providing the community with lots of insightful and entertaining articles on the UX.

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experiences with the community. Together we are creating a shared platform for marketers, designers, usability and UX experts, and everyone who is eager to learn about designing websites for users. Let’s keep it up!
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Demo UX Cases

User Experience Report: The 2012 Presidential Candidates’ Home Pages

on August 23, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 3 Comments

The impending 2012 US presidential election looms closer every week, and offers an excellent opportunity to take a good look at the home pages of the two primary candidates: Democrat incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

We created a visual Usabilla survey to benchmark the home pages of the two presidential candidates against each other. We focussed on the user experience and usability similarities and differences of the candidate websites. The feedback of our test participants led to interesting findings and helped us to understand how the home pages of the two leading candidates for the 2012 US Presidential Election differ from other websites.

Read on for the highlights of this interesting UX case study, or download the full report.
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Design

How To Design A More Effective Website Header

on August 2, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 9 Comments

The header of a website is likely to be the first thing people will look at when they visit your site. There are no rules how a header should look like, and basically there are no limits to your creativity when it comes to designing your header. Just make sure you exploit its full potential.

There are plenty of articles out there, listing examples of beautiful header designs. When looking for inspiration, these articles got you covered. But why is one header design better than another? What elements make a header truly effective and why?
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Links

Our 5 Favorite Articles On UX (July 2012)

on July 26, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 1 Comment

It’s almost the end of the month again. More specifically, it’s the last Thursday of the month and time for our monthly recap of great UX content. There were a whole bunch of nice articles out there this month, but we managed to select our five most favorite ones for you. With the weekend coming up, we hope you find some time to read and enjoy them.

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Design

10 Tricks How Mascots Can Improve The User Experience

on July 24, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 1 Comment

The user experience of websites has become increasingly important, maybe even a major selling point. As a result we constantly try to find new ways how we can improve the experience for our visitors. Be it through an exceptional usability, a high degree of personality, or through interaction and engagement. There are many things you can do and as long as you focus on your visitors, and as that your existing and potential customers.

A great way to make sure you appeal to your target group are mascots. These little characters can make your website more personal, authentic, trustworthy, fun, and engaging. Let’s take a look at 10 examples of mascots on the Web and their role in improving the user experience.
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Design

How To Design Cool Team Pages

on July 5, 2012 / by Sabina Idler / 18 Comments

Just like everything else on the Web, team presentations have changed a lot over the last few years. They went from non existent to being very personal, funny, and engaging. Our expectations towards the user experience of a website grows rapidly. Not only do we want clear information, and easy to go through signup processes, we also want to know who is behind a website and why we should trust them.

From the early phases of the Web until only a little while ago, websites did not give their visitors the chance to meet their team. While basic contact information has been a common thing to offer for a while now, most of the time it was not clear who you would reach once you took the daring step to actually make contact.
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