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Announcements
With Usabilla it is easy to add additional information to your participants by adjusting the URL to your test. Adding this additional information just got a lot more useful, because we added filter options directly in the sidebar when you analyze your test.
Before I show you the filter options, I will quickly recap how you can alter URLs.
Theory
“The way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.”
In their frequently cited book Metaphors we live by, Lakoff and Johnson demonstrate the important role of metaphors in our language, and also in our every day life. They claim that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, which means that we use metaphors to reason and understand the world.
Conceptual metaphors link a familiar concept with one that is unfamiliar. They help us better understand something that might otherwise be too complex or too abstract for our mind to grasp. Conceptual metaphors make abstract concepts more concrete and therefore bring them within our reach.
Read the rest of this entry »
Demo UX Cases
NU.nl, the biggest news network in the Netherlands, redesigned it’s website this year. The main objective of the redesign was to improve the overall user experience and retaining the clear presentation of content, which the website is known for. One specific goal was to direct more visitors from the homepage to the content that the news network offers on different topics. Annemarie Boon, usability specialist at Sanoma Media, used Usabilla in the process to achieve this goal. Thank you Annemarie, for being so kind to share your findings with us.
Announcements
Our good friends at Bolt | Peters are hosting User Research Friday, where UX, research and design professionals discuss methods and meet each other. The event is held in New York, but simulcasted in San Francisco and in the Usabilla office. We have a 2-way line with the event in NYC, so we can watch all the talks and ask questions.
It’s on friday November the 18th, from 7pm – 11pm. Please let us know if you can come by registering here. Spots are limited.
Theory
UX University is a platform that aims to bridge the gap between the academic and the real world. We are proud to be part of this initiative and even more proud that the last edition was in our office in Amsterdam. Our good friend Hidde wrote a blogpost on the UX University website that we kindly republish here.
Maurits at the third UX University event
Theory
Sketches, wireframes, et al -- all worthy of testing
Whether you test your work on a regular cadence or only once or twice per cycle, the inevitable question that arises is what to actually test. We start to wrestle with the pressure of maximizing our time and money spent on testing and getting the most insight for that expense. Is it best to put a rough sketch of an idea in front of potential or existing customers or to wait until there’s a more fleshed out version to show? Should it be clickable (really clickable, i.e., working code) or a mocked up experience created using Axure, Powerpoint, Fireworks or any other tool?
Announcements
Did you happen to hear the news last May of a Chinese labor camp forcing detainees to play World of Warcraft as part of a huge money-making scam? Well, I have another idea that might not generate any money to the guards, but will definitely cause pain with the detainees: try to book a sailing trip to Greece online! Seriously, my eyes were hurting, I got stressed, and had nightmares that I’ll spend all my summer in the rainy Netherlands.
Demo UX Cases
Summer finally hit Amsterdam. In the vacation high season we decided to devote our very first quarterly user experience report to the travel sector. We lined up a total of 18 travel sites in three different categories (hotels, airlines, and comparison sites) and invited 800 participants to give feedback and perform simple tasks.
Announcements
When the planet Alderaan is destroyed in A New Hope, Obi-Wan senses “a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced”. Now, like another Obi-Wan Kenobi, Harry Brignull has felt a disturbance in the Force and upon realizing that Dark Patters pose a threat to the whole UX community, gives a heads-up to all of us through his Dark Patterns wiki.
Design
I believe that the difference between a good and a poor UX designer is that a good UX designer finds out all the questions a user has and answers them well in his design. A poor UX designer creates a design that actually raises more questions than it solves. Let me explain a method I use to get to the good questions.
