ux digest » usability

Use breadcrumbs for multilevel hierarchies

Verne — Sun, 24 May 2009 04:00:17 +0000

As part of helping your user navigate your site’s content, consider implementing breadcrumbs to compliment your primary navigation. Breadcrumbs are a series of links that show the hierarchical path to the current page a user is on and usually follows the convention of Parent > Child > … > Current Page. If you’re running a site that hosts many different pages that are categorized or organized in some kind of multilevel hierarchy, breadcrumbs will come in handy for the following reasons:

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It helps the user easily identify where they are in the site.
It requires less clicks to return to a parent page.
It can attract users to browse other areas of the site if they’ve entered the site through a child page.

Ideally, breadcrumbs should be used on sites with 3 or more levels (i.e. an ecommerce site).
Breadcrumbs should be in the top half of the site, but below the primary navigation (if it is horizontal).
Breadcrumbs are most commonly horizontal and ordered left to right.
Typically, ‘>’ is used to separate links in a breadcrumb, but anything that implies the parent-child relationship can work.

Source: Breadcrumbs in Web Design: Examples and Best Practices (Smashing Magazine)

Optimize your pathway pages

Verne — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:00:06 +0000

Pee-wees Big Adventure ipod Pathway pages are pages on your site that provides links and information about a collection of individual items (be they articles, products, pictures, etc). Pathway pages usually represent a category or group of items. For example, clicking Patio Furniture on a furniture website’s navigation will bring you to a pathway page that shows all the various types of patio furniture available. From this collection, a user will choose one to explore.

It’s important to recognize the purpose of a pathway page: to help the user find what they’re looking for. As such, pathway pages act more as a supplementary navigation more than a content page.

From Good Usability

When we’re on a pathway page, we’re still on the journey to the content we need. We don’t want to read, we just want to find the link and move on.

The lesson here is to optimize your pathway pages by:

Making it stupid simple to find specific items by laying them out in an intuitive and friendly manner;
Making it easy to navigate to specific items by linking headings, thumbnails and Read More text; and
Decluttering the page by removing all unnecessary content.

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Emphasize important actions

Verne — Sat, 16 May 2009 05:34:05 +0000

Bring clarity to the user’s experience by emphasizing actions that are more important than others. In the case of web forms, emphasizing the Save action over the Cancel/Back action helps the user find the button they’re looking for even quicker.

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Source: Priority provides clarity (Creative Briefing)

Mimic the behaviour of desktop apps

Verne — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:15:57 +0000

For those building web apps, help the user’s transition from the desktop to the browser be more seamless and natural by mimicing the bahaviour of desktop apps on your web app. Code libraries have matured to allow for drag and drop and other advanced interactivity – take advantage of this to help deliver a more familiar and comfortable experience.

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Usability Checklist

Verne — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:00:37 +0000

Websites come in many shapes, forms, designs, colours and layouts. But nearly every site has a common set of elements that subconsciously help the user to identify where they are, what they’re looking for, how to find it, and what to do next. Before you go any further, run your sites through this checklist to make sure you have all the basic elements: a site ID, a page name, a clear navigation, an option to search, an indication of the user’s current location, a tagline or site description, and a sense of the site’s page hierarchy.

Source: Quick Usability Checklist (UX Booth)

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When to use text links and buttons

Verne — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:19:08 +0000

Text links are typically used to navigate between pages, sections or views, while buttons are used to perform an action whereby data is passed, processed, altered or stored.

Around the Bend dvdrip This is one of the most common conventions, but not the only one that exists. However, it is an important one to keep in mind when deciding when to use links and when to use buttons throughout your site.

Source: Creating Usable Links and Buttons (UX Booth)

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User testing with Userfly

Verne — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:00:55 +0000

User testing is one of the best ways to gather insight on the pains and gains of your site’s user experience. It’s difficult to fully picture how your users interact and react to your site’s features, interface and information until you’ve actually seen them do it in their own natural environment. Unfortunately, unless you can be a fly on every one of your site’s visitors’ wall, gathering this kind of data is next to impossible without investing into expensive usability tests.

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Userfly strives to fill this gap with its new usability testing service Secretary movie : a single line of javascript embedded into your site’s source code will give you access to information you thought you’d only see in your geeky dreams. By embedding the code, Userfly captures every click, scroll and type your visitors make and lets you replay them on your own screen, as if you were indeed a fly on their wall.

Be warned though – while you are able to capture your visitors’ every move, you’re still missing a critical piece in the mix: the user’s thought process. While you watch the silent playbacks, you have no sense of what is happening on the user’s end, which may skew the results. Nonetheless, Userfly provides a window into an area that was previously very difficult to access at an affordable rate (free to try, $0.05 per recorded user).

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Avoid common usability issues

Verne — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:16:23 +0000

Avoid some of the most common usability pitfalls by ensuring that you:

Keep the main site navigation consistent throughout the entire site.
Set expectations when it comes to the number of steps/stages required on a web form.
Keep copy concise and to-the-point and break paragraphs up using headings.
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Let users access the information they’re searching for as easily as possible.
Make your contact information easy to find.

Source: Common Web Site Usability Issues to Avoid (Ranting & Raving)

Ranting & Raving also offers a great list of 10 Commandments of User Experience. articles on cytotec

Stick with conventions for better recognition

Verne — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:43:25 +0000

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Be careful when redesigning conventional elements as it may reduce your users’ ability to spot them easily. For example, the orange RSS feed icon has mass recognition, but changing it to a different colour may hinder users from finding it as fast.

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Other conventions better left untouched: shopping cart icons and search boxes. zyprexa lawyers southern california

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Source: Keeping Conventions : When Being Unique is a Bad Thing (UX Booth)

Provide visual feedback when actions are performed

Verne — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:25:29 +0000

When clicking a button, expanding a section, moving an item, loading data, or interacting with your website in any other way, a user should receive some kind of visual feedback (i.e. a loading icon, the movement of elements, etc). breast enhancement brava

Google’s minimalist UI and OS X’s slow-responding window resizing are examples discussed.

Source: Is Your App Responsive? (Usability Post)

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