Usability

UX Designers Can Save Your App by Identifying Usability Problems Before You Hit the Market

The software industry is moving at a faster pace every day and the bar for quality has never been higher. When I graduated from college in 1989 a guy working in his garage could create a best-selling game. Today, that would take as many people working together as to create the average summer…

Eight Golden Rules: Rule 2 - Cater to Universal Usability

Continuing this series, the second of Shneiderman’s Golden Rules is that User Experience Designers should design systems and software for the widest range of reasonably possible users.  This is a challenging, but not insurmountable, activity. People come in a wide variety.  For example,…

Usability and Modern Visual Design: An Effective Harmony

Where did the buttons go?  Significant aspects of modern visual design have made a huge impact on the development of graphical user interfaces across web, mobile, desktop and embedded systems.  While flat-design holds many attractive qualities, implementation of the style has potential to…

Notes From a UX Pro Over a Cup of Joe: Talking to a Project Manager About Usability

I just made it to my daily 10:30am coffee break (the one where I refill my coffee mug, since I already drank my 8am coffee) and wanted to spend a moment to chat about usability/user experience (UX) and project management (PM). Now, I’ve never met you, so you might be on the usability side, the…

User Attention and Duration of Engagement in Public Kiosks

Common user experience (UX) wisdom says that you have a short period of time (approximately 3 seconds to 3 minutes) to attract, seduce and convince a user to use your app, site or device. Once you capture their attention, you need to sustain a long-term relationship by offering the user real value…