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Launching the User Experience Institute Today

by

Susan Weinschenk

Posted

Just a quick note to say that I’ve launched my new business today. I’ve left Human Factors International and have started a company dedicated to research and training in all things user experience. It’s called the User Experience Institute. I’ll be posting more information on it as well as getting a new website up and running soon.

Ideas for research? — The new company will focus on training (classes, on-line seminars etc), but we will also be conducting practical research in user experience. I’d like your input into what design and user experience questions you have in general. Here are some ideas other people have given me recently:

  • What is the best way to design a table?
  • What’s the latest reaction to having scrolling pages vs. breaking things up into multiple pages?
  • Are breadcrumbs really (still?) dead?

I’m collecting practical questions like these, and then we’ll design some studies to test the ideas, and put together some seminars etc to communicate. Send me your burning questions about all things related to people and technology!

You can reply in the comments, or send an email to: thebrainlady@gmail.com

Comments

9 responses to “Launching the User Experience Institute Today”

  1. Brandy Reppy Avatar
    Brandy Reppy

    How about these:
    * Is it better to progressively show relevant fields (like, only show these three fields when this checkbox is checked, and hide them if the field is not checked)?

    * Popup modals of information versus on-screen notifications.

    Good luck with the new venture!

    Reply
  2. Jasmine Avatar
    Jasmine

    Since you’re looking at scrolling, it would be interesting to know how people are reacting to the endless scrolling pages (ie Twitter and Facebook). I wonder how long they’ll scroll and how that length may vary according to content.

    Thanks for taking suggestions and best of luck on your newest venture!

    Reply
  3. Ankur Avatar
    Ankur

    1. How to personalize user experience on a specialized content site without making them feel intrusive?

    2. How to personalize user experience on an e-commerce site without making them feel intrusive and reading logs?

    Reply
  4. Paul Cormier Avatar
    Paul Cormier

    Susan, well done! One of the issues I find myself struggling with is the difficulty in implementing design solutions that not only provide the best usability and persuasion, but that are also SEO-friendly, cross-browser/platform compatible and that don’t need a ridiculous amount of coding to implement.

    For example, there’s gotta be a better way to do pagination and filtering of long lists of similar products (e.g. real estate, shopping sites) that meet the requirements above.

    Paul Cormier
    http://win-soft.com

    Reply
  5. Stacey Avatar
    Stacey

    Good luck with the new company Susan! One aspect of design that I find myself constantly trying to find information on is button placement, Primary/secondary buttons, Back and Next buttons What is the best way to lay them out? Many different theories exist but is there a true best method or is consistency across a site the key?

    Reply
  6. Regis Magyar Avatar
    Regis Magyar

    What are the most intuitive gestures to use on touch screens for various actions? Are some actions better performed by different fingers? What about the type and nature of swipes? Etc. Any chance of developing a standard for gestural actions? Smart phone novices have problems learning the gestures to use. Good luck on the institute!

    Reply
  7. Jesse Woodruff Avatar
    Jesse Woodruff

    Congratulations on the new business! I’m going to second Stacey’s post regarding button placement. Specifically, the old OK/Cancel button debate: what is the best placement? UX Movement has this piece: http://uxmovement.com/buttons/why-ok-buttons-in-dialog-boxes-work-best-on-the-right/
    which is a strong argument but doesn’t cite actual research. Is there a definitive answer?

    Reply
  8. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    Firstly, a very strongly congratulations on this major accomplishment. Looking forward to some wonderful classes.

    At present my only question how do you know whether to group or associate items vertically or horizontally.

    It seems very clear that horizontal nav bars (and the nav elements of the Maine website example in the book) are H while bullet lists might night be recognizable if there weren’t V.

    Is this simply a difference of reading vs. browsing?… we tend to prefer to browse (or recognize patters better?) in H but read in V?

    Reply
  9. Govind Choudhary Avatar
    Govind Choudhary

    Great Site !! Going through all the awesome posts on blog.Keep going..Keep sharing :)

    Reply

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