Category: design
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #112 — More nouns = more clicks
If you’ve ever had to name a button on a website, app, or landing page, then you’ve probably had the moment where you’re going back and forth between options. Do I name the button “Sign up” or “Register”? Do I use “Donate Now” or “Be a Donor”? Is there a way to word requests, or buttons that encourages people…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #110 — How Your Customers Are Really Using Their Phones
It may seem like people are using their smartphones to text a friend, check Facebook, or browse the news if they’re bored, but according to the Pew Research Center more than half of the people with smartphones have also used their phones for important tasks. These numbers are even higher for people aged eighteen to…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #109 — People Prefer Symmetry
Take any object—a photo of a face or a drawing of a circle or a seashell—and draw a line down the middle either horizontally or vertically. If the two halves on either side of the line are identical, then the object is symmetrical. People rate symmetrical faces as more attractive. The theory is that this…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #106 — People Prefer Objects With Curves
Do people prefer logos with curves rather than logos with interesting angles? Have you noticed that your favorite smartphones, tablets, and laptops tend to have rounded corners?People prefer objects with curves—a preference that’s evident even in brain scans. This field of study is called neuroaesthetics. Bar and Neta showed concrete and abstract images with and…
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Apply For A FREE Engagement Evaluation
Would you like to get FREE advice on how to create a more engaging product, website, or app? And help train the next generation of designers? I am once again teaching a semester course at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, on “Design for Engagement” in the Web and Digital Media Development department. In the…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #101 — People Read Only 60% Of An Online Article
——————————————- [A note from the author, Susan Weinschenk: “On October 25, 2009 I wrote my first “100 Things” blog post: “100 Things You Should Know About People: #1 — You Have ‘Inattention Blindness.” I didn’t know at the time that that series of 100 blog posts would turn into my book 100 Things Every Designer…
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Top 5 Reasons Your Site Might Not Be Accessible
Today’s blog post is a guest post from Jeff Horvath, Ph.D., who owns Balanced Experience — a user experience consulting firm. Can you afford a $10M lawsuit? In 2006, the National Federation of the Blind filed a class-action lawsuit against Target claiming that blind users couldn’t access much of the content on the web site…
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Why Lean UX Might Just Rock Your World
I was standing at the front of a training room at about 2 pm a week ago in Chicago. The room was on the 5th floor of a building in downtown Chicago. It wasn’t a very inspiring room. The windows looked out at another tall office building, so there was no natural light in the…
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The 4 Magic Questions To Ask Before You Design Anything
I’ll go so far as to say that if you don’t know the answers to these four questions before you design, then your design will be, at best, mediocre, and possibly a disaster. Designing anything — websites, software, apps, TV ads, physical spaces, documents – is tough. It takes art and science. Most design principles…
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Why Re-Designs Fail
Your product (website, software, app, device) is seriously under-performing and it’s time to fix it. You’ve lined up the resources, and freed up the budget. You’re about to spend a HUGE amount of time, money, and resources. It’s going to fix all the problems, right? And the new product will bring you the business/conversions/numbers you…
