Category: usability
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There Is No One Right Way To Categorize Information
My favorite conference of my career so far, either for attending or speaking, was the UXLX conference (for user experience designers). I spoke at the May 2010 event (a year ago). It was my first ever time in Europe (I don’t count changing planes in Amsterdam). I was ok when I left the States, but…
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Design Challenge: Help Ilovebluesea.com and the fish
Martin Reed is a tall, young entrepeneur with a passion for fish. I met up with him in San Francisco recently, and we sat down at an outside table at Hog Island Oyster Bar in the Ferry Building. I tried raw oysters for the first time, and Martin told me about sustainable fish, and the…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #96 — Past Experience And Expectations Determine Where People Look
Where do people look first on a computer screen? Where do they look next? It depends partially on what they are doing and expecting. Left to right? — If people read in languages that move from left to right, then they tend to look at the screen from left to right. If they read from…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #93 — Titles Provide Context
Read this paragraph: First you sort the items into like categories. Using color for sorting is common, but you can also use other characteristics, such as texture or type of handling needed. Once you have sorted the items, you are ready to use the equipment. You want to process each category from the sorting separately.…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: # 91 — Size Matters When It Comes To Fonts
When it comes to fonts, size matters a lot. The font size needs to be big enough so that people can read it without strain. Not just old folks — For older people this is critical. Starting in their 40’s, most people have increasing difficulty reading small fonts. But it’s not just older people that…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #90 — Recognition Is Easier Than Recall
Let’s say I asked you to remember this list of words: Apple Table Peach Window Chair Pear Orange Fork Mango And then later on I asked you to reconstruct the list from memory. That is called a “recall” memory task. Now let’s say I bring you into a kitchen and ask you what items in…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #83 — People Will Use Shortcuts Only If They Are Easy
Do you use keyboard shortcuts when you are typing on the computer? Do you have some you use, but not others? For example, as I’ve been writing my new book on my computer, I use the keyboard shortcuts for cut and paste about 100 times a day. But I never use the keyboard shortcut to…
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100 Things You Should Know About People #79 — People of Different Ages Have Different Error Strategies
Let’s say you study two people using a smartphone that has an advanced still and video camera. One is 22 years old, and the other is 47 years old. Neither of them has used this smartphone/camera before. You give them a set of tasks to do. Will there be a difference between them? Will they…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #77 — Not All Mistakes Are Bad
You buy a new digital camera and you start learning how to use it. Chances are that in the first few days of using it you will make a lot of mistakes –press the wrong buttons, forget where things are in the menus, and so on. We tend to think that mistakes are bad and…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #73 — 1st Screening About Trusting A Website Is Based On The "Look And Feel"
There isn’t a lot of actual research on trust and website design. There are a lot of opinions, but not necessarily much real data. Research by Elizabeth Sillence and team (2004) provides some solid data, at least in regard to health websites. Sillence researched how people decide whether and which health websites to trust. Participants in…
