User research can sometimes be boring, especially classic usability research where you have strictly defined use case scenarios that you’re going through over and over again. Spending a day with 10 or 20 different subjects going through the same scenario over and over can be pretty draining, making it hard to stay focused and engaged.…

When it comes to balance, the physical world tells us that weight is associated with gravity and objects being pulled downward. Visual weight, however, is more 3-dimensional in that it asserts itself in other directions as well. The visual weight each object carries pushes some UI elements to the forefront while causing others to recede.…

Selective Attention is the “looking but not seeing” that occurs when someone is focused on performing a specific task. This concept in psychology can often explain why users in testing situations fail to see certain interface elements, even if those elements are in plain sight. Concepts such as human visual perception not being as reliable…

Few UI designers will argue the importance of user research in the creation of a quality, successful User interface. What may be slightly more debatable is how and when to integrate the data from user research into all phases of a product’s development. Bridging user research into design, the different forms that research data can…

Certain design techniques tend to work the best in helping UI designers deliver successful user interface solutions. These design techniques can often go a long way to making a user interface intuitive and the experience a pleasurable one for users. Among the useful techniques beneficial to UI designers is typesetting buttons. The Proper typesetting of…

An interesting article from the Usability Professionals Association discusses important ways to integrate testing with people with disabilities into your current usability testing methods. Changing user profiles to include different disability categories and modifying user tasks to consider supportive technology that aids disabled users and how it effects task completion and fatigue are among the…

Measuring the User Experience, by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert, talks about the use of “Confidence Intervals” within usability testing. The authors describe Confidence Intervals as “a range that estimates the true population value for a statistic.” It comes across as a better way of obtaining more accurate testing results without having to greatly increase…

Steve Jobs’ impact on user interface design and the user experience industry is incredible. The emphasis and importance that Jobs and Apple have put on extremely user-friendly design can’t be overstated in terms of the ripple effect it has had throughout user interface design firms worldwide. That his vision and philosophy towards design has created…

Think good design is expensive? Just wait and see what bad design ends up costing you. -karj23 Good design is good business. -Thomas J Watson I’ve been amazed at how often those outside the discipline of design assume that what designers do is decoration. Good design is problem solving. -Jeffery Veen

Persuasive Design is described as “the use of psychology in design to influence behavior” through persuasion and social influence instead of coercion. It’s an intriguing idea in that User Research helps to understand behavior and User Interface design generally enables behavior. There is the belief that Persuasive Design is the next step in using design…

Smashing Magazine provides a thorough look into common UI patterns and their importance in creating an effective and successful user interface and user experience. The idea of design patterns was first introduced in the 1960s by an architect named Christopher Alexander. These design patters provided solutions to reoccurring problems–and thus UI design patterns are solutions…

Placement consistency of graphics in a user interface system not only helps users learn the system, it helps their muscles “learn” the system as well. A user’s constant and continual use of a product’s UI causes their muscles to “memorize” certain movements and actions. For example, when a user’s muscle memory tells them that the…