Design teams rely on a combination of principles, patterns, heuristics, and charters to create consistent and usable experiences in a collaborative way.
Error messages can be a crucial point in the user experience. To be effective, they must be clearly visible, which can be accomplished by displaying them close to the error's source, using noticeable, redundant, and accessible indicators, designing them based on their impact, and avoiding displaying them prematurely.
Recalling items from scratch is harder than recognizing the correct option in a list of choices because the extra context helps users retrieve information from memory.
Step-by-step instructions to systematically review your product to find potential usability and experience problems. Download a free heuristic evaluation template.
Identify UX problems with error messages consistently and effectively using a scoring rubric based on established usability best practices for error messages.
3 methods for cheap and fast UX work are still good advice to emphasize iterative design and accelerate UX maturity improvements (This was Jakob Nielsen's keynote at the in-person Washington DC UX Conference)
Interface help comes in two forms: proactive and reactive. Proactive help is intended to get users familiar with an interface while reactive help is meant for troubleshooting and gaining system proficiency.
Shortcuts— unseen by the novice user — speed up the interaction for the expert users such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
Error messages can be a crucial point in the user experience. To be effective, they must be clearly visible, which can be accomplished by displaying them close to the error's source, using noticeable, redundant, and accessible indicators, designing them based on their impact, and avoiding displaying them prematurely.
3 methods for cheap and fast UX work are still good advice to emphasize iterative design and accelerate UX maturity improvements (This was Jakob Nielsen's keynote at the in-person Washington DC UX Conference)
Jakob Nielsen explains the heuristic evaluation method, which allows you to judge a user interface design based on 10 well-proven general principles for human-computer interaction.
No. 10 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is provide user assistance at appropriate times in the interaction, making sure that such information is easy to search, focused on the user's task, lists concrete steps to be carried out, and not too large.
No. 9 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to write error messages that help users understand the problem and to provide information that constructively teaches users how to recover from the error.
For 30 years, the recommendations have remained the same for improving usability in a UX design project on a tight budget: simplified user testing with 5 users, early test of paper prototypes, and heuristic evaluation.
No. 8 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to remove unnecessary elements from the user interface and to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the design.
No. 5 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to prevent interaction problems from occurring in the first place: either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation dialog.
No. 4 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to stick to UI conventions and follow existing standards, so that users know what to expect and how to operate the interface.
No. 3 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to allow users freedom to be in control of the interaction, even if they make mistakes and will need a clearly marked way out of trouble.
No. 2 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to speak the users' language, use terms familiar to the user, follow real-world conventions, and make information appear in a natural and logical order; all in the interest of achieving a match between the system and the real world.
No. 1 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to provide visibility of system status through proper feedback, so that the user knows how commands are being interpreted and what the computer is up to at any time.
#6 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to design user interfaces to facilitate #memory recognition which is easier than recall because there are more cues available to facilitate the retrieval of information from memory.
Critiquing a design is not the same as criticizing a design. Keep opinions out of design reviews to remain objective and increase the value of the design assessment.
Design teams rely on a combination of principles, patterns, heuristics, and charters to create consistent and usable experiences in a collaborative way.
Recalling items from scratch is harder than recognizing the correct option in a list of choices because the extra context helps users retrieve information from memory.
Step-by-step instructions to systematically review your product to find potential usability and experience problems. Download a free heuristic evaluation template.
Identify UX problems with error messages consistently and effectively using a scoring rubric based on established usability best practices for error messages.
Interface help comes in two forms: proactive and reactive. Proactive help is intended to get users familiar with an interface while reactive help is meant for troubleshooting and gaining system proficiency.
Shortcuts— unseen by the novice user — speed up the interaction for the expert users such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
Communicating the current state allows users to feel in control of the system, take appropriate actions to reach their goal, and ultimately trust the brand.
