Usability - Beantin

The kettle that never boils

In the race for new products and features, sometimes we lose sight of why something exists in the first place. This week our electric kettle died. As a tea drinker, this is a code red situation. A replacement needs to be sorted quick. My other options for boiling water were,

Anecdote

Your customers are laughing at you

Michael McIntyre was one of the artists who performed at the 5th Channel 4 Comedy Gala in London, May 2014. In his 9 minute comedy routine 6 minute comedy routine (the full 9 minute version has been edited down to 6), in effect, presents the results from his own usability

conversion

How can I improve my website?

No website is perfect. It’s not going to be. The pace of change within digital media is far too fast for us to reach perfection. We can though make them more effective. People learn and adapt. We learn and adapt. We adjust and improve. Testing and tweaking. That’s

mobile

Balancing login usability and security

Online security and passwords is a topic that never dies. We are hopeless at being secure, and a whole load of companies have shown they are equally as hopeless at it. On top of that, hackers have proved time and time again how smart and inventive they can be in

Analysis

The hidden Impact of those extra little features

I was indexing Swedish digital agency Avantime’s new website for The Beantin Index. Indexing sites is always a great exercise. Amongst other things, it gives me the chance to brush-up on and evaluate various methods, techniques and ideas. Of the sites I’ve reviewed, almost all have an eyebrow

Opinion piece

That big sliding banner? Yeah, it's rubbish

You know that big automatic rotating banner you ordered for your start page? Yeah, that’s right. It’s rubbish. * * * * * * It’s the biggest and most important bit of real-estate on your start-page. everyone is fighting for a bit of it. So what do we do? We add a giant

quote

Stupid bloody system

Have your ever used that system? Well, I wish you luck. It’s so difficult to understand that I lost my temper today and began to cry A user on a system they have to use as part of their job. It’s unacceptable what we make people put up

Analytics

14 Articles worth reading… (Spotted: Weeks 10-12, 2011)

For your reading pleasure this week, a collection of links (and summaries) including articles related to: Social media, UX, intranets, SEO and web analytics. Social Ellos at the forefront of Nordic Digital e-commerce Jesper gets all excited about Ellos and how they are dragging their shopping experience into the future.

stockholm

Plain english please!

Plain language is better for usability. Giving things descriptive, clear and to the point labels will help users complete their tasks easier. We’ve talked for years about the inside-out problem where corporate websites let internal terminology seap through into the information architecture of their external web site. OK, sometimes

eyeTracking

Most of your webpage is irrelevant

Provocative title, yes, but as you can see from the eye tracking heat maps above – when a user lands on a page trying to complete a task, they ignore everything they don’t consider helpful in completing that task. Left-hand image The left-hand heat map shows 3 people looking at

Analytics

13 Articles worth reading… (Spotted: Week 6-7, 2011)

This time, a collection of links (and summaries) including articles related to: Social media and social search, web strategy and web management, Optimisation, usability testing and Eye tracking. Social media & social search Google Search Finally Going Fully Social With Shared Twitter Links And Even Quora Data More Google (social)

facebook

12 Articles worth reading… (Spotted: Week 42-43, 2010)

Information Architecture 101: Techniques and Best Practices A great “briefing paper” from Six Revisions, intending to raise awareness of the discipline with designers. Mental Models The latest Alertbox post covers what users think they know and how that affects their behaviour. Users, designers and developers all have differing mental models.

eyeTracking

8 Articles worth reading… (Spotted: Week 37-38, 2010)

Children’s Websites: Usability Issues in Designing for Kids 9 years on from their first survey, Nielsen have produced a new study into the usability of Children’s websites. “It’s now common for a 7-year-old kid to be a seasoned Internet user with several years’ experience.” – If we think

case

Search-engine friendly country site select boxes

Design often has the final say in a redesign project – or at best, a very powerful voice – which isn’t always a good, or acceptable, situation. Recently I was part of a project where I needed to preserve an aspect of the old design for SEO reasons. The new design

Analysis

Svenska Lottakåren

A quick check of Svenska Lottakåren’s new web site (released May 2010) against a handful of best-practices and web standards. Amongst the things I babble about this time are the start page banner, the drop-down menus, and calls to action.

eyeTracking

For your reading pleasure... (week 12, 2010)

Scrolling and Attention Although many have said that Nielsen’s conclusion is obvious – “what’s most important for the users’ goals or your business goals should be above the fold” – there are also many who still claim that the fold doesn’t exist. It’s does, it’s just much

Analytics

For your reading pleasure... (week 8, 2010)

Q&A with Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Basically plugging their new book, but nevertheless gives you some insight into eye tracking usability testing (and some points to agree or disagree with if you’ve performed some eye tracking testing!) The Olympics Impact on Google Search Results The start

design

Free, simple, random, design testing

Free, simple, random, design testing Visitors are exposed to your uploaded image for five seconds before then being asked to recall what they remember seeing (or clicking on). Potential problems with self-selection (and missing target audiences), but nevertheless a useful and cost-effective tool for the toolbox.