Summary

We tested the way people use real, current applications to achieve representative tasks. The report contains 117 design guidelines (and 21 accessibility guidelines) that will make Rich Internet Applications more aligned with human behavior and thus easier to use.

> Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox summarizing study findings

The guidelines are based on usability tests of 46 Flash applications ranging across the following categories:

• e-commerce
• configurators
• news and current events
• maps and location finders
• e-learning
• entertainment
• productivity applications

Most current Web-based applications are ephemeral applications that must be immediately understandable or users will fail. The usability requirements for applications on the Web are much stricter than they ever were for traditional software development.

We estimate that companies can double the return on their investment in Flash applications if they improve the quality of the user experience and overcome the usability problems we have identified.

Richly illustrated with 170 screenshots, showing designs that worked well for users as well as designs that caused them usability problems.

The report also contains the findings from our early research into RIA accessibility.

To supplement the screenshots in the written report, there is a separate 53-minute video showing dynamic examples and highlights from the user test sessions.

This report focuses on the user experience, not specific implementation technologies, so most of the 117 usability guidelines and 21 accessibility guidelines are still valid for today's applications, even if they are done in AJAX, Silverlight, or a newer Flash version than the one we tested.

Table of Contents

225-page report

1. Executive Summary
   • Success Rates
   • Web-Based Applications are Ephemeral Applications
   • Navigating to Flash Applications
   • Object-Oriented GUI Design
   • A New Generation of Design Guidelines
2. Changes Since 2002
   • Updated Application Usability Advice
3. Research Overview
4. Procedure
5. Designs Studied
6. Summary of Findings
   • Feature Success Rates
   • Task Success Rates
   • Interpreting Success Rates
7. Guidelines for Designing with Flash
8. Discussion and Examples for Flash Design Guidelines
9. User-Centered Design
   • 26 design guidelines
   • Design Usability
   • Workflow
   • Content
   • Navigation
   • Feedback
10. Attracting Visitors
    • 7 design guidelines
    • Make Applications Compelling
    • Quality Assurance
11. Object-Oriented Control
    • 13 design guidelines
    • Drag and Drop
    • Creating Objects
    • Resizing Objects
    • Rotating Objects
12. Presentation
    • 24 design guidelines
    • Motion
    • Sound
    • Colors and Fonts
    • Scrolling
    • Graphics and Photographs
13. Implementation Nuts and Bolts
    • 19 design guidelines
    • Browsers
    • Installation and Loading
    • Saving and Printing
    • Hovering, Clicking, and Tabbing Behavior
14. User Assistance
    • 16 design guidelines
    • Help
    • Instructions
    • Tutorials
    • Error Recovery
15. Application Specifics
    • 12 design guidelines
    • Maps
    • Registration
    • International Considerations
16. Accessibility
    • Preliminary Study, Early Findings
    • Flash's Main Usability Problems for Users with Disabilities
    • Overview of the RIA Accessibility Study
    • Reason for this study
    • Assistive and Flash Technology is Improving
    • Things Appear to Still Be Less Usable for Screen Reader Users
    • General Findings from the Study
    • Accessibility Guidelines
      • 21 accessibility guidelines
      • Testing
      • User Control
      • Graphics and Visuals
    • Participants
    • Tasks and Websites
17. Methodology
    • Overview
    • Participants
    • Tasks
18. Types of Designs Studied

What You Get

• Checklist of 117 specific design recommendations: review your weblication for these 117 best practices, and you will discover several things that need improvement. (Plus an additional 21 accessibility guidelines.)
• Description of how people behave when using functionality-based user interfaces on the Web. Learn from the users' comments and reactions to common design mistakes in the 46 Flash designs we tested.
• 170 screenshots of Flash designs with descriptions of why they worked well for users or caused them problems in usability testing.
• $450,000 of user research for free.
• Test methodology description, allowing you to run your own user tests of your own design.

Who Should Read This Report?

• Anybody who is responsible for the design or strategy for Internet-based applications or websites with RIA-based functionality.

Running a similar international usability study yourself to collect comparative design lessons from a large number of user interface ideas would cost about $450,000.

Even though the download is free, this report is still copyrighted information. Please do not distribute the PDF file on the Internet (or otherwise), but instead link to this page where people can download their own copy. (And please do link here — to this HTML page — and not directly to the PDF file, following the guideline to use a gateway page to avoid "PDF shock.")

Download Report (10 MB, free download)