Although postmortems are one of the most powerful learning tools in product development, most teams haven't yet discovered how to use them effectively.
Design effective checkboxes by using square boxes, clickable labels, and clear, positive wording. List items vertically with instructions, and ensure legal checkboxes are unchecked by default to respect user consent.
Communicate effectively with your error messages by using human-readable language, concisely and precisely describing the issue, offering constructive advice, and not blaming the user.
There are 5 common mistakes junior designers make. They focus on the look instead of usability, commit type crimes, work outside of design systems, lack confidence when presenting their designs, and ask for feedback too often.
Mobile-first web designs cause significant usability issues when viewed on desktop. Content becomes overly dispersed across long scrolling pages with expansive white space and enlarged images and fonts, making it difficult for users to consume and understand the information.
Surveys asking users to give feedback during or after an interaction should not interrupt the users' task and should be sent to the appropriate channel. They need to be short, easy to complete, and give the user the opportunity to provide details about their experience.
We sometimes think of personas as final artifacts, when, in reality, personas are merely a representation of data, and data can change. An artifact that is too polished or difficult to update may result in an outdated and unused persona.
Edgar Anzaldua presents a 6-year case study of learning and applying ever-more subtle UX concepts and growing his influence. Always something new to learn, from junior to senior professional level.
The push for less-ethical or even deceptive user interfaces is often caused by short-term thinking and immediate UX metrics. The long-term impact of harming users can backfire and lead to reduced brand loyalty.
Confirmatory and destructive actions should be far apart from each other; use additional redundant visual signals to differentiate between them and avoid user errors.
Users waste unacceptably much time struggling with computer bugs. Users' mental models suffer when systems don't work as advertised, leading people to question their understanding of the UX.
Demanding that users create a new account before they are able to access a website or mobile app is only justified in rare cases. Usually, people go away, rather than scale a wall placed between them and your offerings.
Policy pages often fail to follow basic usability guidelines: they are not readable, lack high-level summaries and inside-policy navigation, have poor formatting, and are not available in expected places.
