Kathryn Whitenton is a former NN/G employee who worked with clients to evaluate the user experience and information architecture of websites in a variety of industries including technology, telecommunications, and media, as well as corporate intranets. She conducted usability research, eyetracking user research, and studies of users on mobile devices in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Her user studies included general audiences as well as specific consumer types, business segments, children, and seniors.
Consistent design enhances learnability and is usually best for usability. But if the problem you're solving is sufficiently different, then inconsistency may be better.
If users don't notice a navigation menu, they won't use it, and website usage will plummet. Here are 5 design guidelines to increase the visibility of navigation menus.
If a website or company is big and famous, should you copy their design for your own site? Likely not, because good UX depends on context, and your situation could be quite different than a world-famous company's circumstances.
Even great companies make mistakes. Don’t risk your UX by assuming it’s safe to follow a design pattern just because it’s used by a successful company.
The 6 steps for running unmoderated usability testing are: define study goals, select testing software, write task descriptions, pilot the test, recruit participants, and analyze the results.
Conversions measure whether users take a desired action on your website, so they are a great metric for tracking design improvements (or lack of same). But non-UX factors can impact conversion rates, so beware.
