Katie Sherwin is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. She specializes in helping organizations utilize principles of user-centered design and strategic communication to achieve their goals.
Is it enough to have a search feature on a website? Or do users also benefit from a well-designed navigation interface? Depending on the nature of the site, the balance between the two can change.
To get useful and valid results from a usability study requires a skilled facilitator who avoids biasing the test while ensuring that the users are comfortable. And who can interpret the participants' actions and statements correctly.
To learn something useful from a usability study, you must have the test participants perform tasks that are representative of typical user goals, while avoiding bias caused by giving too detailed directions or hints.
Customers shopping online rely on product pages to decide what to buy. Help them by answering questions, enabling comparison, providing reviews, and facilitating the purchase process.
The Halo Effect says that any one element in a user's experience with a company will rub off on their interpretation of other elements and their feelings about the company as a whole. Good design in one part of a website will make people like other parts better (and like the company better), but the opposite is also true.
Data-entry form fields on websites are crucial for ecommerce and many other applications. Fields need labels and (sometimes) instructions, but placing this text inside the field lowers usability and accessibility and should be avoided.
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.
By understanding customers’ payment preferences and offering options that people are used to in their own country, sites can improve the checkout experience for international purchasers.
Flip-charts, post-its, markers, stickers, and even fake coins are common ingredients in a UX toolkit. Though they may appear to be frivolous art supplies, these materials serve a crucial role in supporting team engagement, creativity, and focus.
