Articles

Raluca Budiu

Raluca Budiu is Senior Director, Data Strategy, at Nielsen Norman Group, where she uses her data-analysis expertise to drive strategic decisions. She also serves as editor for the articles published on NNgroup.com. Raluca has coauthored many NN/g reports, as well as the book Mobile Usability. She holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

@rbudiu

Articles and Videos

  • iOS 9 App Switching and the Back-to-App Button

    App switching in iOS 9 can disorient users in multiple ways. Simple design fixes can significantly improve the user experience.

  • 4 iOS Rules to Break

    Page control (dots), Submit at top, and the Plus (+) and Move icons are 4 common iOS patterns that cause usability problems in testing.

  • A Checklist for Designing Mobile Input Fields

    When you design an input field for use on mobile devices, check whether it satisfies this list of 14 usability requirements.

  • Accordions on Mobile

    Accordions conserve space in mobile designs but they can also cause disorientation and too much scrolling. Easy design fixes improve the usability of these UI elements.

  • The Apple Watch: User-Experience Appraisal

    Smartwatch apps should rely on gestures more than on navigation elements, prioritize the essential, support handoff, and create tailored, standalone content.

  • Mobile User Experience: Limitations and Strengths

    Mobile design must reflect smartphone constraints and strengths: small screen, short sessions, single window, touch interaction, GPS and other phone features.

  • Progress in Mobile User Experience

    Mobile usability has improved over the past 7 years due to better prioritization of content over UI elements and better understanding of the users’ needs.

  • Multitasking on Mobile Devices

    Mobile-phone users have difficulty combining information from multiple apps. Support for multitasking is inherently limited by the mobile-screen size.

  • Nonfiction Books on Tablets: Still a Work in Progress

    Book-reading apps need to support rich hyperlinking, nonsequential navigation, and high-quality, detailed illustrations.

  • Search Is Not Enough: Synergy Between Navigation and Search

    When websites prioritize search over navigation, users must invest cognitive effort to create queries and to deal with the weak implementations of site search.