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

  • AR-Onboarding Walkthroughs in Mobile Apps

    Mobile apps using augmented reality benefit from interactive walkthroughs that guide users through a simple AR experience. These walkthroughs should include information about what to expect, how to handle the device, and how to prepare the environment.

  • Accidental Dismissal of Overlays: A Common Mobile Usability Problem

    Overlays often need to be dismissed in a manner that goes against users’ expectations.

  • 5 Users: Okay for Qual, Wrong for Quant

    The recommended sample size (the number of study participants) is very different for qualitative user testing (small N) and for quantitative research (big N). Here's why the recommendations differ.

  • Fitts's Law and Its Applications in UX

    The movement time to a target depends on the size of the target and the distance to the target.

  • Progressive Disclosure

    To reduce complexity in a user interface, employ progressive disclosure to defer secondary options to a subsidiary screen. This focuses users' attention on the primary options, which are the only ones shown by default.

  • Working Memory and External Memory

    People have very limited ability to keep information in their working memory while performing tasks, so user interfaces should be designed accordingly: to minimize memory load. One way of doing so is to offload items to external memory by showing them on the screen.

  • How to Fit Big Tables on Small Screens

    No matter your screen size, some data tables will be too big for the screen. This problem is particularly common on mobile devices. Simple interaction techniques can help, but you may need to offer users more advanced features for information hiding and column reordering.

  • How Many Participants for Quantitative Usability Studies: A Summary of Sample-Size Recommendations

    40 participants is an appropriate number for most quantitative studies, but there are cases where you can recruit fewer users.

  • Why 5 Participants Are Okay in a Qualitative Study, but Not in a Quantitative One

    Qualitative usability testing aims to identify issues in an interface, while quantitative usability testing is meant to provide metrics that capture the behavior of your whole user population.

  • UI Modes and Modals

    Modes can be a hidden state and lead to user errors. But they can also make a user interface more efficient by allowing the same action to have different results, depending on the situation.