Tooltips are small user-triggered popups that explain UI elements when the user points to something. They are useful, but don't use them for critical information.
Redesigning a user interface can be done in many smaller incremental releases or as one big complete redo. Big change is risky but necessary in 3 cases.
Enterprise applications that support work often do so poorly and have bad user experience. The usability requirements and tradeoffs for workplace app design are different from consumer apps.
Onboarding instructions that users must digest before they start using an app or other product require attention and effort and thus reduce usability. They should be avoided as much as possible.
Animations can make user interfaces both easier and nicer to use, but the timing has to be right, as we demonstrate in this video. Many other details also contribute to the quality of animation in the user experience.
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.
To enable fast and reliable understanding of data shown on dashboard overviews, use visualization styles that work with human preattentive visual processing.
Using a modal dialog to display an error message can cause usability problems on mobile devices. Error handling must respect human-memory constraints and remain visible as the user is fixing the problem.
Users pay more attention to big things than to small things, and this design principle can be used to prioritize a user experience design, such as a web page or application screen.
On–off controls that switch between two different system states need to clearly communicate to users both the current state and the state the system will move to, should the user press that control.
Three stereotypes explain much resistance to improving the usability of complex applications for domain-specific tasks: that people like the old ways, that they are experts in the existing UI, and that training will make up for bad design. All are misleading.
Virtual reality (VR) user interfaces are currently more difficult for users to manipulate than a traditional GUI, partly because of more degrees of freedom and partly because VR is still new, so people have less experience using it. Advice for how to employ usability studies to alleviate this problem.
In case of slow response times in a user interface, indicate that the wait time will soon be over by showing an animation. For longer delays use a percent-done indicator.
Various contexts of complexity should be considered by UX designers and researchers designing complex applications, including complexities of integration, information, intention, environment, and institution.
Onboarding is the process of getting users familiar with a new interface. It can involve one or more of the following components: feature promotion, customization, and instructions.
Listboxes and dropdowns are compact UI controls that allow users to select options. Listboxes expose options right away and support multi-selection while dropdowns require a click to see options and support only single-selection.
At the very first Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen answered a participant question about what user experience can do to help with the coronavirus crisis.
