Interaction Design Articles & Videos

  • Scroll Fading 101

    Whether scroll fading is more distracting than usable depends on the following factors: its persistence, responsiveness, and how sparingly it is applied to elements on the page. When used right, this design pattern can improve brand perception, optimize page loading, and make content more digestible.

  • Deceptive Patterns in UX: How to Recognize and Avoid Them

    Deceptive patterns promote business outcomes at the user's expense. Designers should avoid deceptive patterns by carefully assessing their designs.

  • Table of Contents: The Ultimate Design Guide

    Tables of contents provide a page overview and direct access to specific sections. When designing a table of contents, carefully compare different placement and styling options to maximize usability.

  • In-Page Links for Content Navigation

    In-page links, often embedded in the table of contents, help users navigate to specific content sections on the same page. While research showed increased user familiarity with the design pattern, carefully consider content structures before implementation.

  • Overcoming the Articulation Barrier in Generative AI Using Hybrid Interfaces

    Hybrid user interfaces that combine prompt-based inputs with a graphical user interface (GUI) can make AI image-generation tools more usable by reducing users’ cognitive load and improving discoverability.

  • Scrolljacking 101

    Altering the normal pace or direction of scrolling can contradict user expectations, control, and freedom. If businesses adopt the pattern, they can minimize usability risks by weighing it against functional value, cognitive load, and user efficiency.

  • Accordions on Desktop: When and How to Use

    Accordions simplify long pages, but reduce visibility and increase interaction cost. Use them on content-heavy pages where users don't need to combine information across sections.

  • Virtual Queues: 13 Best Practices for Managing the Wait

    Well-designed virtual queues help manage the wait to free up users to do other things.

  • Onboarding Tutorials vs. Contextual Help

    Tutorials interrupt users, don’t necessarily improve task performance, and are quickly forgotten. Contextual help signals can avoid these pitfalls but require unintrusive ways to activate.

  • Mobile UX: Study Guide

    Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn how to write and present information that aligns with users’ needs and online behaviors.

  • Hostile Patterns in Error Messages

    Premature error messages, aggressively styled fields, and unnecessarily disruptive system-status messages feel bad-mannered and increase cognitive load for users during otherwise simple tasks.

  • Augmented-Reality Calibration in Mobile Apps: 10 Guidelines

    Instructions for calibration should be clear, high-contrast, descriptive, and augmented with unambiguous visual examples. Users should be given explicit feedback about the results of their actions and about the progress of the calibration.

  • Use Good Prototype Specifications to Empower Team Collaboration

    Three types of prototype specifications help explain how a design looks and is implemented. Clear prototype specifications empower team collaboration and lower communication costs.

  • Designing Empty States in Complex Applications: 3 Guidelines

    Empty states provide opportunities for designers to communicate system status, increase learnability of the system, and deliver direct pathways for key tasks. This article provides guidance for designing empty-state dialogues for content-less containers.

  • Sticky Headers: 5 Ways to Make Them Better

    Persistent headers can be useful to users if they are unobtrusive, high-contrast, minimally animated, and fit user needs.

  • 8 Design Guidelines for Complex Applications

    Despite great diversity in the workflows and end users supported by complex applications, these 8 design guidelines are generally applicable.

  • State-Switch Controls: The Infamous Case of the "Mute" Button

    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.

  • Virtual Tours: High Interaction Cost, Moderate Usefulness

    Virtual tours are an occasionally useful secondary tool for checking on specific details, but most users find them to be high effort, slow, and of limited value.

  • Listboxes vs. Dropdown Lists

    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.

  • Drag–and–Drop: How to Design for Ease of Use

    Clear signifiers and clear feedback at all stages of the interaction make drag–and–drop discoverable and easy to use.