Disabled buttons often confuse users by appearing clickable but providing no response or feedback. Designers should use them sparingly, ensure they’re accessible, and clearly explain why the button is disabled.
Avoid using accordions when: 1. Users need access to most content; 2. There's little visible content on the page; 3. Content is complex with multiple levels; 4. Content can't be effectively chunked; 5. An uninterrupted reading flow is prioritized.
Designers, researchers, and generalists alike can improve their visual design skills through creative exercises focused on identification, replication, or exploration.
How to familiarize users with new user interfaces? Onboarding techniques include feature promotion, customization, and instructions. All must be kept simple.
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.
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.
If users don't use your search a lot, it's often because the search user interface is poorly designed. Here are the top guidelines for how to show the search feature on both desktop and mobile.
Form filling and other user input on mobile devices such as smartphones can be awkward and error prone, but by taking advantage of the strengths of the phone, designers can improve the usability of these tasks substantially.
Demanding that users create a new account before they are able to access a website or mobile app is only justified in rare cases. Usually, people go away, rather than scale a wall placed between them and your offerings.
Build out social features on your own website, or avail yourself of existing (but external) social media platforms where you don't own the user experience? User research can help determine which strategy is best for reaching your specific audience and serving their special needs.
If users don't notice a navigation menu, they won't use it, and website usage will plummet. Here are 5 design guidelines to increase the visibility of navigation menus.
Having to register for websites, services, or apps is already annoying enough for users. But complications compound when they are faced with hidden requirements for what constitutes an acceptable password.
There's a footer at the bottom of every web page, but the design of this utilitarian page element is often overlooked, making the website perform below its potential. In our usability studies, users often turn to page footers for important information and tasks, making them an integral part of the overall experience of a site.
