Web Usability Articles & Videos

  • Information Scent: How Users Decide Where to Go Next

    When deciding which links to click on the web, users choose those with the highest information scent — which is a mix of cues that they get from the link label, the context in which the link is shown, and their prior experiences.

  • How Information-Seeking Behavior Has Changed in 22 Years

    We organize online information-seeking activities that lead to important decisions and actions according to 5 dimensions: purpose, method, content, social interaction, and device used to carry out the activity.

  • The Risks of Imitating Designs (Even from Successful Companies)

    Even great companies make mistakes. Don’t risk your UX by assuming it’s safe to follow a design pattern just because it’s used by a successful company.

  • Videos as Instructional Content: User Behaviors and UX Guidelines

    Instructional video content is helpful as supplementary information, though not all users will watch it. Videos should be easily discoverable, consistent in style across the site, and with thumbnails that accurately represent the type of content they provide.

  • User-Experience Quiz: 2019 UX Year in Review

    Test your usability knowledge by taking our quiz. All questions and answers are based on articles that we published last year.

  • Marking Required Fields in Online Forms

    Do you need to mark fields as "required" in forms on your website or in apps? What if all fields are required? And what is the best way to show that a form field is required?

  • Why Didn't People Scroll? The Illusion of Completeness

    In testing, we often see users who don't scroll a web page even though there is much useful info below the fold. Often, the reason is "the illusion of completeness" which causes users to believe that they are seeing all there is.

  • Mental Models for Cloud-Storage Systems

    Users have a rudimentary understanding of cloud services and attempt to fit them into their existent, simpler mental models that they had formed for similar, more-traditional services.

  • Better Labels for Website Links: the 4 Ss for Encouraging Clicks

    4 guidelines for writing the link texts on websites to ensure users click the right options. Links should be Specific, Sincere, Substantial, and Succinct.

  • The 3 Response Time Limits in Interaction Design

    User interfaces must be fast, or users will give up. (In the case of websites, they'll leave if pages download too slowly.) The exact maximum response times vary by usage circumstances, and should be either 0.1, 1.0, or 10 seconds.

  • 10 Ways to Use Exit-Intent Popups to Improve UX

    Exit-intent popups can provide a good customer experience and offer benefits to users who are about to leave a website.

  • Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful

    Data-entry form fields on websites are crucial for ecommerce and many other applications. Fields need labels and (sometimes) instructions, but placing this text inside the field lowers usability and accessibility and should be avoided.

  • Usability for Older Adults: Challenges and Changes

    Users ages 65 and older face unique challenges when using websites and apps. Digital literacy among this demographic is rising, but designs need to accommodate older users.

  • Designing Effective Carousels for Websites and Mobile Apps

    Sliding hero images that rotate through a set of promotions, news, or the like on the top of web pages are often annoying to users and are definitely error prone, unless they are designed according to usability guidelines.

  • Cancel vs Close: Design to Distinguish the Difference

    Distinguishing between these two actions is critical to avoiding losing users’ work. Save changes before closing a view, use text labels rather than an X icon, and provide a confirmation dialog before destructive actions.

  • Do People Scroll? What Information Foraging Says

    People scroll down web pages only if they have reasons to do so. Information-foraging theory explains for how long people stay on the page and why.

  • Usability Heuristic 1: Visibility of System Status

    No. 1 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to provide visibility of system status through proper feedback, so that the user knows how commands are being interpreted and what the computer is up to at any time.

  • Popups: 10 Problematic Trends and Alternatives

    Whether modal or not, most overlays appear at the wrong time, interrupt users during critical tasks, use poor language, and contribute to user disorientation.

  • Store Finders: Why People Still Need Locator Links

    In addition to a site-wide store-locator link, location-finder links in key areas anticipate users’ needs and make it easy to find a physical location within the context of their task.

  • Marking Required Fields in Forms

    Using an asterisk to mark required fields is an easy way to improve the usability of your forms. Only marking optional fields makes it difficult for people to fill out the form.