Interactive Form
I quite like this step-by-step interface for a form, all cleverly handled with the :focus pseudo-class. I’d want to refine some of the usability issues before using it in production, but the progressive disclosure is nice.
Tags: usability
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Short note on improving usability of scrollable regions
Three very easy to implement additions to scrollable areas of your web pages: tabindex="0", role="region", and an aria-label attribute.
Password Masking
A great investigation into the usability benefits of allowing users to fill in their passwords in plain text.
Major caveat: make sure you still offer the ability to mask passwords too.
Reward my actions, please? by Christian Heilmann
A modest proposal: respect.
The slippery slope | 90 Percent Of Everything
The transcript of a terrific talk by Harry on how dark patterns are often driven by a slavish devotion to conversion rates.
Auto-Forwarding Carousels, Accordions Annoy Users
Carousels are shit. Auto-animating carousels are really shit. Now proven with science!
Inclusive Design: Where Accessibility Meets Usability
I’ll be speaking at this event in London on Thursday. It would be lovely if you could come along. It’s free!
LukeW | Mobile Design Details: Hide/Show Passwords
I concur completely with Luke’s assessment here. Most password-masking on the web is just security theatre. Displaying password inputs by default (but with an option to hide) should be the norm.
Airlift
This looks handy: a video-sharing service designed specifically to work with Silverback
How We Improved Page Speed By Cleaning CSS, HTML and Images | Dyn Blog
Some good practical advice on improving performance. This should all be familiar to you, but it’s always worth repeating.
Nielsen is wrong on mobile | Opinion | .net magazine
Josh responds to Jakob Nielsen’s audaciously ignorant advice on siloing mobile devices. Josh is right.
Nielsen says his research is based on studies of hundreds of mobile experiences, and I don’t doubt it. But because he’s finding tons of poor mobile websites doesn’t mean we should punt on creating great, full-featured mobile experiences.
This time, more than any other time
A cautionary tale from Stuart. We, the makers of modern technology, are letting people down. Badly.
We’re in this to help users, remember: not just the ones who think as we do, but the ones who rely on us to build things for them because they don’t know what they’re doing. If your response is honestly “well, he should have spent more on a phone to get something better”, then I’m exceedingly disillusioned by you.
First thing you should do to optimize your desktop site for mobile « Cloud Four
Jason reiterates Bruce’s rallying cry: Performance First!
If you could only do one thing to prepare your desktop site for mobile and had to choose between employing media queries to make it look good on a mobile device or optimizing the site for performance, you would be better served by making the desktop site blazingly fast.
Bruce Lawson’s personal site : What Users Want from Mobile, and what we can re-learn from them
Bruce hammers home the importance of speed and performance on mobile (and frankly, everywhere).
So perhaps some of the time and effort put into media queries, viewports, avoiding scrolling, line length would actually be better employed reducing HTTP requests and optimising so that websites are perceived to render faster.
Time to Kill Off Captchas: Scientific American
Yes, yes, yes! This article does an excellent job of explaining what Captchas are attempting to do and why, therefore, they are so utterly shit.
That “JavaScript not available” case | Christian Heilmann
A great reminder from Christian that making JavaScript a requirement for using a website just doesn’t make much sense.
The mobile web splash screen antipattern [Legends of the Sun Pig - Martin Sutherland’s Blog]
Excellent points, eloquently delivered, on why sites shouldn’t be shoving their native Apps in the face of people who just arrived at their website on a mobile device.
Putting up a splash screen is like McDonalds putting a bouncer on the door, and telling customers who just parked their car and want to enter the restaurant that they should use the drive-through instead.
BBC News - Are you experienced? Business and the web user experience
A nice overview of the increasing importance of UX on the web, written by Bobbie with soundbites from Andy.
Flyer beware; real cost of flying Ryanair « Alan Colville
Superb in-depth analysis of Ryanair’s website dark patterns and nasty brand strategy.
Kitchen Interfaces Suck; Let's Break Down Why | Co.Design
Aza Raskin on the UI failings of kitchens.
Usability Testing: You are not your user. No matter how good you think you are.
A lesson from Google Buzz: a large sampling isn't always a representative sampling.
Cadence & Slang is a book about interaction design. — Kickstarter
If you want to see this book published (and you should), why not pledge a little something to the cause?
Log in or sign up? - Leah Culver's Blog
Leah has some great ideas on combing "log in" and "sign up" forms into one.
The WHATWG Blog » Blog Archive » Usability testing HTML5
Hixie has been making changes to microdata in HTML5 based, not on opinion or theory, but on the results of user testing.
Chroma-Hash Demo
Another interesting take on assigning a visual clue to password fields.
An essay on W3C's design principles - Contents
Bert Bos's 2000 Treatise (published in 2003) is a must-read for anyone involved in developing any kind of format. "This essay tries to make explicit what the developers in the various W3C working groups mean when they invoke words like efficiency, maintainability, accessibility, extensibility, learnability, simplicity, longevity, and other long words ending in -y."
arc90 lab : experiments : HashMask - Another (More Secure!) Experiment in Password Masking
Here's an interesting idea: generating a sparkline when you input a password ...familiarity with the generated sparkline acts as a visual aid to the user.
northtemple - Accessibility to the Face
An excellent rumination on the meaning of accessibility, prompted by real world experiences.
five second test - A simple online usability test
The five second test is a simple usability test that helps you measure the effectiveness of your user interfaces.
OpenID usability is not an oxymoron | FactoryCity
Chris has written an in-depth critique of the state of OpenID, focusing strongly on usability.
- web without sense
A useful collection of frustrations. Find an suitable one to send to a client today.
“Gorilla” Usability Testing | GarrettDimon.com
Garrett's in-depth look at Silverback, the Mac app that we've been cooking up at Clearleft.
Stop using Ajax! - Opera Developer Community
Ignore the attention-grabbing headline. Brothercake is something more nuanced here (and he's backing it up with examples).
Traces of Inspiration » Blog Archive » URL as UI
The importance of good URL design.
How Not To Get Noticed » SlideShare
Slides based on a usability analysis of Wordpress by some of the Happy Coggers.
What I've been working on: The New Google Analytics, by Jeffrey Veen
Finally revealed: what Jeff has been working on since he moved into the lair of the Google. He's been making Google Analytics look and feel nicer.
A List Apart: Articles: Paper Prototyping
A great hands-on article on the benefits of playing with paper.
Photo Matt » The Most Frustrating Thing
Matt points out that we can get sidetracked by taking what matters most to us and assuming that it matters most for success.
Screen Resolution and Page Layout (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
The devil can cite scripture for his own purpose... and now I can cite Nielsen: "...use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800x600 to 1280x1024."
Max Kiesler - How to Make Your AJAX Applications Accessible - 40 Tutorials and Articles
A lot of these articles are more about JavaScript in general than Ajax per se, but it's good to have all these resources gathered together in one place.
Card sorting pix
Flickr photo set, AIGA card sorting exercise.
From the Other Side of the Microscope
Participating in a card-sorting exercise for the AIGA redesign.
12 perfect cases for Ajax
Yes, Ajax is over-used but here are some cases where it really helps.
AJAX: Usable Interactivity with Remote Scripting
A nice introduction the XMLHttpRequest object by Cameron Adams.
Content with Style: Fixing the Back Button and Enabling Bookmarking for AJAX Apps
Mike Stenhouse tackles the usability concerns raised by Ajax apps, specifically the breaking of the back button functionality.