Tags: usability

A Simple Design Flaw Makes It Astoundingly Easy To Hack Siri And Alexa

This article about a specific security flaw in voice-activated assistants raises a bigger issue:

User-friendliness is increasingly at odds with security.

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. “Don’t make me think” is a great mantra for user experience, but a terrible mantra for security.

Our web browsers easily and invisibly collect cookies, allowing marketers to follow us across the web. Our phones back up our photos and contacts to the cloud, tempting any focused hacker with a complete repository of our private lives. It’s as if every tacit deal we’ve made with easy-to-use technology has come with a hidden cost: our own personal vulnerability. This new voice command exploit is just the latest in a growing list of security holes caused by design, but it is, perhaps, the best example of Silicon Valley’s widespread disregard for security in the face of the new and shiny.

thebaer/MMRA: Make Medium Readable Again — a browser extension

I’ve gotten a little tired of showing up to a Medium-powered site on a non-medium.com domain and getting badgered to Sign Up! or Get Updates! when I’m already a Medium user.

A Chrome extension to Make Medium Readable Again by:

• Keeping the top navigation bar from sticking around
• Hiding the bottom “Get Updates” bar completely
• (Optionally) hiding the clap / share bar
• (Optionally) loading all post images up front, instead of lazy loading as you scroll

Shame there isn’t a mobile version to get rid of the insulting install-our-app permabutton.

Progressively Worse Apps

This article makes a good point about client-rendered pages:

Asynchronously loaded page elements shift click targets, resulting in a usability nightmare.

…but this has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with progressive web apps.

More fuel for the fire of evidence that far too many people think that progressive web apps and single page apps are one and the same.

What I’ve learned about motor impairment

James gives—if you’ll pardon the pun— hands-on advice on making sites that consider motor impairment:

• Don’t assume keyboard access is all you need
• • Auto complete/Autofill
• • Show me my password
• Allow for fine motor control issues
• • Don’t autoplay videos
• • Avoid hover-only controls
• • Infinite scrolling considerations
• Be mindful of touch
• • Avoid small hit targets
• • Provide alternate controls for touch gestures

Far from being a niche concern, visitors with some form of motor impairment likely make up a significant percentage of your users. I would encourage you to test your website or application with your less dominant hand. Is it still easy to use?

Designing The Perfect Slider – Smashing Magazine

If you thought Vitaly’s roundup of date pickers was in-depth, wait ‘till you get a load of this exhaustive examination of slider controls.

It pairs nicely with this link.

Despicable Design — When “Going Evil” is the Perfect Technique

I really like this “evil” design exercise that Jared has documented on Ev’s blog.

I broke them up into small groups of three, spreading each role across separate groups. I then asked each person to grab a sheet of paper and make their own list of ways they imagined the product’s user experience could be made worse.

URLs are UI - Scott Hanselman

So many folks spend time on their CSS and their UX/UI but still come up with URLs that are at best, comically long, and at worst, user hostile.

Improve Your Billing Form’s UX In One Day – Smashing Magazine

A few straightforward steps for improving the usability of credit card forms. The later steps involve JavaScript but the first step uses nothing more than straight-up HTML.

The ‘Credit Card Number’ Field Must Allow and Auto-Format Spaces (80% Don’t) - Articles - Baymard Institute

A deep dive into formatting credit card numbers with spaces in online forms.

Improving accessibility in Co-op wills – Digital blogs

Some interesting insights from usability and accessibility testing at the Co-op.

We used ‘nesting’ to reduce the amount of information on the page when the user first reaches it. When the user chooses an option, we ask for any other details at that point rather than having all the questions on the page at once.

Usability Testing of Inline Form Validation: 40% Don’t Have It, 20% Get It Wrong - Articles - Baymard Institute

I saw Christian speak on this topic at Smashing Conference in Barcelona. Here, he takes a long hard look at some of the little things that sites get wrong when doing validating forms on the fly. It’s all good sensible stuff, although it sounds a bit medical when he takes about “Premature Inline Validation.”

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.

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