Articles from around the web on all things user experience, sorted chronologically.
July 2, 2020 — For the past two years, WebAIM has performed an accessibility evaluation of the home pages of the top 1,000,000 web sites. Their results show that accessibility errors are still incredibly prevalent, even on popular web sites.
Read this storyJuly 1, 2020 — We are living in a world exploding with information, but how do we find what is relevant to us at the time that we need it? I believe that good information architecture is key to helping us navigate through the mountains of data and information we have created for ourselves.
Read this storyJune 30, 2020 — All too often, websites and apps use multiple button styles for the same action type. Take inventory of how many buttons styles you use and pair it down to one style per type. Standard button types include: call to action (CTA), primary, secondary, tertiary, success, danger, link, etc.
Read this storyJune 30, 2020 — Design systems haven’t brought about the kind of rich, cross-functional collaboration to most organizations. Instead, the existing divisions between design and implementation have become entrenched, and massively so.
Read this storyJune 30, 2020 — A poorly considered password process has a negative domino effect on users and businesses alike. Is there anything designers can do to improve the situation? There are a number of strategies that improve password UX, and they aren’t overly complex.
Read this storyJune 29, 2020 — Learnability is what makes apps so easy to use. It’s what helps users through those awkward few moments where they meet a brand new interface and have to figure out how to do what they need to do.
Read this storyJune 26, 2020 — One of the most challenging aspects of managing a design system regardless of maturity is not crafting pixel-perfect components. And it’s certainly not selecting design tokens. It’s perpetuating sustained adoption & buy-in over time.
Read this storyJune 24, 2020 — Selection controls have been used in user interfaces for a long time, so we have formed strong expectations on how they should behave. Here is a simple cheat sheet that you can follow to choose the right type for the right situation.
Read this storyJune 23, 2020 — Most website surveys annoy users and fail to capture data that results in UX improvements. At best, some of the data ends up in a presentation or dashboard. But done right, web surveys can have real UX impact.
Read this storyJune 23, 2020 — I've said it many times over the last few years. But today with even more certainty, I'll say it again: skeuomorphism is coming back.
Read this storyJune 22, 2020 — The language and tools of design are not universal. This becomes clear when we are working with communities that have little or no familiarity with the kind of abstract analysis or theoretical thinking that designers specialise in.
Read this storyJune 21, 2020 — Onboarding is the process of getting users familiar with a new interface. It can involve one or more of the following components: feature promotion, customization, and instructions.
Read this storyJune 21, 2020 — For most teams, approaching persona creation qualitatively is the right balance of effort vs. value, but very large or very small organizations might benefit from statistical or lightweight approaches, respectively.
Read this storyJune 19, 2020 — We are pleased to present a few sections from Molly Wright Steenson’s brilliant book detailing the rich history of Digital Architecture. In Part 1 of these book excerpts Molly covers the history of how Information Architecture emerged as a practice and the beginnings of what we know of as IA today.
Read this storyJune 18, 2020 — A context menu is a menu that contains commands specific to the object that the cursor is currently pointing at — the “target object”. These are also sometimes called “right click menus” or “right mouse menus” since they were, historically, activated by the Windows right mouse button.
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