• May192009

    Top 5 things users want in your website

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    Here is another great blog post talking about what users look for in your website, be it copy or design. This one is from Patrick Neeman on usabilitycounts.com.

    Users want the message to be clear
    Users want context to see if they fit
    Users want consistency
    Users want to be heard without having to shout
    Users don’t want the shiny (unless it’s in context)
    Users want to be guided (without being guided)

    This is all about giving the user what they want expect and not what you the designer or developer think is a cool feature or the way you think it should be done. I’ve had the privilege of taking part in a good amount of real user studies on website’s i’ve worked on in the past, every time it is an eye opening experience and I learn something new about how people use the things I design. I couldn’t recommend more doing a simple usability test on something you are working on. Do it right now, go grab a friend put them behind the site you’re working on ask them to complete a task that is one of the main things the website is supposed to do and watch. Simple as that!

    My absolute favorite part of Patrick’s post is this:

    What does work are sites are are intuitive enough and forward thinking enough to provide a path for the user to go. The elements of user experience should be defined enough so the site acts the way the user thinks it should act i.e. the user shouldn’t have to learn it, especially for consumer facing sites. It’s about predictive user experience.

  • May052009

    Episode 16 - UMS Design Review Podcast

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    Episode 16 of our podcast is up. It’s all about the details as we talk about ‘designthis’ and ‘Camp Creative Group’:

    This week we focus on Kevin Bryan’s portfolio site, designthis, and the site of Camp Creative Group.

  • Mar102009

    UMS Video Podcast

    Posted by Gene in Usability, Blogging

    We’re up to episode 8 now. How are we doing?

    This week we focus on Mailchimp (mailchimp.com), Sustainable Party (sustainableparty.com), and Ryan O’Rourke (ryan-orourke.com).

    I felt like we took Mailchimp.com to task on their user signup process. I think it’s a lesson in a successful web app that still needs some tweaking.

  • Aug212008

    Writing for the web

    Posted by Gene in Marketing, Usability

    Jakob Nielsen has studied writing for the web in depth, what hasn’t he studied about the web in depth? But he has some really good points to make that I think anyone planning their new website should take into consideration.

    Here’s my synopsis:

    Web pages have to employ:
    scannable text
    bulleted lists
    meaningful sub-headings
    one idea per paragraph
    the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
    highlighted keywords
    half the word count than what you think

    He’s not kidding around, he tested his thesis in true scientific fashion and found: “when we combined three ideas for improved writing style into a single site, the result was truly stellar: 124% better usability.”

    Listen to the man.

  • Apr032008

    Findability

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    a list apartA List Apart has a great article/story on Findability. I’ve been a student of this for a while now ever since attending one of Jared Spool’s talks a few years ago, where he discusses designing for the “scent” of findability.

    The fundamental goal of findability is to persistently connect your audience with the stuff you write, design, and build. When you create relevant and valuable content, present it in a machine readable format, and provide tools that facilitate content exchange and portability, you’ll help ensure that the folks you’re trying to reach get your message.

  • Mar032008

    Noted: Cars do not have dashboards, they have interfaces.

    Posted by Jay in Business, Design, Branding, Usability

    The new for 2009 Dodge Ram Truck, is by all respects, a handsome truck, if you like things like that. The interior, especially, especially looks like something out of a Mercedes or Lincoln or something. I can’t imagine getting my greasy paws all over that nice thing after working all day, but lets face it, most of these things are daily drivers, not all around utility vehicles.

    Anyway, the main point of this post is that one of the features of the 2009 Dodge Ram is the “Driver Interface“, previously known to me as the “Dashboard”.

    It seems we have come full circle. Cars once had dashboards, and web designers took the dashboard metaphor into the realm of interface design, and now cars have taken interface design into the realm of the actual, physical dashboard.

  • Feb122008

    Edward Tufte Loves the iPhone

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    You can head on over to Edward Tufte’s website and watch his screencast of why he loves the iPhone.

    The iPhone platform elegantly solves the design problem of small screens by greatly
    intensifying the information resolution of each displayed page. Small screens, as on
    traditional cell phones, show very little information per screen, which in turn leads
    to deep hierarchies of stacked-up thin information–too often leaving users with
    “Where am I?” puzzles. Better to have users looking over material adjacent in space
    rather than stacked in time.

    In case you’ve never heard of him: Edward Tufte has written seven books, including Visual Explanations, Envisioning Information, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and Data Analysis for Politics and Policy. He writes, designs, and self-publishes his books on analytical design, which have received more than 40 awards for content and design. He is Professor Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught courses in statistical evidence, information design, and interface design. His current work includes landscape sculpture, printmaking, video and a new book.

  • Feb072008

    UI-Patterns.com

    Posted by Gene in Design, Usability

    http://ui-patterns.com/This is a great site (ui-patterns.com) for people in the business of designing websites and web applications, It’s not the first library of User Interface Design Patterns I have seen but this one sure looks good. I hope they really push this site and fill it to the rim with patterns and reviews of interaction design in the wild.

    Collections of software design patterns are standard reference points for the experienced programmer. But why not for the experienced User Interface (UI) designer? This website seeks to better the situation for the UI designer, who struggles with the same problems as many other UI designers have struggled with before him.

    are not the first to create a UI design library. While other pattern collections are useful, they are far from coherent and complete. The purpose of this site is over time to fill some of the gaps - especially by providing code examples as to how how the different patterns can be implemented: to join theory with practice.

Contact

1207 Lincoln Street
Columbia, SC 29201
803.588.9310 Phone
877.415.4259 Fax
info@period-three.com

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Add to Technorati Favorites