Copywriting’s a pretty good gig if you can get it. In fact, it’s one of the most popular digital professions going. That’s because everyone knows how vital the content of a website or application is. What many people don’t pay attention to though is the micro-copy. What is Micro-copy?Micro-copy’s th
Guerrilla usability testing is a very popular technique. It’s quick, it’s low cost and it enables real user feedback. The way that guerrilla usability testing is implemented is always going to be dictated by the situation itself, yet there are some fairly simple hints that can help ensure that you g
This is not a unique problem. Graduates and career changers in many fields have the same problem. They look at the job adverts and see “x years of experience” required; they look at their own CVs and see no experience. Then they fall into a funk and wonder where to go next. So how do you land your f
A simple rule of thumb is that you should start looking for venture capital after you’ve run out of all other possible sources of funding. Venture capital is very tempting but it has the drawback of taking a big chunk of your business away from you. The longer you leave it before you reach for ventu
Social media is near ubiquitous nowadays. Facebook alone has over 1 billion active users. Many other social network sites have hundreds of millions of users. There’s a vast amount of peer pressure to sign up for multiple networks, to broadcast information about ourselves and to add everyone we meet.
If you’re uncertain as to whether the methodology you’ve chosen to conduct user research for a project is going to be useful; here’s a ten point checklist of simple questions to ask before pressing ahead with the research. Even if you don’t have an answer to some of the questions, it will help you m
The demand for UX work may be rising but every UX professional is going to be judged on their results and they’re going to have to deliver those results with tight budgets. That means we need to be ultra-critical about the UX research methods that we choose and it’s probably fair to say; not all res
It’s about the time of year when people start to invest in their personal development again. But how do you choose the best UX course to achieve your objectives?Training Needs AnalysisA training needs analysis is conducted with your career in mind. You want to either have a copy of your job descript
Now that we’ve seen, understood, and appreciated the value of the Gestalt principles, let’s build on our grasp of those and explore something else. It’s important to have a good grounding in the Gestalt laws before moving on, because, from knowing how to apply those, we can improve our designs even
There are some fairly obvious things to consider when taking your products to a global audience such as translation and localization but there are also some less obvious but critical factors you need to pay attention to too.Legal EnvironmentsThe world is a complex place and the legal environments of
There comes a point in every project when you have to start testing the ideas that you have with users and collect their feedback. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the automated tools you can use to do this with.VerifyAuthor/Copyright holder: VerifyApp. Copyright terms and licence: All rights reserv
This is a question that comes up a lot even with experience UX designers. It can be tricky deciding what technique to use for the right results. We think it probably starts with an understanding of qualitative and quantitative techniques and then you can start to select the right technique with just
Looking to get more out of your usability tests? It can be hard working out how to make your tests more effective and return a greater ROI. Yet, there are some simple steps you can take to improve the results of usability tests without having to spend a fortune or put in a lot of extra time…1. The S
Being on a website with your credit card in hand and then not being able to find what you want to buy is a PITA. It’s also expensive for the website owner. If someone can’t find what they’ve come to buy; they aren’t buying it – well they’re not buying it from you, they can probably find it someplace
It’s a fact of life that no matter how well you test your website; you’re going to end up with broken links. One minor tweak and you can find that dozens of links are broken and the first time you’re going to know about it is when you analytics package starts spitting out dozens of 404 error page hi
Planning for user research is hard work but essential to ensure that you get the most from your user research. We’ve come up with a brief list of things you might want to consider as you develop your plan: Everybody LiesAuthor/Copyright holder: Marshall Mathers. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-N
The whole point of UX research is to get in touch with your users. One technique for doing so is the user workshop. You bring together a group of users (and possibly the client too) and get them to talk about their opinions, behaviours, feelings, etc. It’s worth noting that user workshops are not i
Scrolling is just going up and down the screen, but designers have been adding some bells and whistles to this aspect of the web user experience for at least four or five years. Some of these attempts to enhance the scrolling experience can be found at CSS-TRICKS in Chris Coyier's article Fancy Scro
There comes a point in a project, usually after you have worked out the objectives for that project and developed some hypothetical ideas for the product, which you need to move onto deciding how to conduct your research. Choosing a methodology to conduct that research doesn’t need to be a painful p
There’s so much evidence that the smartphone user isn’t invested in mobile internet so much as they are invested in the use of apps, that it seems impossible for a brand to avoid investing in developing its own app. This should mean huge opportunities for UX designers. With every brand seeking an
