Using Dark Patterns for good
It was so frustratingly difficult to find the “sign out” button on Gmail that my father finally gave up and left himself signed in forever. Independent UX consultant Harry Brignull…
Design for readability
Text is not an afterthought in the design process. It should be your first consideration. Readability should be one of the top concerns when it comes to any design project.…
Usability starts with content
Before going any further, it’s important that we make one point very clear. Regardless of industry, niche or interest, the internet is a competitive place to advertise services or attempt…
3 isn’t the magic number
At UX London I went to the Jared Spool workshop ‘Designing for Content-Rich Sites’. As expected I was entertained and educated, but I was also reminded of an urban myth…
The 10 worst UX mistakes websites make
The user experience of websites has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, but I still run into sites that make me ask, “What were they thinking?!” From a…
Top 10 mistakes in Web Design
Since my first attempt in 1996, I have compiled many top-10 lists of the biggest mistakes in Web design. See links to all these lists at the bottom of this…
15 tiny UX elements that can make a big difference
Small details can make a big difference to the user experience, saving users' time, making it easier for them to spend money, or just generally making it more enjoyable. Some…
10 Usability lessons from Steve Krug
Many people in the usability community regard Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability as the laypersons usability bible. This book explains briefly…
We Don’t Research. We Build.
The following is a composite of experiences I’ve had in the last year when talking with startups. Some dialog is paraphrased, some is verbatim, but I’ve tried to keep it…
Notification design strategies
If your inbox is anything like mine, it’s littered with unwanted notifications from companies begging for attention. Gmail has done a great job of making it easy to separate important…