Pages Tagged “Usability”
Tech Tips
- ALWAYS Put the Record ID in the Edit Form Users might have multiple pages of your app open in different tabs or windows. Use a page-specific ID, not something shared like a cookie or session data.
- Auto-Switching a Website to Dark Mode You can easily tell your site to use darker colors when a visitor is using a dark theme by using CSS media queries.
- Don’t Hide Version Numbers It breaks user expectations with no real benefit, and makes it hard to tell if you’ve actually gotten the latest security fix.
- Don’t Use Infinite Scroll Infinite scroll is like finishing a sandwich, and the server plops another one in front of you without asking what you want on it, or if you want it at all.
- Mobile Web Layouts vs. the Viewport Mobile web browsers now use a larger virtual screen to provide an imitation desktop experience - even if you’ve provided a better one tailored for small screens.
- POS Touchscreens When touchscreens first hit POS terminals, they tried to replace the PIN entry pad too. It was awful to use. I’m surprised they brought back real buttons.
- Preventing Notification Overload My approach: figure out which ones are most and least important, then turn off the least and only keep sound for the most important.
- Readable Email and Web Pages It’s 2024. If you’re still designing websites or email like you would design an 8.5x11" promotional hand-out on a sheet of paper, you really haven’t been paying attention to how people use the internet over the past decade.
- Separate Stop/Reload Buttons When a button changes in response to something over which you have no control, it may change between the time your brain tells your finger to click or tap and the time it registers.
- Tell Me What Changed! When you release a new version of your software, tell me what’s new!
- The Right Tool… Think about when to use client-side scripting vs. server-side scripting.
- Update Checks Should Be More Honest Software updaters have a bad habit of telling you they’re up-to-date before actually checking - and worse, telling you they’ve just confirmed it’s current when they actually couldn’t get an answer.
- What to Put In About Boxes What I want to see when I open the About box for your application
- When Not To Use A Redirect Don’t use a redirect when changing a setting on your web server would do the job better.
- Wrong Tech for the Context: Fry’s Line Spotters If you’re going to replace an old technology with a new one, make sure it’s actually an improvement in the context in which it’s used.
Les Misérables
- Paper vs. Pixels I started reading an old paperback, then switched to a Kindle copy 700 pages in. Here's how it's changed my reading (and my commentary workflow).
Blog Posts
- Something Went Wrong
I really wish GNOME’s “Oh No! Something went wrong!” screen would let me restart just the crashed components instead of forcing me to log out completely. Or let me decide if I’m willing to continue without whatever crashed. If the audio broke, and I’m not doing anything that needs sound right now, it shouldn’t block […]
- Bad Design: Splitting Notification Preferences
Splitting notification preferences across the app UI and the system UI is a mess for usability. But if the goal is making you see more notifications?
- May I Have Your Attention Please. All of it. FOREVER.
One thing I like about the Fediverse is that it doesn’t constantly scream for your attention to keep you online as long as possible.
- Dear Twitter: Please Ditch the Clutter
Have you ever been to a Las Vegas casino? The main floors tend toward sprawling layouts, with lots of shiny distractions to entice you to stay and spend more time and money on the slots instead of helping you get where you’re going. That’s what Twitter’s new layout feels like. When Twitter started out, the […]
- Preventing Notification Overload
To keep myself from getting distracted by too many notifications on my phone, I ask myself the following questions whenever a new category pops up: Will I need to act on it? (Likes/favorites are nice, but I don’t need to respond.) How time-sensitive is it? (“Your ride is here” is more time sensitive than planning […]
- Too Many Notifications
It takes forever to get a new phone’s alert settings just right. Every app is configured separately, and they all want your attention.
- I’m Going to Miss the iPod Click Wheel
I prefer the older iPods for listening to music in the car, because a touch screen is a horrible interface for pause/play or skip while driving.
- I’m Weary of This: Seven Things that Just Bug Me
Some things that Just Bug Me, including language misuse (weary, intensive purposes, full proof) and tech annoyances.
- Most people don’t know how to use Ctrl+F
Wow: A researcher studying the way people use computers found that most people don’t know how to search for a word on the current page! Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don’t Know How to Use CTRL+F Google’s resident search anthropologist, Dan Russell, dropped this incredible statistic on us. And no, he couldn’t believe it either. […]
- Recent Links
Those early Priuses are still going strong, ten years later. Never put critical private information online unless you are certain it’s protected. Your tax documents could show up in search results. Optimizing a Screen for Mobile Use (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox) Why bad science reporting matters: Churn The Other Cheek Homeopathy vs. Science: A Metaphor
- Firefox 4 Beta: The Missing Status Bar
If you’ve been following the Firefox 4 betas, you’ve probably noticed that they’re dumping the status bar. OK, a lot of people didn’t use it, but here’s the thing: When you hover over a link, the status bar tells you where it will take you. This is important (especially for security) — important enough that […]
- If This Were a Real Emergency, You’d Be Dead By Now
If a phone menu is going to remind callers that 911 is a better call to make in an emergency, shouldn’t it say so BEFORE a 5-minute authentication, not after?
- Links! Alarms, Ghosts of History, Firefly Trek, WW2 Star Wars & More
Hazards of too many alarms; Merging historical and modern photos; Computer lightning safety; Allergies, Star Wars as World War II; Firefly as Star Trek, SMBC’s Logogeneplex.
- Comic-Con Hotels 2010: Reviewing the Reservation Form
Travel Planners finally streamlined the process to minimize the impact of the massive traffic spike that always accompanies Comic-Con reservations.
- Pre-Game Thoughts on the New Comic-Con Hotel Procedure
SDCC used to let you pick your hotel from the rooms still available, then crash. Now you’ll submit a list of choices and wait to hear back from them.
- Card Usability
Usability question: Is it better for a form to auto-detect the credit card type from its number, or have the user select it as an error check? (Consensus on Twitter and Facebook was to have the user select it.)
- Best Way to Label Dead Links
Strikethrough implies that text has been changed, and arbitrary formatting provides no clues. Using a low-contrast color might be the solution.
- CDN Breakdown=Bad. Best Buy Mobile Site=Good
One minor rant, and one success story, sort of connected. The rant: My internet connection is acting kind of flaky tonight. Actually, the connection is fine, but it isn’t talking to some content delivery network(s). All the small-time websites load perfectly, but a lot of the larger ones either aren’t loading at all or are […]
- Hero, Headlines & Spam
Just learned “Holding Out for a Hero” is cowritten by Jim Steinman. Explains why it keeps turning into “Good Girls Go to Heaven” in my head Writing for Twitter Spam vs SPAM. I suspect it’s way too late to close the barn door on this one. Kinda like “hacker.”
- ATM Design: Shelf?
It sure would be nice if this ATM had at least one horizontal surface so I could set down my drink and not have to mess with my wallet one-handed.
- Blocking the Impulse Buy: Shazam, Amazon MP3 Store and Android
How I *almost* bought an album from my phone immediately after hearing a song on the radio, and what obstacles stopped me.
- Critical Miss
This convention press release tells you all about who’s going to be there and what’s going to happen, but leaves out a critical piece of information.
- ATM Design: Take Your Card
Clever UI design on ATM: with fast cash, it won’t give you the cash until after you take your card. Usually I grab it fast, so I never noticed.
- No, They Donât Read
It’s clear that a lot of people don’t actually read web pages before they respond to them. They’ll do things like… Contact someone with a similar name, even when it’s clearly the wrong sort of organization — say, a student writing club and not the bookseller that’s been causing them problems. Ask a blogger for […]
- Apple UI Nitpicking
I appreciate that Apple offers a single software updater for all its free Windows software. But one thing annoys me about it. It opens a window, then opens a message box showing a progress meter as it checks for updates. Only one problem: It fills out the “New software is available” caption before it actually […]
- Just can’t win
This is a story on phone menus, though it applies to anything where the user interface can change. I phoned in a refill on a prescription this morning. The phone system lets you choose when you plan on picking it up, presumably so that the pharmacy can prioritize people who are coming in sooner. Generally, […]
- Building a Better Walk Signal
I recently took a walk through some streets that have only recently opened to traffic. One of the things that struck me was that the buttons for triggering the walk/don’t walk signs had a new design. Instead of a tiny recessed button, or a larger rounded button, they had a ~2″ flat button with a […]
- Uh, that’s a negative
The Los Angeles Times website had an interesting way of describing the results of yesterday’s state election: It’s hard to believe that all eight propositions failed. Even the four Orange County measures failed. Every item on the ballot in our district was rejected! On a related note, I still don’t like the voting machines we […]
- That Annoying Typing Bug
From the Gnome 2.10 release notes: In the past, while typing something into one application when suddenly your instant messenger offered a chat request from your friend, your words would be typed into the chat window. Imagine if you were typing your password at the time. This should no longer happen in GNOME 2.10. In […]
- Web Clutter: An Object Lesson
Here’s a pair of excellent articles about how to avoid cluttering up your website so that people can actually see your content. The article is, however, hampered by appearing on a site that seems to violate every usability principle imaginable…. to the extent that the second one showed up on the Cruel Site of the […]
- Stop flashing me
As one of the many working stiffs who can access the internet from work but has to share a connection, I would like to make a request of the corporate world at large: STOP REQUIRING FLASH TO VIEW YOUR SITE!!!!!! Everything I look at on the net while at work has to go through a […]