Usability Articles
- 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.
- 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.
- Tell Me What Changed! When you release a new version of your software, tell me what's new!
- 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.