Archives for July 2011

Link – UX Drinking Game

W ramach lekkiej, letniej tematyki serwis UX Drinking Game – strona ze sporą liczbą wymówek, na wypicie drinka. Polecam :)

If your boss says we don't need to test, do a drink

 

Wyrwane z kontekstu – Five Popular Web Strategies That Don’t Work

Most web initiatives cite improved usability as a business objective. While usability is a must for long-term success, it’s really just table stakes. If your websites and products aren’t useful as well as usable, then all the usability in the world won’t help you.

Źródło: Five Popular Web Strategies That Don’t Work , Scott McDonald,  UX Magazine

Prezentacja – 10 tips for a better survey

Caroline Jarrett, autorka znakomitej książki Forms that work – pracuje nad swoją kolejną publikacją – Survey that works, poświęconą jak łatwo można się domyślić ankietom ;)

Poniżej dostępna jest prezentacja autorki STC 2011, stanowiącą prawdopodobnie niewielką część nadchodzącej książki. Polecam.

Wyrwane z kontekstu – Single Easy Question

The SEQ is a new addition which Joe Dumas and I tested two years ago (PDF) and found it to perform very well.  In addition to the usual psychometric properties of being reliable, sensitive and valid, a good questionnaire should also be:

  • short
  • easy to respond to
  • easy to administer
  • easy to score

The SEQ is all four. You can administer it on paper, electronically on any web survey service or even verbally.

Źródło: If you could only ask one question, use this one, Jeff Sauro, Measuring Usability Blog

Prezentacja – Numbers Are Our Friends


Czas ładowania się strony

Q: Is there a tried and true time (in seconds) of proper page load, link opening (say, opening and loading a pdf.) etc. that is the industry average? I realize that theres instances that are the exception. I’m trying to find a specific example that i can use as a UX benchmark to give to testers as a best practice.

A: I did a study on this subject about 4 years ago, while attempting to build a “standard page-load time” for my company (a rather large one, with several dozen enterprise development groups).  I started with Jakob’s Alertbox that roughly approximated 8-10 seconds as the time at which people “tend to” think a page is unresponsive and potentially leave to find a better solution.

We initially enforced 8 seconds as the max page load time.  Unfortunately, that became the minimum, and many of our usability studies (over the next year) showed people couldn’t stand how slow most of our systems were.

So we changed the standard to 4 seconds as the average, with 8 seconds being the absolute max.  The new standard wasn’t embraced too well, but it was the right amount of time for almost everyone we studied.

Regardind dynamically loaded content, we had a provision in the standard that allowed for the initial page to load in 4 seconds or less, while additional (ajax) content could take 4 seconds on top of that, as long as the user had some indicator explaining what was going on.

There was (and I think, still is) a reasonable assumption from people that if they know what’s about to happen, and how long it should take, they are more acceptable to longer load times.  You just need to set their expectations. 

For example, if someone downloads a 40 page lab report from your web site, tell them the file is 17MB in the link, which app is used to read it (hopefully, PDF or something similar), or provide the file in smaller bites that load faster.

Of course, there are certain places you never want to make people wait:

  • Asking for money
  • Validating information they voluntarily gave you
  • Finding out how to contact you off the web

Źródło:  Time (In Seconds) of page load, pdf load, etc., Bryan Minihan, Archiwum IxDA

Wyrwane z kontekstu – Redesigning TechCrunch

We went through more rounds of wireframes and logos than I can remember. After our eighth rejected visual design I locked myself in a room with Code & Theory’s creative director and we tweaked, discussed and revised until we had something we both liked, a precursor to what you see here today.

Źródło: Redesigning TechCrunch: We Picked This Logo Just to Piss You Off, TechCrunch