Tag "Usability" on Smashing UX Design

Posts Tagged ‘Usability’

We are pleased to present below all posts tagged with ‘Usability’.

UI Patterns For Mobile Apps: Search, Sort And Filter

From Theresa Neil
April 10th, 2012
15 Comments

As I was waiting for a table at a local restaurant the other day, I flipped through a couple of the free classified papers. I was shocked to realize how dependent I’ve grown on three simple features that just aren’t available in the analog world: search, sort and filter. AutoDirect and ...

The Elements Of Navigation

From Petter Silfver
March 20th, 2012
28 Comments

When users look for information, they have a goal and are on a mission. Even before you started to read this article, chances are you did because you either had the implicit goal of checking what’s new on Smashing Magazine, or had the explicit goal of finding information about “Navigation ...

A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children

From Rian van der Merwe
March 12th, 2012
137 Comments

I spend a lot of time buying and testing iPad apps for kids. To be more specific, I lovingly do this for a certain two-year-old girl who is currently on a very successful #OccupyiPad mission in my house. Through extensive observational research, I’ve discovered what works and doesn’t work for ...

Redefining Hick’s Law

From Jason Gross
February 23rd, 2012
30 Comments

Hick’s Law has always been a popular reference point for designers. You’ll find it cited in the endless lists of basic laws and principles that all designers should be familiar with. Given our assumed comfort level with this design cornerstone, I am surprised to see so many people getting it ...

Finger-Friendly Design: Ideal Mobile Touchscreen Target Sizes

From Anthony T
February 21st, 2012
37 Comments

In darts, hitting the bulls-eye is harder to do than hitting any other part of the dartboard. This is because the bullseye is the smallest target. This same principle can also apply to touch targets on mobile devices. Smaller touch targets are harder for users to hit than larger ones. When you’re designing ...

Designer Myopia: How To Stop Designing For Ourselves

From Rian van der Merwe
February 14th, 2012
28 Comments

Have you ever looked at a bizarre building design and wondered, “What were the architects thinking?” Or have you simply felt frustrated by a building that made you uncomfortable, or felt anger when a beautiful old building was razed and replaced with a contemporary eyesore? You might be forgiven for thinking ...

Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App

From Julie Stanford
January 31st, 2012
27 Comments

Like most well-designed things, the magic of an iPad app comes from a union of usefulness, usability and meaning. Games aside, the app must be useful by solving a problem that people actually have through the right set of functionality at the right time. It must be easy to use ...

A Guide To Heuristic Website Reviews

From Leigh Howells
December 16th, 2011
33 Comments

In this article, we’ll explore a scoring system for rating and comparing websites, we’ll visualize those ratings using infographics, and we’ll see what data and structure this method provides for reviewing websites. We are all reviewers. We review many websites every day without even realizing it. In fact, many of ...

Redesigning The Country Selector

From Christian Holst
November 10th, 2011
158 Comments

The country selector. It’s there when you create an account for a new Web service, check out of an e-commerce store or sign up for a conference. The normal design? A drop-down list with all of the available countries. However, when conducting a large session of user testing on check-out ...

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