Fitts’ Law is generally misunderstood and misapplied for mouse, but presents us even bigger challenges when moving to touchscreen devices. I explore the history and context in which it was created, the assumptions it has which apply to almost no users on any devices today, and give some advice for how to apply the old lessons to modern, touchscreen devices.
Read MoreIn my latest column for UXmatters I discuss Color and Universal Design. Not how to pick pretty color palettes, but understanding color, contrast, colorblindness and more.
Read MoreA few years back, for this column, I wrote a series on what I called design tools, covering software, deliverables, and design methods that I commonly used. Lately, my six-year-old column “Tools for Mobile UX Design: Task Flows” has been coming up in discussions about this topic. While it’s not truly out of date, and I still agree with everything it says, it was a bit broad and offered almost too many options. So let’s dive into this topic again, and I’ll discuss some very specific tactics that really help organizations of all sorts get a handle on the design of interactions…
Read MoreIn the last edition of Ask UXmatters, a reader asked what to do when you’ve come late to a project, find there’s no time or budget to make maximal UX impact. This has been an increasingly important topic as everyone admits that the dream of UX really changing the business is probably over, and we need to start building formal processes within the constraints we all work in…
Read MoreAfter some questions lately on how to start your job when not joining a large and well-organized UX team, I wrote up my tips on carving out a space for your work, and creating the right environment for design-centric product development. There are some special notes on mobile issues, or how to move your existing team from traditional desktop digital into the mobile space as well.
Read MoreGreeking is a 500 year old term that refers to any use of placeholder text or images in design, mockups, or samples.
There are many more options for greeking than just “lorem ipsum” and in fact that should almost never be used. Read on to find out why.
Read MoreIn Part 1 of this two-part series, I provided an overview of how to regionalize your products—approaching regionalization from a procedural and technical point of view—and detailed the approach you should take.
In this part I get into more details about how to design for different regions, as well as describe how to format specific attributes such as date, time, currency, names, and units of measurement…
Read MoreRegionalization means considering the entire context of people’s different needs in other parts of the world, not just hiring some service to change the display language.
Do not just let anyone write a story that says “translate the website” but think about the entire range of things that can change when you really offer your app or website in a new region…
Read MoreThe mouse didn’t exist until the Mother of All Demos in 1968, and cost as much as a car until Apple decided to ship them with the Macintosh and make them mainstream in the mid 80s. The normal computer, of windows, mouse pointer, and so… on is a quite recent phenomenon.
And maybe, was an anomaly. Maybe the real normal has always been direct screen manipulation. Pens, and touch. Which is what the vast billions of computing devices in the world, from phones to convertible tablet PCs, all work like now.
Are you designing for this new world or did it sneak up on you?
Read MoreTables have an undeserved reputation for being evil and wrong in the digital environment. The semantic web (and CSS) didn’t just wipe out table based layouts, but made tables pariahs generally. We don’t build them when needed, and we don’t discuss how to make tables that work.
For mobile, it’s worse! Responsive tables are contemptuous of the need of users to view tabular data. Let’s talk about how to make good tables on mobile apps and websites, when you need to display that sort of information.
Read MoreThis month in Ask UXmatters, there was a question on design for compliance-heavy industries. There’s lots of good stuff in the responses, but I got quoted at length, in one big block, so submit for you my answer here which is basically:
Everything is a regulated industry.
Regulation is generally for good.
Regulation is just another constraint.
Links are one of the most foundational elements of connected digital technology. They long predate the Web and form the backbone of the whole concept of hypermedia.
This month, I am reviewing the concept of progressive disclosure as an extension of the foundational concept of hypertext/hypermedia, and listing the pros and cons of the most obvious and useful methods to expose more information in your app, website, or other digital touchscreen interface…
Read MoreThis month’s column was going to be one of those tactical pattern ones, but it changed while I wrote it.
Every time I’m on a project with management of stuff in a list — which is most of them — there’s the ability to delete or remove items. The classic way is the guard condition, or an “Are you sure?” dialog…
Read MoreI was one of the contributing experts quoted heavily in the latest Ask UXmatters Get expert answers columns. But in reading it this morning, I think it might need some additional explanation before I get letters. I answered very narrowly, so might end up sounding very, very negative about simply everything.
I keep seeing discussions of process where not only is UX blamed as usual, but even the concept of our disagreement with process, or the state of the industry, or the resulting products it itself a negative feature, and we’re inherently bad people, doing it wrong. So, some more framing…
Read MoreThis time, something that is literally rather than metaphorically dark: inverted polarity–display methods, or dark mode.
So let’s set aside all the rumors, opinions, and hot takes on this not-as-new-as-you-think design style and take a look at what it actually means to be in dark mode, why it exists, and what the research on dark mode actually says…
Read MoreSteven has a regular column for UX Matters, and writes articles, research reports, or guest blogs for others. These are not — for copyright purposes — reproduced here at 4ourth Mobile, so please follow the link to read them.
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