Following my previous two posts (A Book That Inspired Me and A Book That Made Me Think), let me share another story about a book that has impacted my life and career. Continue Reading
Nearly 20 years ago, I stumbled upon Robert B. Cialdini’s “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” in a friend’s house.
In my role as a Head of Product Design, I’m passionate about making software more usable. I can trace this passion back to year 2000, when I was managing a design team on an online banking project in Edinburgh. To guide us, we hired Chris, a human computer interaction (HCI) consultant — loosely equivalent to what we now call a UX Researcher. Continue Reading
Twenty-odd years ago, I found myself in the transient space of an airport between business flights, where I chanced upon a book that would leave a lasting impact on my design career. Continue Reading
Paul Arden’s “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be” sat unassumingly on a crowded bookshelf, raising my curiosity with its enigmatic cover and audacious claim, “The world’s best selling book by Paul Arden.”
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Having built more than one design team over the years, I’ve sifted through numerous CVs and portfolios. Within seconds, I form a gut feeling about a designer that is usually validated as I review their work.
To help you make an outstanding first impression, here are my tips for crafting a compelling product design portfolio.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen a transformation in the way children explore the world around them. Continue Reading
When I was young, kids freely roamed their own (and nearby) neighborhoods. In summertime, parents didn’t see much of their children until they returned home for dinner.
It’s easy to assume that AI-generated writing spells doom for independent authors. Continue Reading
But what if it has exactly the opposite effect? What if the saturation of AI-created content sparks a renaissance for human creativity and storytelling? As AI-generated writing becomes commonplace, the personal touch of these writers could turn into a rare and precious commodity.
While usability testing is now standard practice in consumer software development, enterprise software still poses challenges for those seeking to conduct usability testing, including
Enterprise software products typically have fewer users than consumer software products, so you’re likely to be recruiting from a limited pool. Continue Reading
Error handling is too often an overlooked aspect of UX design. Removing the pain from error experiences is critical because if a user encounters an error, they are probably already frustrated.
Error messages expose the interface. A well-designed interface becomes invisible; the user is not thinking about the interface but about her tasks. Continue Reading
When clients tell me they want to make an app, the question I ask is: why?
The potential rewards of creating a successful app are huge. The internet has recently crossed the mobile tipping point; in the US alone, adults now spend more time accessing digital media from their mobiles than from desktops. Continue Reading
The first book I bought on web design, in 1998, was The Principles of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen. Jeff’s tips included how to create a striped web page background using by repeating a single-pixel GIF as a pattern in the HTML code (CSS hadn’t really caught on yet). Continue Reading
Imagine the scene. It’s Friday night. It’s been a long, hard week. You’re slouching back on the sofa with your significant other. You’ve got the chocolate, the popcorn — you’re ready to let your imagination be whisked away for a couple of hours by whatever old movie is on TV…
See? Continue Reading
The video above shows a simple prototype for an Android Wear app, running on an an LG G watch R, which I created within a few hours of coming up with the concept — with ZERO CODING.
The idea of the app is to show the user the names (and faces) of other people attending a meeting. Continue Reading
Client: “We’d like you to conduct user testing of our website.”
Me: “Great.”
Client: (Laughs.) “And don’t worry. We’ve got thick skins. We want honest, open feedback.”
Me: The users I tested loved the “Try it Now FREE” button on the homepage. Continue Reading
After you’ve done usability testing, or got user feedback of any kind, what should you work on? Most people prioritise low-hanging fruit. Clients ask me if there are “quick wins”.
But a better question to ask is “What is most broken?” During the usability testing, what caused the biggest problems for your users? Continue Reading
I’ve written previous posts about how I use Balsamiq Mockups to create wireframes and prototypes, and my methods for usability testing. But these are parts of a bigger process — getting from an idea to a finished website, application or software product.
When a new client engages me to work with them on a new design (or redesign) project, they are keen to know “What method did you use?”. Continue Reading
I wrote this article when I was using the old version of Balsamiq Mockups, now known as “Balsamiq 2”. In March 2015, Balsamiq released a new version of their software, Balsamiq Mockups 3, which has a load of great new features and is even easier to use. Continue Reading
Many of my clients have never previously carried out usability testing. Even when I tell them about how successful testing has been for my other clients, I can sense that they are nervous. For many people, usability testing feels like a step into the unknown. Continue Reading
safefood is an all-island implementation body set up under the British-Irish Agreement with a general remit to promote awareness and knowledge of food safety and nutrition issues on the island of Ireland.
Since the homepage redesign and the implementation of the UserJourneys recommendations, the safefood website KPIs have all increased significantly
“The results were immediate.
Continue Reading
In January, I wrote about my experience creating a new Android HTML5 game app, which I called Happy Shapes.
By the end of that month, mainly due to my own (feeble) personal marketing efforts, the game had roughly around 100 or so downloads/installs. I had been checking the Android Developer Centre almost daily, until the download pattern began to level off. Continue Reading
I recently completed a fascinating usability study with the help of Dr. Stephan Weibelzahl and Sara Kyofuna at NCI in Dublin. Here is a report of our findings. NCI will be publishing an academic paper on the study.
Question: Are interactive infographics better than spreadsheets? Continue Reading
Last night I released Happy Shapes – a FREE Android game for kids
Play the game now on desktop at newskoolgames.com
Here is how it all came about.
Originally, I had intended to create a software product. After months of wrangling with complex wireframes, I realised the development was going to cost $$$. Continue Reading
search engines reduce usability [when] they’re unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, and other variants of the query terms.
But there’s another reason why users have learned to distrust on-site search: poorly presented search results.
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“Even God,” complains Izzard, “has not read the terms and conditions!”
The terms and conditions tick-box is a charade. Companies know that users do not read the linked-to T&Cs, which are often many pages of legalese.
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In the age of the smartphone, tablet, and other touch screen electronic devices, is this the end of the physical (non-virtual) keyboard?
I recently noticed a clue to the answer when shopping for a tablet device. Many of the manufacturers offered cases that came bundled with USB keyboards. Continue Reading
People sometimes ask, “what’s the difference between user experience (UX) and usability?”. Let me try to explain, by borrowing from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Let us assume that the user of any software has three hierarchical types of needs:
1. The software must work; it must be functional. Continue Reading
Some companies spend too much time and money on mobile apps; and not enough time considering their mobile web presence. (See Scott Jensen’s thought-provoking Mobile Apps Must Die for reasons why mobile web is arguably more important.)
When you’ve built a mobile version of your website (congratulations!), Continue Reading
When your website is not achieving its projected sales targets, your first instinct will probably be “get more traffic”.
But those striving to grow online sales tend to focus too much on generating new visitors, while neglecting the experience of visitors on the site.
You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Continue Reading
A supermarket likes to keep the milk and bread at the back, so customers will browse other items on the way. What about web pages?
Today, I wanted to buy tickets for the upcoming Republic of Ireland vs. Estonia football game, so I logged onto the Football Association of Ireland’s homepage:
It seems straightforward — click the picture, buy the tickets (walk down the aisle, get to the milk), right? Continue Reading
Web designers everywhere are adding ‘infographics’ to their list of services. Here’s an infographic to illustrate the rise in infographics.
A decade ago, most websites betrayed a lack of understanding of basic usability principles; so it is with today’s infographics.
This was starkly evident when Smashing Magazine recently published The Do’s And Don’ts Of Infographic Design:
Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and produce a traditional bar graph or pie chart; nevertheless, always consider ways to dress it up…
The article was met with horror by the data visulalization community. Continue Reading
When I arrive at any website, I know what I don’t want. Please — no waiting, filling out interminable forms, unticking radio buttons, or being redirected. I want a site that is immediately effective.
With over two million visitors per month, Irish classified website, Donedeal.ie is one of Ireland’s most successful websites. Continue Reading
Data, data, everywhere. It comes from public bodies, social networks, personal devices, healthcare systems, media sources, etc. The technological revolution of the last two decades has cracked open wellsprings of data that never stop giving.
Data visualization will be an important craft/technology over the coming years. Continue Reading
I’ve been using Allied Irish Bank’s personal online banking service for years and, while it was ropey in the beginning, in recent years the usability has improved. I have used this service to manage my business and it has worked fine.
Because I recently changed status from sole trader to limited company, I was advised that I had to upgrade to IBB, AIB’s dedicated online business banking service. Continue Reading
Update August 2015: Of course, now HTML5 lets you validate forms without the need for any JavaScript. See: http://www.the-art-of-web.com/html/html5-form-validation/
One way of making web forms less painful is to use inline validation. This jQuery plugin makes it easy for designers and developers to add inline validation to web-based forms. Continue Reading
The Comic Sans font has often been derided as the font choice of amateurs, but it is useful for creating mockups.
Indeed, it is the default font in popular wireframing tools, such as Balsamiq.
Wirefame of Facebook page created using Balsamiq
When I first started wireframing, I would hand-code the wireframes in HTML, or use tools such as Axure. Continue Reading
Starting January 2011, I am adding new blog entries exclusively on this site.
You can still view my old blog Mediajunk.com, which I started back in 2002. I’m keeping it online as an archive.
— Michael Heraghty Continue Reading