usability

touch screens: capacitative or resistive?

A few years ago I did some design work on a piece of lab equipment that required a touch screen. Early on we had a vendor come in to help us spec the appropriate screen for the application. He touched on a lot of stuff, but one of the main ones was the difference between [...]

Tagged as: product design, touch screen, usability

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are attractive designs really more usable?

There has long been a precedent that users find attractive designs to be more usable. About a decade ago, a study  found that users perceive attractive ATM’s as more usable.  Recently, Rob Tannen noted a similar study on the effect aesthetics has on the perceived usability of cell phones. Now I’ve long since been sold on [...]

Tagged as: aesthetics, usability

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best practices in usability testing

Beth Loring wrote  a great post over at Farm on best practices in moderating usability tests. Her  webinar presentation below touches on bias in user research, how much to interact, and dealing with failure. It’s a solid, high-level resource on a topic that isn’t as well-represented on the interweb as I’d like, and definitely worth [...]

Tagged as: bias, moderating, usability

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are you using too many labels?

It’s likely the case that the design of your product isn’t so terribly unintuitive that it needs to be covered with labels, warnings, instructions and disclaimers. It’s also probably the case that you’re product design isn’t perfect, and does require some labeling. (although striving for zero labels is exactly what you should be doing). No, [...]

Tagged as: aesthetics, usability

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